16-Ephesians: “WALK AS LIGHT: Nothing Left to Hide” | Ephesians 5:8-14

Chapter 1: Review, Becoming Imitators of God

Well, last week Paul gave us a phrase that refocused our lives as he told us to be imitators of God. And what we saw in that was that be could be better be understand become that we are to become imitators of God. What we recognized, what we realized is that this Christian life is a process. We are not finished this side of God's presence. Amen.

This is a process of becoming more and more and more imitators of God. And then Paul told us that the that the becoming uh what becoming rules out. He closed with a hard line that we are not to be partakers with them which raised an obvious question. If we are not to be partakers with darkness, what are we actually supposed to do about it? Are we to ignore it?

Are we to argue with it? Are we to go looking for it? Paul is going to answer this question this morning. And the answer is not what most of us necessarily are going to expect. He does not tell us to go fighting the darkness because Jesus already fought it and Jesus already won.

He tells us who

Chapter 2: Ephesians 5:8, You Were Once Darkness, Now You Are Light

we already are and then he's going to tell us to walk. So would you please turn with me to Ephesians chapter 5 starting in verse 8 that reads for you were once darkness but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light. Paul says that we were once darkness. This once indicating to the listener that we are no longer darkness.

If you are in Christ, you are no longer darkness. Amen. Right? They know, we know that the darkness is in our past. This is where we once were.

Right? It's like we were sitting in this cave in darkness staring at a wall and that was our lives. And that's all that we ever knew. We were once in darkness. But now we are light in the Lord.

We are light. The Lord has just opened up everything to us and we see that not only do we walk in light but we ourselves are the light and we are to walk as children of the light.

Chapter 3: Walking in the Light Is a Command, Not a Suggestion

Now I want to point out again what I talked about last week family this is a command. Are you beginning to see that the New Testament is indeed full of commands? This is not a question of salvation. This is a question of as a child of God, what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to live?

We are to walk. We are to be walking out in this world. And if you can see this teeny little black speck back behind this man, that's where we came from. And we are no longer to walk back to that place. We are to walk as God's children in light, not as children of darkness.

This walking directly ties back to becoming imitators of our God. The more we become like God, the further we are from the darkness that we once called home.

Chapter 4: Ephesians 5:9, The Fruit of the Spirit Is Light

That is how things are supposed to be for the children of God. This an for this answer again we move to verse 9. We're going to see this in more uh depth. For the fruit of the spirit is all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Now we see here the fruit of the spirit.

Now, some of you, depending on which version you have, you might see the fruit of light. And that just depends on which manuscripts the different interpreters pulled that from. But here's the the little secret. They're the same thing. The Holy Spirit is the light.

The Holy Spirit is the source of light in our lives. When you see Holy Spirit, when you see the fruit of the spirit, this is the light shining through the believers who are walking in light. Amen. Now, Paul continues on and

Chapter 5: Goodness That Acts, and Goodness That Confronts

he says that we are to be in all goodness. Now, this is a word that Paul specifically made up in the Greek language to express this concept. You're not going to see this anywhere else. In fact, uh other than in the Bible in Romans 15:14, Galatians 5:22, where we read about the fruit of the spirit here in Ephesians 5:9, and 2 Thessalonians 1:11, the Apostle Paul is communicating something that these Ephesians would not have heard or seen as are walking around speaking Greek in their lives. Now, what does this mean?

This is not just being good. This is goodness that does good. It's this idea that you yourself who are children of God walking in the light are good. But you do it. You live it.

You are it. Goodness is not passive. This is different than kindness that we see in the fruit of the spirit which is like a a gentle temper, right? Goodness is actively being lived out. You are doing this to people that are around you.

And this is one thing that was interesting that came out of this. Goodness can confront. You may be like, "Wait a second. Goodness can confront." Now, most of us when we're confronted, we take that as an offense, do we not? We take it as this is something that's unloving.

But what Paul is communicating here is that proper goodness de demonstrated actually will confront a brother or sister who are not living in the manner that they should be living in. Then we continue on

Chapter 6: Righteousness Is Bestowed, Not Climbed For

Paul mentions righteousness. This is literally right conduct. Now in the scope of the Bible we understand this is right conduct in relationship to God. That is how we should be living. But in general when you when righteousness the Ephesians would just see right conduct.

