Sermon Transcript

We’re in our series called “This is Real Love,” and today we’re going to learn how to love life. I don’t know everybody here today (I would love to know everybody here today), but I do know two things that are true of every person in the room. Here’s the first thing: Number one, your bracket’s busted! True? True! I got you didn’t I? Okay? Here’s the second thing: I know that, at some point in the last two or three weeks, you’ve felt like a loser. True?

I mean, do you ever just feel like, “Okay, I went through the day, but I could not put that day in the ‘win’ column. I lost my mind, I lost my money, I lost my temper.” Anybody? Am I the only one? Okay. I mean, some days you just feel like a loser, okay?

So today, we are going to learn how to win every day. Very practical, personal message. We’re going to look at about six verses in Ephesians chapter 5. And, before we jump into them, I have to remind you of context – context, context, context. Because, if you haven’t been around since we’ve started walking through Ephesians, you need to know this. The book of Ephesians, the most organized book in the whole Bible, has two parts. The first three chapters are all about our identity in Christ. If you are a follower of Christ, there are some things that are true about you. Those things are listed in the first three chapters—some things God wants you to know about your identity.

Then, when you get to chapter 4, it completely shifts, and chapters 4 through 6 are all about our activity—some things you are supposed to do because of some things that you are. Now, we are about to jump into the activity; not just the indicatives about who you are, but the imperatives about the things that you have to do.

The verses we are about to read, read like a to-do list. How many of you operate by a to-do list? If you get to the end of the day and you haven’t done these things, you feel like a loser, right? So, these things are things that you must do every day if you are going to win—every day.

Some of my most vivid memories, as a teenager, are half-times at my high school football games. I played football all the way through high school. Of course, you can just take one look [at me] and see that! Unfortunately, during the senior year of my high school career, our team was losing badly at half-time—every game. We were bad. Unfortunately, our coach did not know how to motivate us. He did not know that deep down on the inside, we were winners! We were just acting like losers! He did not know how to reach in and grab the winner, and call out the winner from the loser.

Today, we’re going to contrast winners and losers. You are not allowed, at the end of church today to go out of here and say, “Pastor Trent called me a loser!” No, I am calling the winner out of the one who is acting like a loser, okay? That’s what the book of Ephesians is all about. First three chapters, “You’re winners.” Second three chapters, “Then act like it, for cryin’ out loud! Why are you acting like a loser?” Okay? That’s what the message is all about, as we jump into it here.

I’ll give you the first point and then we’ll jump into the Scripture. Here’s the first point:

 

1. Winners fill their mind with wisdom. Losers don’t expel foolishness. (v. 15)

 

So, there’s a contrast between wisdom and foolishness, beginning in Ephesians 5:15, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise…” [ESV] Do you see what Paul is saying? You’re wise! So act like it! Don’t act like a fool, alright? He says you have to look carefully.

The reason you have to look carefully how you walk is because, if you are not careful, you’re going to step in something. That is the point here; he wants you to have the utmost urgency about the next step you take in life. The analogy is that we all are walking through a land filled with land mines, and your next step could blow you up. It could destroy your intimacy with God, it could destroy your intimacy in your marriage, and if you are not careful, you are going to do something stupid. Don’t act like a fool! That’s what he’s trying to say here.

Now, we have to understand, kind of globally, what the Bible has to say about wisdom and foolishness. So, first of all, let’s talk about foolishness. Foolishness is the default setting on the human heart the day that you are brought home from the hospital. As cute as you were—mommy and daddy brought you home—default setting on you: foolish. Wisdom is something that has to be imparted. Foolishness is something that has to be extracted. Now, if your parents didn’t do a very good job extracting foolishness, then—welcome to adulthood: you’re still a fool! It’s the default setting. Wisdom is a change in the setting. In Psalm 14:1, the Bible says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” We live in a day when it’s kind of popular to be an atheist and question things that you don’t understand. The Bible says that is a foolish activity, to say there is no God.

