Don't Check Out — Ephesians 5:15–21 | Season 2, Episode 12

Have you ever reached the end of the day and wondered where it all went? The meetings, the calls, the scrolling — and suddenly it's over and you can't quite account for any of it?

Paul has a name for that. And a remedy.

In this episode of the Set Free Stay Free Bible study podcast, host Matt Dawson works through Ephesians 5:15–21, where Paul calls the church to something that cuts against the grain of modern life: intentionality. Don't live like fools. Don't act thoughtlessly. Make the most of every opportunity. Because the days are evil and autopilot is not an option for followers of Christ.

From the challenge not to be drunk with wine — and what that actually means versus what religion has often made it mean — to the call to be filled with the Holy Spirit and make music in your hearts, this passage is a practical blueprint for what it looks like to stay awake to the life God has called you to live.

Using the SOAP method (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer), Matt connects intentional living to the Holy Spirit's work in us, unpacks the fence-building instinct of religious rules around alcohol, and makes the case that music — whatever form it takes in your heart — is one of God's primary ways of keeping us connected to him and to each other. The passage closes with verse 21, setting up everything that follows about relationships: submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

This Ephesians Bible study is for anyone who keeps ending the day on autopilot — and wants to wake up to the purpose God has placed in them.

In this episode:

• Why intentionality is at the heart of living as children of light
• What Paul actually means by "don't be drunk with wine" — and what he doesn't
• The fence-building problem: how religious rules can miss the point
• Being filled with the Holy Spirit as the alternative to checking out
• Why music is a universal language — and what making music in your heart really looks like
• A closing prayer for those who struggle with alcohol and for all of us to live with purpose

📖 Passage: Ephesians 5:15–21 (New Living Translation)

