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Pastor Neil Silverberg continued our In Christ series by opening Ephesians 5:15–21 and asking a timely question: how do we live wisely in a foolish age? The apostle’s command is as bracing as it is beautiful: look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Neil made clear that this is not about white-knuckling our way into better habits. Paul’s practical counsel in chapters 4–6 rests on the gospel foundation of chapters 1–3. Who we are in Christ comes before how we live for Christ. That order matters, because many believers live beneath a low ceiling of constant condemnation, as if God’s smile rises and falls with their latest streak of obedience. The remedy is justification by faith alone. Our standing with God is not the sum of our spiritual performance but the gift of Christ’s righteousness received by faith. To underline that, Neil took us to Martin Luther’s breakthrough in Romans 1:17. Luther had read “the righteousness of God” as a standard that crushed him; then the Spirit opened his eyes to see it as a righteousness God gives to sinners in Christ. Once that landed, the cycle of shame broke, and obedience became a joyful response, not a desperate bid for approval. That’s the air we’re meant to breathe as we step into the practical shape of sanctification.

From that gospel ground, Neil showed how Paul invites us into a distinctly wise way of walking. Three concerns emerge from the text. First, redeem the time. The English Standard Version says “make the best use of the time,” but Neil pointed out that redeem is closer to the Greek. It’s marketplace language—exagorazo—used for buying slaves out of the market to set them free. Wise people “buy back” their hours from captivity to distraction, drift, and sin. This is not empty productivity talk. It’s stewardship in an evil day, treating time as a precious, non-renewable gift that belongs to the Lord. Neil lingered on the biblical realism of the Psalms: “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am.” The brevity of life doesn’t crush us; it clarifies us. It turns our feet toward what lasts.

To help us think about time as Christians, Neil distinguished between chronos and kairos. Chronos is clock time—the steady drip all of us receive in equal measure. Kairos is opportune time—moments charged with significance where God opens a door to obey, repent, serve, or speak. Redeeming the time involves faithfulness in chronos so that we can recognize and respond in kairos. Neil shared a story from a campus revival where some students seemed deeply visited by the Lord while others remained unmoved. A wise observer suggested that those who were faithful in the ordinary rhythms of chronos were now being visited in kairos. Neil was careful to add that God is sovereign in revival; he is not bound to our formulas. Yet Scripture does teach that the Spirit’s blessings often meet those who are walking wisely in the ordinary. That’s redeeming time: buying our days back from what numbs the soul and bending them toward what makes us alive to God.

The call is wonderfully practical. Neil cited Jonathan Edwards, whose sermon “The Preciousness of Time” and youthful resolutions treated time as a stewardship for eternity. He wasn’t advocating frantic self-importance; he meant savoring hours for what they’re worth under God. That might look like restoring unhurried prayer to mornings that currently belong to your phone, or cutting off the digital habits that train you to skim your life rather than inhabit it. The point is simple and searching: the days are evil; therefore, don’t drift.

The second concern Paul names is understanding the will of the Lord. Neil noted how quickly we reduce this to a private blueprint for our life—who to marry, which job to take, what city to move to. God does guide in those decisions, but Paul is primarily aiming at the moral will of God: the revealed pattern of life that pleases him. As we learn what Scripture calls true, noble, and pure, many of our practical questions begin to sort themselves out. Neil gave straightforward examples. If you have three thousand dollars for a car, the moral will of God cautions you against a decision that shackles you with unwise debt. If you’re a follower of Jesus exploring marriage, the will of the Lord steers you toward a spouse who shares faith in Christ, because Scripture forbids being unequally yoked. And because God’s will is not only information but transformation, Neil took us to Colossians 1:9–10, where Paul prays that believers would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so they can walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. That prayer is an invitation. Discernment grows in a heart the Spirit is shaping, a mind renewed by the Word, and a life that habitually asks, What pleases the Lord here?

The third concern is Spirit-filled living, and Paul frames it with a striking contrast: do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. Neil explained why Paul was so direct with the Ephesians. In their city, Bacchus—the god of wine—was openly worshiped through drunken feasts and sexual indulgence. People pursued altered states so they could be “led” by their god. Paul’s answer is not a dour no to joy but a better yes: come under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The issue is control. Alcohol exerts a controlling influence over speech, thought, and action; so does the Spirit, but in a way that produces life, light, and self-giving love. And the verb matters. Be filled is a present imperative—a continual command. This is not a one-time spiritual milestone to look back on with nostalgia; it is a present posture of surrender, moment by moment, day by day. In Acts, believers were filled and then filled again. That same gracious fullness is for us as we yield to the Spirit’s ongoing work.

Neil handled the Bible’s words about alcohol with clarity and care. Scripture does not command total abstinence, and Paul can even tell Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach. At the same time, every portrait of drunkenness in Scripture is a cautionary tale, not a celebration. Think of Noah’s shame after the flood, Lot’s daughters manipulating their father into sin, and Belshazzar’s drunken blasphemy on the night his kingdom fell. Even in Corinth, some abused the Lord’s Supper to their harm. Neil’s point was not to bind consciences where Scripture doesn’t, but to let Scripture warn us where it does. Drunkenness is debauchery—moral unraveling—and a wise walk refuses any master that blurs judgment and loosens restraint. Christians are free people; we do not yield our control to anything that would master us.

What does a Spirit-filled life look like in ordinary practice? Paul doesn’t leave us guessing. Neil drew out the three markers the apostle names. First, there is song. Spirit-filled people don’t just consume worship; they address one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with their hearts. The Spirit gives the church a singing life, and those songs catechize us. They press truth through the mind into the affections, form our instincts, and knit us together. Neil remembered the Scripture-songs that sprang up during the charismatic renewal and how singing the Word sewed it into daily life. Second, there is thanksgiving. Give thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Gratitude is not seasonal; it is the steady weather of a heart that knows it has received Christ and, with him, every spiritual blessing. This doesn’t deny sorrow or sanitize suffering. It learns to say, because of Jesus, even this can serve God’s purpose for my good. Neil shared how, when he received his Parkinson’s diagnosis, he learned to spot the evidences of God’s kindness in the midst of weakness. Not as a joke or a gloss, but as a confession of Romans 8:28—God is not wasting a single thing in the lives of those he loves. Third, there is mutual submission. Out of reverence for Christ, we arrange our lives under one another’s good. Neil explained the word submit as a military term—ordering oneself under another. In the church, that posture isn’t confined to one relationship or gender; it’s the shared atmosphere of a Spirit-led community. It will take on particular shape in marriages, families, and workplaces, which Paul will address next, but the heart of it is the same. Because Christ is Lord and dwells in my brother and sister, I lay down the insistence on my own way and honor him by honoring them.

All along the way, Neil kept our eyes on the center. Wisdom is not bare morality or schedule-optimizing. It is the fruit of being in Christ—justified freely and now being sanctified faithfully. Because we are accepted in the Beloved, we can stop living under condemnation and start living carefully, joyfully, and courageously. We can buy back our days from the lesser loves that waste us. We can grow past paralysis about the future by learning what pleases God in the present. And we can keep on being filled with the Spirit who tunes our hearts to worship, loosens our tongues to give thanks, and trains our bodies to bow in humble love for one another.

The days are loud and distracted and often foolish. But the Spirit is not wringing his hands. Through the Word, he is forming a people who walk differently—alert to opportunities, anchored in God’s will, and under a better influence. And through that wise walk, the goodness and beauty of Jesus become visible in a foolish world. That is the promise and the invitation Paul extends, and Neil pressed home, to all who are in Christ.