Now what's interesting is how Paul's use of this here flips the Ephesians understanding of righteousness on its head. This is what I mean in the typical Greek mind righteousness was something to be attained that there was a difficulty getting it. So imagine that it was on the tip of one of the highest peaks we have here in the Wasatch and there was righteousness on the top of that peak and it was your job to attain righteousness. You have to climb up and you have to acquire righteousness. But that's not what Paul is communicating.

Righteousness from the Christian perspective is bestowed upon the believer. It is like a tender chute that exists and lives with inside us and needs to be taken care of. It needs to be nurtured. It needs to be encouraged. We already have that righteousness when we come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's not something we have to go and that we have to grab. Now Paul

Chapter 7: Truth Means Unhiddenness

continues on and he says, "And truth." This one is fascinating because when they see this word truth, they they would understand unhiddenness. This is something that is not to be hidden. So the implication for the believer who is walking in life is they are demonstrating the fruit of the spirit. The believer who is demonstrating this truth their life they have nothing to hide. Now my guess is with a room such as this there's some of us in this room who have something to hide.

But what Paul is saying is a believer who is literally walking in the light, displaying the fruit of the spirit with the goodness and the righteousness and truth is living a life of goodness, but also a a a life that is in alignment with God and has nothing to hide. That is our goal, family. That is our target. So immediately we should be asking ourselves, do we have anything in our life to hide? And at that point, we hand it over to our God.

We confess that to our God and confess it to anyone and everyone who needs to know something. Now, you don't have to go post it on the socials, but if God already knows, let's not hide it. If it's not in alignment with God, let's confess it. Now, we have to address another seemingly strange element in this verse. Paul mentions that the fruit of the spirit is in the three things that we discuss, but he doesn't specifically mention the fruit of the spirit by name.

Right? We know this from Galatians chapter 5. So why doesn't he just name them again? Love, joy, peace, patience, right? The whole why doesn't he just name them again?

And I don't know specifically because Paul didn't write down and this is why I didn't explicitly say the fruit of the spirit is I have in Galatians 5. He doesn't do that. But when Paul is writing this is roughly a decade after he wrote the letter to the Galatians. So to give you a little bit of perspective, Galatia is this region here highlighted. Ephesus, just follow that red line down there and you see that it's just over 200 miles distance.

And so you can imagine that this book to the Galatian churches, which was a a a letter that circulated amongst those churches to be used to help instruct these churches, likely made its way a few days to the west to Ephesus over the next 10 years or so and became a basis that Paul likely would have used to help instruct these young believers. And so they probably already had an idea of what the fruit of the spirit is. It seems to be implied by the fact that Paul drops this in there and assumes his audience knows what this means. In fact, we end up seeing this in this book because Paul references the fruit multiple times just within chapters four and five and one of them back in in chapter 1. So all of the fruit of the spirit is mentioned in the book of Ephesians.

So this is how these things end up tying together. Now,

Chapter 8: Secret Knowledge Then and Now, Acts 19

another thing we need to recognize is that all of this teaching was incredibly countercultural to the Ephesians, to everything the Ephesians would have been familiar with with their non-Christian culture. Right? So, whereas Paul guided by the Holy Spirit is calling them to walk in the light, to hide nothing, to be ashamed of nothing, they came from a culture where it was all about hiding. It was all about the secret knowledge. It was all about uncovering and finding these secret powers that existed.

And the thing is is that we relate with this so much in our world today. This is so much what America is doing today. Did you realize that this century's bestselling self-help book has hidden knowledge that unlocks power? Just buy my book and I'm going to unlock the power for you. uh it you have affirmations being the most palatable replacement for what were called incantations. Just do these things that I'm instructing you and you will have power.

But then we also have the continued growth and prevalence of witchcraft. This is something that I remember back from my days in Oregon over 30 years ago. That was a huge thing even back then and it continues to grow where we see the increase of tarot cards and crystals and spells and astrology apps. The Ephesians were dealing with these kinds of things and the Christians had to respond themselves and they did so in Acts 19 by actually burning a bunch of their books. We read this in Acts 19.

And many who believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all and they counted up the value and it totaled 50,000 pieces of silver. Family, this is basically, think about the average wage you make. This is 50,000 days of wages is what ended up being burned in that moment. That's what the believers are doing.