What’s interesting about that verse, if you read it in the original language, when we say it in the English, we have to supply some words so that it makes sense. So, when we read it, we say, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” However, the two English words, “there is” are not in the original language. So, literally, in the original language, it reads like this: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘No God!’” A fool says “no” to God. It is foolish to live your life saying no to God! The reason we say no to God is because we want to be God, we want to play God, we want to be autonomous. That’s what foolishness does. Foolishness makes us a magnet to sin, and foolishness makes us allergic to God—because we want to be God. So, don’t live like a fool! “Walk as wise, not as unwise.”

            So, what is wisdom? We have to kind of give that a definition. I think a couple weeks ago I gave you a definition of it. I said, wisdom is seeing life from God’s perspective. It’s simply this: If I could see everything that God sees, if I could know everything that God knows, then I would do everything God says. That’s wisdom! But because we don’t act like we can have that knowledge—or somehow, maybe, we think that God’s so far away that He’s not noticing what we’re doing, then we live our life as if God has not spoken into our existence. Wisdom is something that God speaks into our foolishness. And then it’s our choice whether to listen and conform our life to that (expelling foolishness), or that we go on and live in our own human wisdom. So, wisdom is seeing life from God’s perspective.

If you could see what’s ahead, you wouldn’t make the choice that you’re about to make. Proverbs 22:3 says this, “The prudent [the wise man] sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.” So, the idea is you’re walking down a path—maybe you’re in the woods or something—and up ahead, about a hundred yards, you hear something rustle in the leaves. That kind of catches your attention. But then you hear something growl and snarl. What does a wise man do at that point? Uh, he goes the other direction. What does a fool do? He keeps taking another step, keeps taking another step, thinking somehow that what is coming in the future won’t affect him. And so, a wise man is able to see down the road—and the consequences that his choices are going to make on him.

Here’s another way to define wisdom, and here’s the way that I really want us to think about it today. Wisdom is the practical application of God’s truth to every component part of my life. One of the things that I try to do, every time you guys show up, is I try to make sure that the message coming from here is filled with application. We’re not interested in making Bible fatheads around here. We are not interested in Bible information. We are interested in life transformation!

I don’t know what you did this week. I sat around thinking about, “How can I apply this to your life?” That’s what fills my head all day long. But it’s a frustrating thing for me, because I don’t know what’s going on in the component parts of you and you. And your season of life is different than his season of life. And your gender is different than her gender. And some of you are parents and some of you are married and some of you are single and some of you are not. And I can’t know all the practical application of how God’s wisdom would apply to your life. But you do, and God speaks into it. And so, are you listening for God to speak? The way that you get wisdom is by leaning in and listening to wisdom.

This past week, I had lunch with one of my favorite guys in church. And the guy is so impressive! He’s good-looking, he’s young, he’s married well, he’s got well-behaved children, he makes a good income. The guy’s kind of disgusting, if you think about it! It’s like, compared to him, we’re all losers! That’s kind of what you think. It’s like, “Well, how did this guy get to be so impressive?”

The very first time I met him, he picked me up in his car and drove me to a restaurant for lunch, and I looked down on his console, and there was a series of 3 x 5 cards, and they had stuff written all over them. So, I was curious—I picked them up and I started looking through them. Do you know what they were filled with? They were just filled with verse after verse after verse, Scripture after Scripture. I asked, “What are these?” He said, “Oh, those are the verses I’m working on memorizing.” Winner! Winner! No wonder you win!

Do you know some people who just seem like they always win? And then, you look at what’s behind that, and what is it? It’s they’ve tuned their ear to the voice of wisdom and they’re living their life as wise, not as unwise. If you have some regrets about whatever activity went on this past week, if you feel like you lost on a particular day, my challenge would be this: put this on your to-do list right now: “I will listen to the voice of wisdom every day.” That’s how you win!

Here’s the second thing:

 

2. Winners fill their time with best things. Losers are too busy doing good things without God. (v. 16-17)

 

I’m sure, like happens to me, people ask you all the time, “How are you doing?” We usually give responses like, “Fine. Good.” If you’re like me, there is a word that you often use to answer that question, and I have just tried as best I can to extract this word out of my vocabulary. It’s this: “I’m busy!” How many of you are busy? How many are too busy to actually be in this service right now? It’s like, “I have so much to do! And I don’t know why I’m here!” and “When is this thing going to be over?” And we got to get on to, “Because I’ve got so many good things going on!” Right?

