8/16/20 Ephesians 5:15-20 “You Can Have 100 Flavors of Ice Cream!”

14 Aug 8/16/20 Ephesians 5:15-20 “You Can Have 100 Flavors of Ice Cream!”

8/16/20 Ephesians 5:15-20  “You Can Have 100 Flavors of Ice Cream!”

This has been a real good week for us.  We had a birthday in our family plus our anniversary.  So, it was a fun week.  I remember once when I got to do the story time for vacation Bible school.  I didn’t get to work with the children of this age group that often because I was usually preaching at the other church when they had Sunday school.  So, this was quite a treat for me.  The best part of this was that I got to see what the kids were really like.  It wasn’t hard to tell the ones who didn’t come to church that often and it was very encouraging to see them there.  I also got to hear them as they answered questions with that perfect innocent candor that they have.  One thing I always tried to do during children’s time was that I asked open ended questions so that I could get a wide array of answers.  I do this so that we can engage those wonderful little minds that have so much to offer us.  I think that it is important that we pay attention to what our children say because often times it is right on the mark, often they are wise.  One of the themes in today’s Scripture reading is that we are to be wise.  Let’s see if we are being wise in our lives or do we just keep getting fooled by a world that doesn’t know Jesus Christ?

Today I would like to begin with a little demonstration.  What I have here is a flashlight, a normal flashlight.  In order for this flashlight to work it has to have a power source.  In our modern age we can plug them in, or they might be solar powered or they might just use regular batteries like this flashlight.  So, I am going to put in these batteries so that the flashlight will work.  But wait a minute, they won’t go in.  There seems to be something stuck in here.  Here is a piece of paper that says greed.  Here is one saying lust.  Here is one saying money.  Here is one that says hate.  It is no wonder that this flashlight wouldn’t work.  We have to take all of this paper out before it will work.  Now I think that our lives are very similar to this.  We have lots of things in our lives that have to be taken out before the Holy Spirit comes and fills us with His presence.

Today we begin with being told to be very careful.  How many times in your life have you been told to be careful?  How many times have you told your children to be careful?  Richard Tow tells the story of when he was about 12 years old and his family went to the mountains for the first time.  The mom told them to be careful as the wanted to climb this small mountain or maybe it was just a large hill.  It went great and they ran to the top.  They could look down at their mother and see her saying something like ‘be careful’ but they couldn’t hear her.  So, they came down the same way that they went up, running.  Soon gravity took over and they were running out of control until they fell and rolled much of the way down.  They ended up with skinned knees and bruises.  They had not been careful.

Paul is almost like a parent telling us to be careful how we live.  He is talking to people who live in a society a lot like ours.  There was a lot of evil in those days.  As a matter of fact, many of the early Christians came from other religions where they practiced all kinds of weird and pagan rituals.  Paul is telling them that they are wise and know the right way of living.  He is also telling them that the enemy is very cunning and knows how to get at them so they have to be careful.

We are the same way.  We know the right way to live.  I just want to look back at some of the things that I have done since becoming a pastor.  For the first time in my life, I slept in a box.  I do now appreciate how some homeless people now live as we took part in several homeless and hungry events.  I also had the privilege of taking some students on their first mission trip.  This was also a very eye-opening experience and we can still help these poor people on an ongoing basis.  We have all done many other things as we try to live right.  We have all experienced some wonderful feelings when we have been obedient to God, trying to live the right way.

But we have to be aware of being unwise also.  Unfortunately, we are surrounded with the unwise.  Rioting is unwise.  Hating is unwise.  Defunding our police is very unwise!  It is very hard in our world not to sin because we are bombarded with it on a daily basis.  We cannot turn on TV or read a newspaper or magazine without being influenced by the things of this world.  We need to try to be a little wiser in our habits in this world.

The next thing that Paul is telling us is not to get drunk on wine.  I don’t know if you know this or not but drunkenness was a problem in those days also.  If you look in Proverbs you will find many references to alcohol abuse centuries before Paul wrote this.  Many people like to think that the problems we have in our modern world are unique to us.  But generally speaking, this isn’t so.  The ancients had all the problems that we have today, only they had them on a little different scale because they lived in a totally different world than what we have today.  So what Paul is saying is just as relevant now as then.

We have this problem of drunkenness today.  I would guess that all of us adults have seen one or many people that we know go to rehab for alcohol.  We have seen how alcohol destroys lives.  Alcohol destroys marriages and families.  I just get saddened when I think of the children who have to live in the midst of a family with alcohol problem.  We saw some of this on some of our mission trips.  We see it on our streets.  We see it in our churches.  Unfortunately, we see it in our homes.

But Paul isn’t just talking about alcohol.  This is a generic term for our vices.  In today’s world, we have many things that are a substitute for alcohol.  The first thing that comes to mind is drugs.  The problem of drugs is rampant in this country and it seems to me that we really are not in a hurry to stop it.  Our teens are often the victims here.  Dealers know that they can hook people easier when they are young so we find dealers close to or even in our schools.

But one of the big contributors to the drug problem is our selves.  We need to start to take a good look in our own medicine cabinets to see what we are taking and the example that we are setting for our young people.  These kids aren’t stupid.  As a matter of fact, they are quite smart.  I saw this when we had VBS, I saw it every Sunday morning at children’s time, and I saw it every time I worked with the youth.  They see us when we take our tranquilizers.  They see us take excessive pain killers when they are not really necessary.  They see all of this and more and they ask themselves ‘why can’t I take some of these?’  Now don’t get me wrong.  Many medicines are totally necessary but there are some that are not.