So the word of the Lord grew mightily and it prevailed. So we have we also have modes in our devices that allow us to do things in secret. Now if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm not going to explain it to you because you don't need to know about that. But we live in a world even now of secret knowledge and hiding things. and don't let people know this stuff. A religion whose fruit is unhiddeness was a direct inversion of how their whole society lived.

The idea of Christianity even at this point so many of the religions that we have competing with the Christian faith want you to come so that they will then unlock the secret knowledge for you. Even some will lead you in with these small little things and then say, 'Well, you know, if you end up getting recommended to this particular building that happens to be over here, you can go into the inner sanctum and you can learn things you wouldn't otherwise know. And religion after religion after religion has these ideas. Whereas the Christian faith is open and laid bare for everyone. Jesus was the last revealed mystery, the way by which the name by which we may be saved.

All

Chapter 9: Ephesians

5:10, Testing What Is Acceptable to the Lord right, as we continue on verse 10. So, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. This is continuing walking in the light. We are finding out. Now, when I hear finding out, I think of like when I found out that my wife was pregnant.

I think of when I found out that my wife was having a daughter and then another daughter or maybe I found out that I got a certain promotion. That's what I think typically about finding out. But what Paul is using here is more a word of testing. This is testing something that is true against something that is false. Something that is genuine, something that is not genuine.

This is what I mean. When we test, when those of you that have worked retail, and I know there's many in this room that have, you don't get taught all the different ways that something could be fake. You get taught of what's real. You get to see this is what a $20 bill really looks like. This is what a $100 bill really looks like.

And when you know the truth, when you know what is real, you can then see the truth from the lie. You know what is fake and what is wrong. So Paul then drops this measure. What is acceptable to the Lord? We begin when as we begin to see this truth, we find out what is acceptable to the Lord.

We begin to see what is true to the Lord. We begin to see what Paul says to the Philippians. He says, "Finally, brother, what whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, is there any virtue?" And if there's anything praiseworthy, he says, "Meditate." Now, real quick, this is not empty your mind. Christian meditation is the opposite. It is filling your mind with the word of God.

That is Christian meditation. And so what you see here is something is not noble, that's not of God. If something is not just, it's not of God. If something is not pure, it's not of God. If it's not lovely, it's not of God.

If it's not of good report, it's not of God. If it isn't virtuous, guess what? It's not of God. If it's not praiseworthy, guess what? That's not of God.

He begins to let us know these things that are true so that we can tell what is the lie. Now, this is honestly one of the easiest questions we can ask ourselves. From what I understand about God and my time in the Bible, would the following thoughts, actions, or words be acceptable to God? Because there's a lot of time, family, that we do things and we don't check with God's word first. We don't run it through the filter of what we know to be true first before we excoriate somebody, before we banish them to the pits of despair somewhere else, never to have relationship with us again.

We do these things. The number of times I watch believers ignore Matthew 18 because they're mad at somebody. I'm mad. So, I'm done. I'm done with them.

They're out of my life. Is what we do so often. And yet, what does Matthew 18 call us to do? Calls us to reconcile. What does Galatians 6 do?

It calls us to reconcile. It calls us to break down those walls. Now, there is a path, and we'll talk about that here in a second, where yes, we step away from those individuals. But how often do we fi we we follow the passions of the flesh and we just cast people out of our lives. We're done here.

I'm leaving this church. I'm leaving this marriage. I'm leaving this job because I'm angry. Is that any of what we just talked about here? It's none of that and more.

And yet, that's what we've allowed ourselves to be trained to. Why? because that's what the culture tells us we should do. So, here are some more examples. We need to be about this in our speech. Here's an example.

Paul says, "Do all things without complaining." Now, I'm going to be honest. This one has convicted your pastor all week long. How easy is it to find a way to complain? Yeah. Again, command, not a question of salvation, a question of how do I, as a child of God, walk in the light.

I need to not be about complaining. I need to be not about disputing that you may shine. Again, what does Paul say? This totally different book. That you may shine as lights to the world.

What does it say to somebody outside these walls that knows you claim the name of Christ and all you ever do is complain? You moan, you groan, and you complain. Do they see the light of Christ? I would argue they do not. Also in our relationships, 1 John 3:17, "But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" How about our marriages?

And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. And whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery. Now I'm going to tell you this is a real problem right now in our world. I was looking this up again. This keeps popping up and I'm guessing because our our phones listen to us, do they not?