Now, listen! I want you to read these verses, Ephesians 5:16 and 17, thinking about your calendar – what’s on your schedule, what’s on your calendar. Look at the passage: “…making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Listen. The pressure that you and I will face this week, to spend our time on good things—without God—will be enormous! There will be a whole host of things that will compete for your time this week, and time is something we spend just like we spend our money. Some of us waste our money (that’s another sermon), but some of us waste our time doing good things—that have nothing to do with God.

If you’re like me, I memorized this verse in the King James Version years ago, and it says this: “redeeming the time.” The idea of redeeming – to “redeem” means to purchase for a person’s use. It means to recover by purchasing. You pay a price. So, there really is a kind of this monetary exchange with every second. Time is the only thing that every person in this room has an equal amount. And if you’re too busy, it’s you own fault, because you chose how you would spend your time! And so, we have to redeem the time the way we would think about looking for a bargain with our money.

Some of you are bargain shoppers, some of you are coupon clippers. How many of you are coupon clippers? And if you’ve noticed, on a coupon, if you look really close at the really fine print way down at the bottom, it will tell you what the value of the coupon. Have you ever noticed this? It will say something like, “The actual value of this coupon is 1/20^th of a penny.” “Well, I thought it said like ten dollars off at Kohl’s, you know!” Well, yeah—if you redeem it! But some of us don’t redeem the time, and so, your time is filled with worthless activity.

We have to do things that are best things—things that only we can do—which means that you have to say “no” to a lot of good things in order to say “yes” to best things. Now, if you’re a follower of Christ, there are some things that only you can do. Only you can pray and move Heaven with your prayers. So, prayer would be a “best” thing for you to do—and yet, how many of us are way too busy to pray? You’ve said “no” to a lot of good things, but you haven’t said “yes” to a best thing.

Some of you are way too busy to actually pick up some responsibility in the kingdom of God and say, “Yeah, I’m going to spend an hour on Sunday holding a baby, or serving. I can do something that isn’t always spent on me.” One of the best uses of time is to spend time on something totally unrelated to you, building others up – encouraging, praying for, serving someone else. There are so many needs in the body of Christ, and yet so few people who have any time to spend on that.

There’s a guy in our church – a lot of you know him—his name is Edward Hayes. How many of you know Edward Hayes? I want to be like Edward when I grow up! (He’s my same age.) Edward and his wife Denise went with Andrea and I, along with our daughter Brooke, to Romania a couple of weeks ago—and then to Hungary—and I am so impressed with Edward! He spends everything he has on best things.

Now, Edward has a good job—he works for IBM. IBM takes care of his salary, but do you know what we spend IBM’s money on, through Edward? We spend it on ministry. IBM has no idea how much ministry they’re funding through Edward – because Edward travels a lot, which means he gets a lot of frequent flyer miles. Do you know what he redeems his frequent flyer miles on? Going to places like Hungary and Romania, and building the church there, and using that extra—something that most of us would spend on ourselves—he uses it to fund ministry. Edward’s a busy man—he probably works sixty or seventy hours a week. Do you know what he’s doing the other hours? I don’t know when the man sleeps, but every other waking moment he is looking for the next ministry opportunity.

He may be downtown at Hope Ministries. He’s the guy who organizes our Project Warm thing, that you’re always hearing us tell how we can be involved down there. The second Saturday, where we serve the community, he’s always out there finding something for us to do. Edward is a guy who redeems the time. Why? Because he knows how evil the days are, and we only have a limited number of days—a limited amount of time—that God gives us to push back the evil. So, how are you spending your time?

I challenge you, in the next week, just to take inventory of every hour. Get a chart, list the twenty-four hours, mark off your eight hours of sleep (or however long you sleep), and then…what did you do with the other sixteen? “Well, I spent another eight hours at work.” Okay, well what did you do with the other eight hours? “I spent four hours eating—I’m a hungry man.” So, alright, now you’ve got four hours left. “I spent an hour on Facebook. I spent an hour watching the tournament.” Well, now, pretty soon you’ve done a lot of good things; how many best things have you done? Take inventory of that. So, we have to use these things for God’s purposes. Do you want to be a winner? Put this on your to-do list: “I will only say yes to best things this week. I will only say yes to best things every day.”

