[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:08] Welcome back to the Nomad Pasture podcast.
[00:00:11] All right, this week we're going to jump back in. You know, I know it's been a long time, and. And I did that podcast.
[00:00:19] The last one was kind of about the whispers the enemy tells you.
[00:00:23] But I want to jump right back into Ephesians. We're going to go to Ephesians 5, and I want to start with Ephesians.
[00:00:36] I've talked a lot about Ephesians and the different books or the different chapters within this letter to the church in Ephesus and how it has continually shaped my walk with Christ.
[00:00:51] When I read this chapter, it's really about walking it out.
[00:00:56] It doesn't hit me like a list of rules, but what it does is it makes me think about.
[00:01:02] It's an invitation. It's a call for me to live different.
[00:01:08] Paul says that we're called to walk in love, to walk in light, and to walk in wisdom.
[00:01:14] And if you're anything like me, you know that walking doesn't happen all at once, right?
[00:01:20] I take a step and then I'm forced two steps back, and we stumble and we fall down and we get back up.
[00:01:30] And that's what this is about. This is about all of those things that Paul is telling us to kind of keep walking out, everything in Christ.
[00:01:43] And so, you know, when I read this journey and I think about.
[00:01:49] When I read this chapter and I think about my own personal journey, right? I think about the times that I've stumbled. I think about the.
[00:01:56] The times that I have fallen down.
[00:01:58] There have been countless times in my life where I didn't feel like I could walk at all. I felt like I was just stuck in a chair, that I had fallen flat on my face.
[00:02:11] Shame, mistakes, sin, all of it weighed me down.
[00:02:17] But here we are in chapter five, and Paul starts with this reminder, right?
[00:02:24] He says, be imitators of God as dearly loved children and walk in love. Just as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us.
[00:02:36] That simple, deep phrase as dearly loved children really makes me think. It really kind of stops me.
[00:02:48] Because if I'm just. If I'm being transparent and I try to be as honest as I possibly can, there have been times in my life where I didn't feel loved at all.
[00:03:02] Times where I thought I had disqualified myself. Times that I thought maybe God had moved on and picked somebody else to use.
[00:03:12] That's why I did that last episode about the whispers of the enemy.
[00:03:16] But in this chapter, Paul reminds us that love is the starting point.
[00:03:22] That you don't imitate God to earn his love.
[00:03:27] You imitate him because you already have it. He has already given it to you.
[00:03:34] And when I truly realized that, when I completely understood that, that God has already given me his love, that changed me.
[00:03:47] It changed how I saw people.
[00:03:50] It changed how I just started living my life. Love stopped being about what I could get from someone else.
[00:04:01] Love started to become what could I give them.
[00:04:07] And for me, that's not a natural feeling. My whole life growing up was, what can you do for me?
[00:04:15] And I had to really look inside and think about instead of, what can I get from you? What can I give you?
[00:04:28] My natural instinct.
[00:04:30] And I think a lot of people's natural instinct, if I'm being honest. But I can only speak for myself.
[00:04:36] My natural instinct is to be selfish.
[00:04:41] It's about me, you see. But Jesus, he gave his life not to get something from me, but to give everything to me.
[00:04:55] And that's the model.
[00:04:57] That's the love that Paul is calling us to.
[00:05:05] And as I kept reading and I reading and I kept studying, Paul moved in this chapter from love to light. And he says, for you were once darkness, but now you are in light.
[00:05:23] You are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
[00:05:29] Now, you notice here, he doesn't say you were just in the dark, like somebody had turned the lights off. You were in the dark. He says, we were darkness.
[00:05:43] For me, that used to be my identity.
[00:05:46] And if you've ever felt defined by the worst mistakes you've made in your life, then you know what that feels like. You know what I have felt.
[00:06:00] We were darkness.
[00:06:04] See, darkness, it becomes not just something you're in, it becomes who you think you are, who you believe yourself to be at your core.
[00:06:20] You see? But Paul tells us, now you are in light now you are light in the Lord.
[00:06:28] You see, it's an identity change. It's a radical shift of identity.
[00:06:33] And here's the thing about light. It can't hide. It doesn't hide.
[00:06:37] It reveals, it exposes.
[00:06:41] And the unfortunate thing is that can be really uncomfortable.
[00:06:49] Everybody has things in their life that they want to keep tucked away.
[00:06:55] But when the light shines, healing occurs.
[00:06:58] Walking in light means no more pretending, but it also means no more shame.
[00:07:06] And that no more shame, that's freedom.
[00:07:13] You know, if you've ever sat in a recovery meeting or if you've walked into a church carrying your past like a dumbbell on your shoulders, you know the power of saying, this is who I was.
[00:07:29] But it's not who I am anymore.
[00:07:34] When you say it's not who I am anymore. You are walking in light.
[00:07:39] That's what that is.
[00:07:40] This is who I was.
[00:07:42] We were darkness.
[00:07:44] This is who I am.
[00:07:48] And then Paul, then he goes to wisdom and he says, be careful how you walk.
[00:07:56] Not as unwise, but as wise. Making the most of the time because the days are evil.
[00:08:04] You know, I have wasted time before in my life. I wasted years chasing things that didn't matter.
[00:08:12] Things that promised a feeling that left me empty in my professional life. Things that look like success on the outside, but they didn't bring me peace.