And they love to pop up stuff. All you probably get all this kind of stuff on your phone now. But I started looking up and seeing I'm looking at this secular psychologist and she's talking about how 70% of women divorces are initiated by women. Which then got me going, well why is that? Now what this talks about is adultery.

That is the only reason that the Bible gives that Jesus because people are like well are you sure? Just it it doesn't say Jesus but trust me this is Jesus speaking. What does he say? Except for adultery. That is one of the reasons why not just women, but men initiate divorce.

But I'll tell you what, it was one of more than a half a dozen reasons why we do. And it's something that we have to consider as believers in Christ. Now, I know this has probably got a whole lot of people that are now thinking about all kinds of other things, and I'll be answering your questions afterwards, and that's totally fine. But the thing is is the Bible is that which guides us. Amen.

It is that which we need to submit to. So if we are walking in the light, we need to submit to that because that is the Bible is our guide with how we walk in the light. It also guides us in how we serve. Matthew 6, take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them otherwise you have no reward. Now, this finding out, this testing, again, this is not a suggestion.

This is another of those commands given by God so that we can know what it is like to be an imitator of God or to become an imitator of God. What it is to walk in the light. And Paul's not done.

Chapter 10: Ephesians

5:11, Judging Inside and Outside the Church We enter into verse 11. He says, "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather he says, expose them." Have no fellowship. That is have no association with what comes next. Have no association with unfruitful works of darkness. But again, more on this in a minute.

Instead, we need to understand that Paul is not saying that we have no fellowship with people who commit unfruitful acts. Well, sort of, but yes, but no, but kind of, but yes, but no, but maybe. But yes. And the reason why I say it that weird is because it has to do with two different groups of people because we have believers and we have non-believers and we respond differently depending on who is doing the unfruitful works of darkness. Here in the in in uh Ephesians, Paul is specifically addressing Christians who are engaging in unfruitful deeds of darkness.

That said, this is a good place for us to address how we are to respond to non-believers. And Paul does this specifically in 1 Corinthians 5. This is what he says. He says, "For what do I have to do with judging those who are outside?" What do I have to do with judging those who are outside the church? What do I have to do with judging those who do not have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ?

What does he say next? Do you not judge those who are inside? So, I'm going to tell you right now, a lot of you have been given this false idea that we as believers in Christ are not allowed to judge. That's patently false. What we've been told not to do is judge wrongly.

Right? What does Jesus say? Do not judge lest ye be judged. If you're going to judge somebody, you better have your stuff in order. You better have your your life taken care of before you say something.

But we have to be about calling out bad behavior. That's not something explicitly not to do. In fact, Paul is addressing this here. The individuals that Paul is talking about are involved in sexual immorality. And this is something to be called out.

But then he continues on. He says, "But those who are outside, God judges." So somebody doesn't have the Lord Jesus Christ, we don't judge them. We let God do that judging. Therefore, put away from yourselves the evil person. What does that mean?

If somebody is unrepentant, who is in the church? Those people who have followed through the Matthew 18 structure that we're talking about gets to the point where Matthew 18 tells us they're to be like tax collectors, right? They are to be cast out from us. If somebody continues an unrepentant sin who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a place where that person gets removed from the fellowship. Family, that is judgment.

But that's proper appropriate judgment. Now, did you catch that second half though of verse 12? We do not do we not judge those who are inside. I have to re-emphasize this. We can do that, but it has to be done properly.

This is not just drag somebody up front sinner, you know, scarlet letter, shame, shame, shame upon you. That's not what this is. This is being done in a loving, encouraging, gentle manner.

Chapter 11: Matthew 18 and the Goal of Restoration

Now look at what Paul says earlier in the chapter of uh uh of Corinthians uh or in this chapter that uh Paul is talking about with Christians who are in unrepentant sin, who are living in unfruitful darkness. This is what he says in Corinthians 1 Corinthians 5. He says, "I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people." Again, these are people who are living in a manner that is consistently unrepentantly not in alignment with God. So he says, "Yet I I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the covetous or the extortioners, the idolattors since you would have need to go out of the world." Paul recognizes that if a believer couldn't have anything to do with any sinners, we would never be able to do the great commission. We would never be able to go and speak Jesus to a single person because sin is everywhere outside these walls.