Here’s the third thing:

 

3. Winners fill their lives with God’s Spirit. Losers give control to substance. (v. 18)

 

Look at Ephesians 5:18: “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery…” Probably a word that you used often in conversation this week. Debauchery. Did you use that word this week? How many of you did not use the word “debauchery” this week? How many of you have no idea what that word means? Aren’t you glad you came to church? You’re going to learn something! “Debauchery” means excess, it means recklessness, it means living your life outside of boundaries, outside the guard rails—you’re about to go over the cliff and your car will be damaged. That’s what debauchery is. Paul says, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but [in contrast…here’s what winners do] be filled with the Spirit…” Winners and losers. Losers get drunk with wine. Winners are filled with the Spirit.

Now, I know this is a controversial subject—so let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about intoxicating substance. Here’s what the Bible says. The Bible does not forbid all use of alcohol. The Bible absolutely, under every circumstance, forbids drunkenness. Now, I have chosen not to drink. I don’t drink, I never have drunk, I’ve never been drunk, I’ve never had a beer. I have had a lot of pressure put on me to have a beer; I’ve paid a price. I’ve lost friends because I wouldn’t have a beer. I’m maybe going to lose some of you because now you’re gonna think, “Well, this is a place that doesn’t appreciate the good use of a beer!” I’m going to take that risk! You are loved! We need your seat! Hope you’ll come back next week.

Listen, I don’t drink. I don’t think you should drink! I don’t think you should have beer in your home. I don’t think you should have it in your refrigerator. The reason for that, for me…listen, I have enough trouble being wise when I’m not drunk, okay? I can only imagine how stupid I could be when I am! You have to understand, there’s a lot of Scripture that says it’s just not wise for you. Listen, I abuse diet Coke! I can’t handle anything that’s going to intoxicate me, alright? So, it’s just not on the table for me, and I would recommend that highly for you as well. But, that’s really not the point of verse 18.

I think Paul is assuming that a lot of the people in Ephesus knew what it was like to be drunk. And, since Paul assumed that about the church in Ephesus, I—as your pastor—am going to assume that about some of you. Some of you know what it’s like to be drunk. Anybody want to…? No, we won’t give a testimony. Now, seriously, some of you can look back in your past (and hopefully, it’s been a long time ago) and you can think about a time when you were drunk and you woke up [thinking], “I don’t know what I did, but I’m sure I’m ashamed of it!” And there are regrets. Listen, for a guy who sits in the pastor’s seat and has to listen to the baggage and the damage that’s created while some of you are drunk, it makes it easier for me to say, “No, thank you!”

Listen, what Paul is saying is this: Some of you know what it’s like to be under the influence of a foreign substance—something outside of you that you put in you that you that makes you do things and say things that you otherwise never would have done or said. How many of you, while under the influence of alcohol, have done some things and said some things that you are not proud of? Anybody? Loser! Loser, right there! Remember that day? Put that one in the “lost” column. Yeah, you lost that day.

But this is what Paul’s saying: “If you know what that’s like, let me give you an analogy. To be under the influence of God’s Spirit gives you the power and the desire to do things and say things that you, otherwise, would not do.” He knows us! At our core, we’re fools, and we’ll act foolishly.  But when we are under the influence of God’s Spirit, we become wise, and we say things—we do things, we go places, we perform things—that we would otherwise never have the ability to do. And so, for that reason, Paul says, if you want to win, fill your life with God’s Spirit.

Now, I’m going to ask you to do something I will never, ever—ever!—in church ask you to do. Right now, take a picture. This will never happen again! Everybody take out your phones (I left mine…come on, Grace, give me my phone. Give me yours, too—I like your cover.) I want you to look on your phones—I don’t know what kind of phone you have—but probably in the upper right-hand corner, there is a symbol there. What is that a symbol of? Your battery. I want to take a little survey in church this morning. How many of you have at least ninety percent right now? Your battery’s at least ninety-percent full? Raise your hands. Look at all these diligent people that plugged their phones in last night! That is awesome, that’s great, put your hands down. Now, let’s find the losers! (Just kidding—you are loved!) How many of you, your battery is less than twenty percent full right now? Come on, be honest. One, two. They won’t admit it. Now, listen, that’s a little fun thing. Some of you are more concerned that your battery is only twenty-percent full than you are that you are only twenty percent full of God’s Spirit.

