They had known each other since they were ten years old. They went to the same school, grew up in the same neighborhood, played ball together, spent the night at each other’s house, and did all the other things that good friends do.
Somewhere in their early to mid-teens, they began to drift apart. Some of it was due to simply growing in different directions, each boy developing his own interests. A large part of it though, had to do with the moral path each was choosing; one was sticking to the right way, and the other was drifting into dangerous territory. I don’t know that it was a deliberate choice on his part. It seemed to be more the influence of the people he was hanging around with. Either way, I guess the results were still the same.
This drift continued through their teenage years and into their early twenties. The two might run into each other or call occasionally, but that was about the extent of their interaction. There just weren’t many points where their lives intersected. One went off to college, graduated, got a job, and married. The other dropped out of high school, was in and out of work, lived promiscuously, fathered a child, and sold drugs.
One day by the grace of God, he called his friend and said he realized that the road he had chosen was a dead end. He wanted God in his life and needed his friend’s help. Would he baptize him? Of course he would! That Sunday he was baptized into Jesus.
We might not connect the actions of the young man who remained on the right path with love, but I think we should. Following his friend might have been an easy thing to do, but it also would have been selfish. By doing what was right, he remained a true friend to the one who drifted. He remained a light by which his friend could find his way back.Never underestimate what God can do with your light!
The final thing Paul wants to say about our walk is that we are to walk wisely. “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but wise” (v. 15). This is done by understanding “what the will of the Lord is” (v. 17). Accordingly, he encourages them to be “filled with the Spirit” (v. 18). It is clear from its contrast with “do not get drunk with wine” that being filled is the equivalent of being under the Spirit’s influence. We can understand what the will of the Lord but if we do not allow our lives to be shaped and molded by it, it is means noting. I’ve heard people refer to this as “being lost by 12 inches,” because that knowledge never made it from their head to their heart.
How do people under the influence of the Spirit live? He mentions three things. 1) They speak to one another with “psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit” (v. 19). 2) They give “thanks always and for everything” v. 20, and 3) they submit “to one another out of reverence for Christ” (v. 21). People who are full of self don’t submit to others, but people filled with the Spirit will. And with these truths, (especially #1 and #3), we’ve around full circle back to what makes for maintaining the unity of the Spirit (4:3).
The five occurrences of “walk” in Ephesians 5 contained fundamental teaching for the disciples at Ephesus on how to live out the salvation they had experienced in Jesus. They mean no less to us today.
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 