[00:08:27] In fact, they brought the exact opposite. The harder I worked, the harder I chased after those things that didn't matter, the less joy that I had.
[00:08:43] It's probably strange to hear, you know, the more I worked, the more I got, the less happy I was.
[00:08:55] But that's what it was. I was chasing.
[00:09:02] I was not careful how I walked.
[00:09:06] You see, we shouldn't be afraid about how we walk, right? Paul's not telling us to live in fear.
[00:09:13] He's saying, live with intention, live with purpose.
[00:09:16] Because we don't know how many days we have left. So Paul's telling us, be wise. Don't waste the time you have.
[00:09:25] Don't numb yourself out with temporary escapes.
[00:09:32] Instead, he's saying, be filled with the spirit.
[00:09:36] Let the Spirit of God be the one who directs your steps.
[00:09:41] Let the Spirit of God fill up your conversations. Let the Spirit of God fuel your gratitude.
[00:09:49] You know, the years I spent filling myself with the wrong things left me empty.
[00:09:58] But when I let the Spirit of God fill me, it didn't just change what I did.
[00:10:05] It changed who I am becoming and who I continually to grow into.
[00:10:13] That's pretty. I don't know, eye opening maybe.
[00:10:20] It's interesting to think about.
[00:10:24] And as we look at how Paul closes this chapter, he closes this chapter by painting a picture of relationships and what relationships should look like. And he uses marriage as the example.
[00:10:39] But within this, the deeper truth is this is about Christ and the church husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the church wives honoring their husbands.
[00:10:52] It's not about power. It's not about control.
[00:10:56] It's about selfless, sacrificial love.
[00:11:02] It's about relationships that reflect the gospel of Christ.
[00:11:11] And when you think about it like that, all of the relationships that you have, ask yourself what they reflect.
[00:11:24] Do they reflect the gospel or do they reflect the world?
[00:11:31] Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. Wives honor their husbands.
[00:11:37] But it's much bigger Than that.
[00:11:40] Because even if you're not married, this still stands.
[00:11:46] Friendships, family, church, community, work, relationships, all of our relationships should show the world what Christ's love looks like.
[00:12:04] And that's not easy.
[00:12:08] It's not easy because people hurt us.
[00:12:13] We have feelings.
[00:12:15] People walk away from our lives.
[00:12:20] Everybody listening here, at some point in your life, you know the pain of being abandoned by a family member or a friend, or the betrayal of a family member or a friend, or the betrayal of a church community, or the betrayal of a work relationship or whatever it may be.
[00:12:43] We all have had that in our lives.
[00:12:46] But what Paul is doing here is reminding us that God is in the business of redeeming relationships.
[00:12:56] He's the one who can take what was broken and make it whole again. And he's the only one.
[00:13:05] When I look back throughout this chapter, right, I see my own story in it so many times.
[00:13:15] Times when I didn't walk in love, times that I hid from the light.
[00:13:23] Times when I wasted wisdom on just foolish, idiotic choices.
[00:13:35] But what I also see is God's grace pulling me back every single time, step by step, teaching me to walk again.
[00:13:48] That's exactly what he's doing with this podcast.
[00:13:53] If you listen to the last episode, you know that I've heard all the whispers from the enemy, but God's grace pulled me back to the microphone.
[00:14:09] It wasn't easy. It isn't easy because the enemy still is trying to tell me it's too late. Nobody cares. Nobody's listening.
[00:14:21] But God's grace, step by step by step, is teaching me to walk again.
[00:14:32] And maybe that's where you are today.
[00:14:37] Maybe you feel stuck because of shame.
[00:14:44] Maybe you're just sitting in a corner, hiding in the dark.
[00:14:48] Maybe you think you've wasted too much time, that it's been too long. Like I said about missing four months of a podcast, let me just tell you it is not too late.
[00:15:01] You can get back up. You can take a step forward.
[00:15:06] Step by step. God is there grace, pulling you back, teaching you to walk again. You can walk in love.
[00:15:15] You can walk in the light, you can walk in the wisdom.
[00:15:20] Because you are a dearly loved child of God.
[00:15:26] And look, if you have never taken that first step with Jesus, today's the day.
[00:15:33] He gave himself up for you on that cross. He rose again to bring you back to life.
[00:15:39] And he is calling you to walk to Him.
[00:15:48] God's never been lost.
[00:15:50] He's always there.
[00:15:52] And he's saying, come on in.
[00:15:55] Walk to me today. Stand up.
[00:16:00] I hope this message opened your heart and your mind and your thought. I challenge you.
[00:16:09] I didn't read the whole chapter.
[00:16:11] I'm going to change kind of how we do these podcasts where I'm not reading four or five verses, talking about it, reading four or five verses. We're just going to talk, right? So I challenge you to go back and read and study Ephesians 5 because it's a great part and it can bring you understanding and help you recognize that you are a loved child of God.
[00:16:43] So I'm going to start challenging you more, right? Do some stuff. Don't just listen. Do something. Read, study, ask questions. If you have questions, send me an
[email protected] because I'm here to answer them.
[00:16:58] If you need prayer, send me an email.
[00:17:03] But I want you to remember one thing, and to me it's the most important that you love God and you love people.
