Lesson 25 – Walking with One Another
Read Ephesians 5:15-6:9 - https://www.bible.com/bible/59/eph.5.esv
In our last lesson we looked at how our walking with God is tied up with how we relate to others. We looked briefly at encouraging each other and witnessing to each other. In this lesson we see how our walk with God affects our walk with other people. The three ways of walking with others are listed in verses 19 through 21: with song, with thanksgiving, and with submission.
Addressing each other with song is divided into three kinds of song. “Psalms” mean we talk to each other with the Word of God. This means we keep each other accountable to live by what is written in that Word. We encourage each other to stay true to that word. “Hymns” are songs of worship through which we give God glory and praise for who He is. We remind each other of our true purpose here on earth. “Spiritual songs” are testimonies of what God has done in our lives, and we share these with each other. We tell each other what God is doing in our lives, and we also join each other in prayer to help each other stay strong. Songs like these are usually joyful or prayerful in nature, and both are true pictures of our walk with God.
The next verse says we address each other with thanksgiving. This is perhaps the most important part of our walk with God and therefore also very important with our walk with others. To be thankful means we are not proud. True thankfulness cannot come from a proud heart. If you look at the last half of Romans 1, you will find that the stepping-down from God’s blessing to our own self-centeredness and ending in depravity and God’s judgment all begins in verse 21 – “they did not honor Him as God or give thanks.”
The third way of walking with others is submissively. The core of God’s plan for all mankind is family, and so God begins there to show us His plan for a husband and wife to live with each other. The submission of the wife is balanced by the love of the husband. One cannot work properly without the other. But the beautiful thing about this is that a wife finds it easy to submit to a husband who truly loves her, and a husband finds it easy to love a wife who is submissive – and together they become a partnership of equals which God can use powerfully in His kingdom.
The next relationship is that of children with their parents. Children are to be obedient, and parents are to be sensitive to their children’s needs while training them in what they need to know about God.
The last relationship is that of employer to employee. The employee is to be respectful and loyal – because they’re working for God as well as their employer. The employer must be the same to his employee because he realizes he answers to God the same way his employee answers to him.
Again, the key to all testimony or praise or submission is to have this first in our own hearts with God – He makes it possible for us to walk this way with others.
*Does our walk with God affect our walk with other people?
*To be thankful means that we are not _____
*The core of God’s plan for all mankind is _____