But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idoltor or reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner. Not even to eat with such a person. Now again for clarity if a if a believer commits one of these sins this is not an immediate you're out of here. If that were the case there would be a whole lot of you that wouldn't be here and you know who you are right every single one of us sins in some way. Thankfully that that's not the metric but this is what Matthew 18 says and this is important for us to understand because we so often misunderstand.

I watch people who claim to have been in Christ for decades who do not understand this simple part of scripture that helps restore relationships more often than I can count when people actually do it. This is what it says. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, and again, this is Jesus. Your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you've gained a brother.

Ideally, that's the best thing. Go to the person, not your best buddy, not your life group, not your other friend group, and tell everybody on some text chat thing that somebody offended you. You go to this person first and then see if that can be restored. Because more often than not, when you when you claim that, most people don't do stupid maliciously. They do it just because they did a stupid thing.

You know what I'm talking about? We've all done dumb things and we've hurt people unintentionally. And this takes care of such a vast majority of this. Those of you that are married, your spouse offends you, do this. More on often than not, this will work itself out.

Okay? If he hears you, you've gained a brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word will be established. Again, this is stepping to that next level. again, not opening it up to everybody and their mother and gathering your people over here that'll get your your side and so you can get an echo chamber going and making sure that people understand. It's like I was wronged and they were wronged and all of us come over here and now we can badger them into submission.

And some of you are looking uncomfortable because you know exactly what I'm talking about because that's what we do. It's what we we watch happen in school. It's what we watch happen at work. That's not what Jesus is talking about here with the word of God. But and if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church.

But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him to be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. At that point, the unrepentant sin that has worked its way up, has escalated to this point and has not worked itself out, then that person gets separated from the fellowship. Now, I will tell you that some people have questions as to whether or not this is like, hey, let's bring them up in front of everybody who sits here on a Sunday morning or let's bring them in front of the leadership. Here at Sunrise, we bring them in front of the leadership. You we as the leadership are the representatives of Sunrise.

We try not to bring someone who is in in sin up in front of the entire church. We do try and let you know what's going on, but for their protection and for propriety's sake and and so forth, we're trying not to let you know all the the nitty-gritty details on all that stuff. But that's just so you know how we we work that stuff out here. Now, family, we again need to understand though that that separation is not supposed to be a forever thing. The goal has to be towards restoration.

That is the desire. Our God is a God of restoration. If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And we are so thankful for that because on the regular, I'm sinning. I'm screwing up.

I'm making mistakes. And I am glad that my God does not cast me out because I did that stupid thing forever how many times I've done it at that point. So our goal has to be the same thing. Even in those situations where there's like horrible, horrible things that have been done and accomplished because you think about it because you're go like, "Yeah, but I know, but somebody did this thing and this stuff and such." And then you're like, "Jesus cross, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do." Right?

And what are we to be? Imitators of God. And you're like, "But I can't do that." Right? In and of ourselves in this flesh, I couldn't forgive any of you. Any kind of forgiveness that I'm able to extend comes because the Holy Spirit of God is inside of me and gives me the power and the ability to forgive.

The things that have been perpetrated against me, no human would want to forgive. And yet, by the grace of God, I'm able to forgive. Because some of you are like, "Well, you know, Chris, you're a pretty good guy and you're a pastor. It's in the job description. You have to forgive." No, I don't.

But I can because of Christ and the spirit working through me. Paul says that believers who are becoming imitators, who are walking in the light, are to expose. They are to expose them. But to expose what? They're to expose the works of darkness which are in them.

But this exposing light is not necessarily what you think. Again, this is not putting everything all over the social media. This is just by the virtue of us living like Christ, being imitators of God, who we are, the character that we display begins to shine that light. I I'm sure most of us in this room have been around that person that you're just like, "Golly, man, I don't know if I've ever seen an angel, but that might be one that those people that just are in your presence and you're like, you've got to be kidding me. how they've lived their lives, how they demonstrate situations, how they handle difficulties, how they diff how they handle attacks, how they handle these different situations and circumstances are just so different than the rest of the world. We're like, "Wow." And that is who we are to be.

That our lives as we're walking around are so different that the world just is confused. Here's an example. Those couples that wait for sex before marriage. How rare is that? Even within the church today, so common even within the church today.