I wish that God would give a supernatural ability for me to look at your forehead and just see the little battery meter of how much God’s Spirit is filing you! Seriously, what would that look like this morning? Hey, do you know how your battery gets full? You plug it in, right? You’ve gotta fill it up. It’s something intentional you have to remember to do. And some of you would not dream of ever missing at night when you plug your phone in! But how many days go by without you plugging into God’s Spirit, and being filled with God’s Spirit?

Again, the English language here as it’s translated, doesn’t really give us the best concept of what this actually says. In the original language, the verb tense reads like this: “Be being filled continually every day in every moment with God’s Spirit.” Do you know what that means? That means you stay plugged in all the time. You never get disconnected!

The reason we have to be being continually filled—you know why?—is because we are continually leaking. We are! We’re H-O-L-E-Y. We got leaks, right? So, we know if we’re going to leak, we’ve got to be intentional about being filled. That’s what winners do! So, it’s like this. Here’s you. You are a dry towel. When you come to Christ, understand this—when you’re converted to Christ, you come completely dry, and you are immersed into Christ and into His Spirit. What’s another word for “immersed?” “Baptized,” right? Same word. And so, at that point—do you understand—you get all of Jesus you’re ever going to get, and you get all of Jesus’ Spirit—the Holy Spirit. There’s not, like, Jesus’ Spirit and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. Do you get that? They’re all One. You get Christ, you get the Father, and you get all of Him you’re ever going to get.

So, you’re baptized into the Spirit. That is a one-time act. But here’s the thing—we go through our life, and now that you are absolutely saturated with God’s Spirit, look at what happens. You leak! And that’s actually a good thing, because if people get around you, you leak on them. And you’re leaking God’s Spirit, and other people are affected—because you are filled with God’s Spirit.

But, here’s what happens. You go through your day and you finally end up at your algebra class, or you have to drive down Grape Road, or you have to change a poopy diaper, or you have to deal with a neglectful husband. And what happens? Life has a way of squeezing you, doesn’t it? Well, here’s the good news. When you get squeezed, whatever’s on the inside comes out. And if you are filled with God’s Spirit, what comes out when you get squeezed? God’s Spirit comes out!

But, then, you get to the end of the day and you’ve got a problem. You’re not quite as filled, are you? And so, what do you have to do? You have to be filled again! There’s one baptism and there are many fillings. Every day, if you want to win, what do you have to do? You have to be filled with God’s Spirit! That’s what winners do; that’s how winners win! And so, don’t live like a loser—empty. The reason why a lot of us aren’t filled with God’s Spirit is because we’re filled with so much other crud.

You have to empty yourself. You plugged into the tournament. You plugged into a movie last night. You plugged into a restaurant. You plugged into relationships. And so you’re filled with all of that. There’s very little room left over for God’s Spirit now, is there, because you’ve been filled with so much other stuff. If you want to be filled, simple thing: first of all, empty yourself of everything else that competes for God’s space.

And, number two, ask the Holy Spirit! “Holy Spirit, I’m dry, I’m empty. God, would you come fill up the empty space? I am so tired of living under my own power, I am so tired of being controlled by my flesh.  I want You to control, I want You to fill. And so, God, I believe by faith—[third thing, just believe! Believe God]—I am filled by Your Spirit, and I am going to operate according to the power of Your Spirit in every circumstance every day.” So put that on your to-do list. You’ve got your to-do list? “Be filled with God’s Spirit.” Make sure that’s on your to-do list, or you’re not going to win every day.