But Paul isn’t just talking about these physical things that block our mental pathways to God.  He is also talking about some of the mental things.  These are the things like we pulled out of our flashlight.  Some people are drunk on greed.  When do you have enough things?  We are a society that collects things.  We buy more and more things all the time.  We are never satisfied because as soon as we get some more, then we see new things that we have to have.  We will never be satisfied by collecting things.  Things will never help us to get through life.  We need something more.

The same can be said about money.  You can never have enough money.  You have been trained from an early age to seek more and more money.  It doesn’t matter if you save it or spend it, you just can’t get enough of it.  And remember that the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.

Lust also permeates our society.  Just about every advertisement we see on TV is made to help us to lust after someone we shouldn’t.   I remember several years ago we turned on the TV with our young grandson to watch something.  Twice we had to turn the channels because of the totally foul advertisements that were on.  These ads weren’t fit for adults, let alone children.  It is no wonder that our society is so messed up when we allow things like this to happen.  We not only allow it; we encourage it as we think it is good!  Many have fallen in love with evil!

We also have to deal every day with the hate of this world.  As a country, we have hated several other specific countries for years.  It seems that if there are ever conflicts, you can count on who our enemies will be.  In this country, we have struggled with hate for years.  Now we think that we have to hate Christians, conservatives and liberals.  We are supposed to hate anyone who disagrees with us.  But I do think that we have made real positive strides to get rid of the hate we used to have for various races.  These riots we have been having are all wrong.  I think that we have been raising a generation that is almost color blind. And because of this we have even more hate.  None of it makes sense but that is the way of the devil!

But we have replaced it with a far more dangerous hate.  We now have Democrats hating the Republicans and the Republicans hating right back.  It is amazing that anything gets done in Congress at all.  Whatever happened to a Congress that was for the people, of the people and by the people?  That is now just a dream.  I think that it is getting close to the time when we will have to turn all Democrats and Republicans out of office and start to elect people who will be sensitive to the needs of the people and not the needs of their wallets or their greed. This is getting off the point a bit, but there is a hate in this country that will destroy us.  That is what hate does.  Hate is from Satan and we will always lose if we follow him.

So, Paul goes on to tell us that we are to be filled with the Spirit.  We have to drive all of these other things out of our lives.  We have to take the paper out of our flashlights.  We do this by praying to Jesus every day.  We do this by continually reading our Bibles.  I know that it may seem that I dwell on this a lot but I think that there are a lot of weak Christians out there that don’t do their part in trying to keep evil out of their lives.  Just think what the world would be like if we all had prayer lives and daily readings from the Bible.  We might even to be able to enjoy a world where our grandchildren can actually watch TV without being bombarded by X-rated advertising and programming.

Anyway, Paul is telling us and the Ephesians that we should speak to each other in Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  We are to sing and make music in our hearts for Jesus.  Now I don’t know how many times I have heard the excuse that someone doesn’t know how to sing.  If you look in the front of a United Methodist Hymnal you will find John Wesley’s directions for singing.  There are 8 rules and the one I want to bring forward here is rule #4.  It says, “Sing lustily and with good courage.  Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength.  Be no more afraid of your voice now, no more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sang the songs of Satan.”  Wesley is saying to sing whether we think that we can or not.  Our abilities should have no bearing on whether we sing or not.  It is our heart that should determine this.

One of the biggest compliments I have ever heard given someone and I have heard this several times, is that such and such person cannot sing a note or carry a tune.  But this sure doesn’t slow them down when they are singing to the Lord.  We all need to be making a joyful noise when we can.

The second thing I want to bring up here is the music that we listen to on the radio or TV or internet or whatever.  In this modern era, we can use some of the various methods that Satan uses to keep us away from God as ways to draw us closer to God.  I know that some of you may only listen to country music.  There are others who only listen to some sort of rock.  I am suggesting to everyone that they try turning to some of the Christian radio stations for an hour a day.  There are other ways of tapping into the massive Christian music market and try one that works for you.  There is nothing better than listening to your favorite Christian artist as they inspire you to praise the Lord all the time as the tunes run through your head.

I have to say that I have some favorite artists from the secular world.  They are very good and I end up singing right along with the radio.  But they are not inspirational like the Newsboys or Toby Mac.  These Christian artists are inspirational as they make me think about Jesus and praise Him in song at the same time.  And if you spend your day listening to God inspired music, then you will be an on-fire Christian, on fire for Jesus.  And that is what our lives should be like.

To sum this up, it is kind of like going into a Baskin Robbins ice cream store.  Do you remember them?  They were the ones with 31 different flavors of ice cream.  They used to have the real Rocky Road, and chocolate chip.  They had peanut butter and chocolate, a toffee swirl, and of course, the best strawberry and chocolate.  This wasn’t the kind of store where you went if you wanted just plain vanilla.

So, my question is this, why should we settle for a plain ordinary vanilla kind of life that we see on our TV’s and magazines when we can have a life that is full of chocolate and cherries and all kinds of other goodies that God will provide for us?  Don’t settle for the food of this world which looks so good and then when you bite into it, you find that it is all spoiled and rotten.  Settle for the love feast of Jesus Christ as only He can provide the food that will give you everlasting life.  Jesus Christ is the answer to all problems you have in today’s world just like He was the answer to the ancients.  Jesus loves you so much that he wants you to have all the great kinds of ice cream that you can imagine.  Please accept this gift of love.  Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.