🔍 Keywords: Ephesians Bible study, Bible study podcast, SOAP method Bible study, Christian Bible study, Scripture-first Bible study, Set Free Stay Free, Matt Dawson, walking through the Bible, Christian discipleship podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the said free stay free podcast. I'm your host, Matt Dawson. We are actually in episode 12. Today are we we look at Ephesians 5. But as always, I want to start with this uh question. Have you ever reached the end of the day and just wondered where it all went? Where did the time go with the meetings and the calls and the schedules and things like that? And you sort of get to the end of the day, and it was like, what happened? Sort of on autopilot? Well, Paul in Ephesians 5 is going to talk a little bit about really, as followers of Christ, we sort of can't afford to kind of just go through our days without any intention and purpose to the way in which we live. As always, we're going to be looking at Ephesians through the SOAP framework, Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer. And if you want to know more about that, I have a video that I've done for you specifically about how to read the Bible every day and enjoy it, as well as there's a free download. You can click the QR code. I would love to get this download to you. If you're listening on uh Spotify or Apple, uh just DM me or email me at infotmatdawson. And I'll be happy to get you that free download as well on how to do this soap study framework. Let's pray together before we start. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word, the way it challenges us, the way you use it to open our eyes to what you want us to see and hear from you today. We thank you for that in your name Jesus. Amen. We're going to be starting in Ephesians 15. So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord God wants you to do. Don't be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts, and give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 21, he says, and further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. I read the whole passage today because I wanted to talk a little bit about maybe a little bit of what precedes this passage and what goes after the passage. Early on in Ephesians 5, he's talking about how we live as children of light. And then he sort of talks specifically about how we live in the Spirit's power, but I love the fact that he kind of identifies this idea of intentionality. That's a word that we use around here, a journey quite often, is intentionality. How are we intentionally living this out in terms of how God has designed us? I we know I wrote a book called Gifted on Purpose for Purpose. And so I'm I'm pretty passionate about helping people understand their purpose. And I really do feel like when we find our purpose, when we understand how he's designed us, the things he's gifted us with, we wake up to the purpose in our lives. And we're able, our everyday, we're able to connect the gifts that he's given us and the purpose we have in our life to everything that we do. So don't hear me say that we don't all have to go to work and have meetings and do some of those things, you know, some of the what I would call the mundane in life, right? That's going to happen. The idea behind this is that, well, even in the mundane, are we awake? Are we paying attention? Are we looking for opportunities? Are we actually considering that this thing that I'm doing actually ties to the purpose of my life, that this thing that I'm doing actually fulfills what God is wanting to do in and through me. And that's really where it talks about making the most of every opportunity. The words here, this is in the NLT, don't act thoughtlessly. And I think what he's trying to say is don't just don't just zone out and go on autopilot. Right? Now, hear me say, there are times of rest in which zoning out is good, right? But there's a lot of things in our current existence that is drawing our attention, distracting us from life, and causing us to zone out. How often do you get on your phone? How often do you get on your phone and just you know you thought you were just gonna check and see because so-and-so was on vacation and you were gonna see that picture they showed, and then 20 minutes later, 30 minutes later, 45 minutes later, you realize you are lost. You have completely zoned out. You have thoughtlessly just exited life and gone into a massive distraction. This is the same with Netflix. I mean, I love somebody made a comment the other day about the CEO basically said that Netflix's competition is sleep, right? Like they are doing everything they can in the in the binging and the way they present stuff to keep us from sleeping. Okay. So hear me say, you know, the idea of rest and zoning out on those things are good. Paul is like, you can't live your life like this. You can't just just sort of zone out, get you know, check out, autopilot your way through life. We are called to live with purpose. Now, why does he immediately sort of in one breath as he talks about this? Hey, don't don't act thoughtlessly. He says, Don't be drunk with wine. Right? Why? Because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit. People have oftentimes, I grew up in a Baptist culture where they call it teetotaling, uh, where like you are not supposed to engage in any alcohol whatsoever. This is an effort by man, by mankind, to basically build safeguards in so that you don't come close to sort of doing what you shouldn't be doing. This is an age-old problem. The Pharisees did the exact same thing. There were ten laws, there were some Levitical laws that Moses gave, and then the prophets and the elders just kept adding laws and adding laws and adding laws. And what was once the cliff, don't walk off this cliff, there was a fence put three feet from the cliff, then they put a fence ten feet from the cliff, then they put a fence 30 feet from the cliff. Why? Because they don't want you getting close to the other fence, close to the other fence, because you could possibly, you know, be in danger. So understand, when people talk about alcohol, they really do. I mean, this is and I'm not against anybody who abstains from alcohol because you have a intentionality and a reason to do so. If you're doing it because you think God says, you know, you're not supposed to drink alcohol, there's nothing in scripture that says that. There's a lot about in scripture about not being drunk. And that's the reality. Now, how do you get drunk is by drinking alcohol. So, again, the rules we set up in our society and the rules we set up in some of these religious areas is like, well, then you don't do it at all. Uh, you know, safeguard even the temptation to possibly drink too much, just don't drink anything. But it became so much so that drinking drinking something was the sin. That's not actually the sin. And so understand when Paul says this, he's like, he's looking at a life and he goes, hey, don't be drunk with wine. You guys know what people who are drunk do. You know that they are wasting their life. Talk about checking out. Again, he was just talking about don't act thoughtlessly. That's what drunkenness does. Okay, so if you're living in the kind of life where you need to kill that bottle of wine at the end of the day, or even the half a bottle of wine, because you need to chill out and zone out and relax. My challenge would be: is your life really lived with such intentionality, such incredible purpose, such incredible focus on the thing that God's called you to do, that you need alcohol to help you check out and rest? He's like, that's not what people do. It is the same thread of acting thoughtlessly, living on autopilot that he addresses. Don't