Here’s the fourth thing:

 

4. Winners fill their mouths with praise. Losers complain about everything. (v. 19-20)

Look at Ephesians 5:19-20: “…addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Now, what’s cool about this is…did you notice the Trinity is mentioned there? In verse 18, Scripture talks about being filled with God’s Spirit. We get down to verse 20 and Paul says to give thanks to God the Father—the First Person of the Trinity. And then he mentions the Second Person of the Trinity—“In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ,” as you’re being filled. So, we’ve got all three Persons of the Trinity mentioned here, and Paul mentions this very important topic of praise and singing!

He acknowledges that it’s horizontal: we’re addressing one another, because people around you need to hear you sing! You say, “Not me!” Yes, they do! And again, if you’re new to Harvest, around here we say, “Whatever you lack in beauty, just make up for in volume!” Just part that person’s hair in front of you! Address that person in song, hymns and spiritual songs. So, there’s the horizontal aspect. We need to hear each other sing! There are some days you can’t sing, because you’re a loser, but you need to hear a winner sing and pull the winning out of you.

Secondly, Paul mentions the vertical aspect. We’re to sing and make melody to the Lord in our heart. In doing so, we’re giving thanks to God for some of the things that happen to us. . .Is that what it says in verse 20? “Giving thanks always for everything good that happens?” Is that what it says in verse 20? Now, check me on this: “Give thanks always for everything to God.” Everything? My neglectful husband? Yeah, him, too. The poopy diaper? Yeah, that, too. Algebra? Mmm-hmmm. Give thanks to God always, in everything! The moment you don’t is the moment you start to lose.

He mentions singing here, and I know for some of you, that’s like, “Aaah, no. Maybe in the shower when there’s a really awesome song from the ‘70s, I might break into a song.” Now, listen, let me show you here how important this is. He mentions three different categories. God doesn’t waste words—and so He mentions three different kinds of songs.

First of all, Paul mentions psalms. Are you aware that we have a songbook in our Bible? The book of Psalms, God’s top one-hundred-fifty songs of all time—the lyrics are preserved for us in the Bible. We don’t have the melodies—we don’t know the way they go, but, maybe that’s the reason that he says, “You make the melody in your heart! Here are the lyrics, you make some melody!”

If you read the psalms—the lyrics of the songs—you find the stories of God’s activity among His people. And so you read about your good times and bad times –while we’re being chased, when we’re bumping up against our enemies. And then God gives victory, and so they’re celebratory at times. Sometimes they’re just tear-filled laments, waiting on God to work. And so, he says, sing psalms!

One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 103: “Bless the Lord, O my soul!” And, if you think about it, you’re actually singing to yourself: “Bless the Lord, soul! You’re so lame, loser-soul. Bless the Lord!” Sometimes you have to speak to yourself like that, right? And we sing a song that’s based on Psalm 103; we’ve put a melody to it. Do you know this song? We sing it around here all the time. “Bless the Lord o my soul…” [keyboard and congregation join in.]

So, Paul says to sing psalms, but then he gives a second category: hymns. When we sing hymns, I think of singing songs that are filled with the attributes of God. They remind us of His faithfulness and His holiness and his constancy, and remind us of His goodness to us. And even sometimes, they remind us of the depths of our sin and the way that He’s redeemed us. They’re very Trinitarian nature. Almost all hymns, you sing to the Father and you sing to the Son and you sing to Spirit. Do you know this hymn? “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty…” [keyboard and congregation join in]. And so, hymns were used in the church to actually teach doctrine, to teach theology.

And so, Paul says to sing psalms and hymns, and then he mentions another category. What is it? Spiritual songs. Now, I don’t know what you think about a spiritual song, but I think about something very simple; it has a simple melody to it. Many times they’re songs of adoration—just adoring God—devotion, and they even have a level of commitment. It’s a prayer from my spirit to God’s Spirit. And probably one of my favorite ones that we sing around is, “I Have Set My Heart on You.” “I have set my heart…[keyboard and congregation join in].

Now listen, we just spent like three minutes singing, addressing one another. Do you feel better? Did the sermon get better when you started singing? It did! I could have quoted those lyrics to you, but there’s something about a song! There’s something that God put in the human emotion, to express, through beauty and artistry—it draws our heart to God. And some of you are losing because you’re not singing every day! You may be singing some stupid Taylor Swift song, or Lady Ga Ga. Loser! Alright. At the end of the service, go over to our Resource Center and buy the Vertical Church CDs and learn those songs. And then you’ll come in here and explode as we gather! Because winners fill their mouths with praise, and when your mouth is filled with praise, there’s very little time left over to complain about your circumstances. Give thanks always to God, for everything, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Here’s the last thing:

 

5. Winners fill their relationships with submission. Losers demand control. (v. 21)

 

Look at Ephesians 5:21. Paul says, “…submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  “To submit”—that Greek word is “hupotasso.” It’s a military term, where you have two equals [humanly speaking]—sergeant/private. The private voluntarily submits himself under the authority of another equal. The sergeant is not better; he’s equal—he’s a human being. But, out of a heart of submission, what the private does is understands, “You know what? I play a role on the team, and right now I am not in charge. But I can submit myself, make myself available so that I can be a part of a team that wins!” Do you know what a person who submits does? He makes himself available to another person so that person can win! He understands, “It’s not all about me, and I can’t always be in charge. I may not get to call the plays, but I’m happy to be on the field and play my role well!”

Can I ask you this? How do you deal with authority? Do you support or do you criticize those in positions of authority? Are you easily led? Do your authorities just kind of have to give you some suggestions and advice, or do they have to kick you in the pants, and continually remind you, and replace you with somebody who can submit to authority? Submitting understands, “I’m not always going to be in charge, but I play a very key role on the team.”

Are you in a position of authority? Some of you are saying, “Yeah, I wish the people would submit to me!” Listen, if you are in a position of authority, you understand—this verse is for you, too: “Submitting to one another.” If you’re a parent, who’s in charge? The parent. But, does a parent submit to his children? Sure he does! He gets down on his knees and communicates in their language. You have to serve them, you have to feed them, you have to change their diapers because they can’t do it themselves. You’re submitting yourself because you want this person to win. And you realize that, in a position of leadership, you still submit yourself to one another.

Now, the last phrase is so significant. Do you see what it says? “…Out of reverence for Christ.” Because God knows, you’re not going to do it because you think that person is all that great. It’s because of your reverence for Christ that this person gets served and respected and followed and supported. And so, we submit to one another out of our reverence for Christ! Anywhere there is a population of more than one, submission is necessary. Otherwise, we will go to war, our marriages will end in divorce, and we will split our church. So, we submit to one another. We voluntarily choose to serve, and make other people win, because we’ve got something to bring to the game. So, how are you doing? Put on that on your checklist: “Today, every day, I’m going to find somebody else I can submit myself to, for the purpose of making that person a winner.

So, let me ask you to bow your head, close your eyes. Are you winning or are you losing? If you’re losing, maybe it’s because these things haven’t been on your to-do list. And before we continue, why don’t you just open your heart to God and tell Him, “God, I want to be a winner. And so, this week, every day I’m going to listen to the voice of wisdom. As you speak, I’m not going to act foolishly. I’m not going to say, ‘No, God.’ I’m going to listen to the voice of wisdom every day!”

Maybe there are some things on your calendar that you need to cut out. You’re doing so many good things—without God—there’s very little time for best things—that are going to last for eternity. Tell the Lord, “Lord, every day this week I’m going to do the best things!” And why don’t you ask Him, right now, to fill you with His Spirit? Empty yourself out of everything else that’s been competing. Maybe for some of you, there really is an issue—a substance. Repent of that. Ask God’s Spirit to fill you so that you can exercise power under His control.

Then, will you just fill your heart with praise? Maybe for you, the hardest thing you’ve ever done is to thank God for a difficult circumstance, a difficult person. “Giving thanks always, and for everything, to God the Father, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” And then, finally, is there someone whom God is putting on your heart to submit to? Maybe it’s an authority structure, maybe it’s your children. Maybe it’s someone who actually ranks under you, but God’s calling you to help that person win.

Father, we’ve heard Your Spirit speak to us today. Thank You for the clarity of Your Word. God, we realize that it’s only because of the victory that You won on the cross that we have any chance of being a part of Your team—so out of reverence for You and the victory that You’ve won—Lord, we want to end every day saying we made that day count for You. Fill us with your Spirit. Helps us to praise You even now. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.