be drunk with wine. Don't let yourself go that way. Matter of fact, the follow-up is like, let yourself be filled with the Holy Spirit, right? Surrendering every part of our lives to the Holy Spirit so that, again, we can live with intentionality. We can live with purpose in every single moment of every single day. Galatians 5 says, we're in a walk with the Spirit step by step. We stay in step with the Holy Spirit. This is very similar to what he's saying. And he actually gives the example, and I want to challenge us. He gives the example. What does it look like to be filled with the Holy Spirit? It's singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves and making music to the Lord in your hearts. Now, I've had a couple fun conversations with people who don't enjoy singing. Okay? And I'm looking at you because I know who you are. They don't enjoy singing, they don't enjoy the music time at church, they don't enjoy worship. Matter of fact, they're basically the fact that sometimes people are told, like, hey, this is what heaven's gonna be like. We're just gonna be singing, you know, the goodness of God for, you know, for millions and billions and trillions and gajillions of years. I mean, there's nothing attractive about that to them in their mind because of the way in which it's done here. I I just want you to understand, Paul's basically saying, and this is and I would say this to you music is a universal language. God wired that into us. If you don't enjoy music, I would challenge you that I guarantee you there is something that you do enjoy. Okay? I don't care if it's Irish folk music, I don't care if it's classical music, I don't care if it's weird rap chants that that are I mean, what do they call it? Scanting, and I mean there's all sorts of weird musical expressions out there. I don't care. There is something that connects to your heart musically for everyone. I'm gonna challenge you, everyone. Something. It could be just a a poetic reciting of something with a small pad behind it, but that is still music. And he's saying together with people, we sing Psalms, Simpsons, and spiritual songs. That's part of how we express the Holy Spirit in us and join together with each other. But I love that he says, make that music in the Lord to the Lord in your hearts, right? So, hey, what is it for you? Like it doesn't have to be something that you can catch on the radio, maybe it is, or maybe it's just something that when you start talking to God about how good he is, and you start being grateful, because again, that's giving thanks to God for everything. When you start moving in your heart to be grateful, sometimes it comes out, it will honestly touch you so deeply if you would connect it to the music that you enjoy. I'm I'm I know I'm a rare bird, okay? But like on a good long road trip, like you get me more than two or three hours in the car, my musical expression goes from, you know, maybe worship, contemporary worship to old, you know, Stephen Curtis Chapman, you know, old 90s contemporary, maybe Christian music. It'll sometimes switch to like switchfoot, you know, sometimes it'll switch to really weird stuff like GLAD or a cappella, or I was raised on Southern Gospel. So you give me long enough time in the car, you're gonna, I'm gonna be listening to some Southern gospel, quartets, harmonies, trios, all choirs, all sorts of things. At the same time, I could immediately shift and go to some 80s rock hairband. Matter of fact, one of my favorite channels right now on YouTube is basically all of our current modern-day worship songs covered like Guns N' Roses would cover it, or covered like uh Bon Jovi would cover it, like they, you know, AI takes all the sampling and basically, and I'm telling you, uh it lights me up. It lights me up. And so just when he says, and maybe you have your own versions of that, when he says making music in your hearts, that's what he's talking about. He's talking about this idea of like, man, just whatever's whatever connects and flows in here, that's the part of you connecting with the Holy Spirit, especially when it's in tune with living purposefully and thanking God for everything. And then he sets up the next entire section of Scripture by saying, further submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Because he's gonna talk about that this right here was all about living your life intentionally and and and connecting and communicating with the Holy Spirit. Don't just check out, and then he's gonna start talking about relationships with one another in the further verses. So I love this particular section in uh in Ephesians 5. I love this particular section because, again, I really think it just kind of brings together the how do we live as children of light? And before it really starts to play out with one another, there's got to be something in you that's not only living intentionally in your life, not checking out, but also connecting with God. What does that look like in your prayer, in your worship, in your in the in the music of your hearts? What does that look like as you give thanks to God? I don't know what you needed to observe today. There's several things in these just these small few verses. I want to pray together as we find a way to maybe apply this even today. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word. And I am so grateful, God, that that you've just placed on my heart the desire to continue to remind all of us, as your word does, to live intentionally, to not allow ourselves to get checked out. Don't let the Netflix's and the phones and the TikToks and the things that want to just cause us to shut down and go into autopilot. God, I understand the purpose of rest and you've given us, you've created rest for us. But God, don't let us just thoughtlessly move into those places because we're missing opportunities every single day. And God, I do pray for those that maybe struggle uh with alcohol because they because they they they really have never been able to grasp the understanding of what it is to be able to enjoy something without overdoing it or to take it, you know, really to drink to such a way that they begin to numb the pain in their life or the or the thoughts they're having. So, God, I pray sincerely for those folks, and I pray that your Holy Spirit would fill them and would continue to give them the power to overcome what could be even an addiction now in their life and the groups that are formed and the people that can help them walk through those things. God, the fact that you want us to be filled with you to make music, to to not only do that with one another, but God, just to do it in our hearts. God, I really do sincerely pray your Holy Spirit is just touching every single person in such a unique way that they would connect and go, oh yeah, that's right, I do enjoy that. Oh yeah, that's right. Somehow, when I'm listening to this or when I'm when I make that, when I think about that music in my heart, it connects to my creator. God, thank you so much for that. And again, as your word called us to say thank you to you in everything through Christ Jesus, we do that today. And I'm praying that every person has an opportunity today to put this into action. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you guys again for tuning in to this episode 12. We're going to move into episode 13 next week. And if you again, if you enjoy this, would you like and comment and engage with us? If you are listening to us uh through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, would you rate and review to help continue to get this channel? Our desire is to see people go from lazy faith to living hope. And you are a part of helping us uh do that. Thank you guys again for tuning in.