And yet, when we suddenly see that couple that is so respectful to one another and God's desire that they not commit sexual immorality, which includes sex before marriage, you're just like, "Wow, that is so other." Or what about that per that giver? That person who who has an incredible income and yet they live far under their means so that they can then give like no one else in the world, no one else that you've ever known. How is it that this person who already doesn't make very much is able to then turn around and give to such a degree and it makes us go, "Wow, that's incredible." Or that person, the forgiver, the person who refuses to trash their ex, the person who refuses to sue their brother or feed a grudge to ex and and just to expose revenge culture upon the world. People who refuse, who have a reason to complain, a a person who has a reason to attack but refuses to do that, but instead chooses to forgive. Paul continues.

He says, "For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret." Now this shamefulness, this is more than hanging your head or just blushing. This is disgraceful, degrading, and it is morally ugly. The idea here is that as children of the light, we are so in the light that we don't even focus on things that are done in secret. It's like, I'm not even necessarily as concerned about what's going on over here. Now, if it comes to light, then obviously, as we talked about before, we have to address it.

But we need to be so focused on Christ that we're walking in the ways of Christ. We're not focused on the horrible things that are over here. And again, this is countercultural. What is most everything that shows up in our news feeds? Stuff that is disgraceful, stuff that is ugly, stuff that is degrading.

That is everywhere around us. And those are not the things that we are supposed to be focused on. Now, at this point, you may be wondering, "But how will they know? How will these people know that they're wrong for doing these things?" Well, Paul talks about that in verse 13. He says, "But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light.

For whatever makes manifest is life." This all things. So whether it's it is of God or whether it's Antichrist, the light will expose it. It will make it true. It will make it evident. Just by being a faithful believer living in the light of Christ, your life will make evident that which is not of God.

And some of you know what this is. You go into a workplace and everything around you is darkness. And you're the oddball out. And part of the reason why they're oddball, part of the reason why you begin to get persecuted is because you are exposing people. And they don't necessarily tell you.

They don't even necessarily know why. But you're sticking out like a sore thumb, as they say. It will be made evident. Their works will be made evident. The foolishness and the despicableness will be made evident.

So maybe you've been persecuted again in life for living for Christ. and you've been persecuted because you didn't give into temptation. That's because this is being exposed. You've been called a hater maybe because you've not affirmed that the world says what the world says is okay. When God's created order affirms that it's not and it's it's God's created order being demonstrated through you. It's made manifest.

It's made clear. This word manifest is where we get our word clear. It becomes clearly evident. Yet, here's the struggle. Just because something is made clear in a loving godly way does not mean that it will be accepted.

Right? The truth is offensive. People do not like to hear the real truth when they are following a lie. You've probably most of us have been attacked when we have shared the truth again in a loving godly way. Because when people are offended, what do we label that in our culture?

That's unloving. You made me feel bad. That's not loving. Yet the flip side is true. It would be unloving not to expose untruth in that loving way.

And Paul shows this and demonstrates this in Romans chapter 1. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead. This is literally the creation itself shining the light to the world that God exists. And and what does he say? Because of the creation of the world, because of what is so clearly seen, they are without excuse.

Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but because but became feudal in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. professing to be wise, they became fools and and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and for-footed animals and creeping things. This is what the world does when they see God's goodness in this life. Either they will accept or they will reject. And that's something that we need to understand because so many of us, we're afraid to share the truth of the hope that is within us because we're afraid that people are going to reject us. But here's the thing.

They rejected Jesus. So why would we think that we're any different? They rejected the apostles. So why would we think that we are any different? When we share that truth, many, many people, potentially, possibly seemingly the majority of people are going to reject.

And yet we still need to walk in the light. We still need to

Chapter 12: Ephesians

5:14, Awake and Walk in the Light share the truth. Now Paul finishes out this section verse 14 saying, "Therefore he says,"Awake you who sleep and arise from the dead and Christ will give you light." Now this entire verse is somewhat of an enigma to the scholars because it looks like it's a quote from the Old Testament, but it's not. There's no verse that we can find that is exactly this. even even combinations of verses might be it, but we're not sure. I mean, they've pulled Isaiah 26 and Isaiah 51, Isaiah 52, Isaiah 60, saying if if you combine all the words between all of this stuff, you might get this thing. But this is the thing we need to understand.

It is of God. And how do we know that? Because Paul is inspired by the Holy Spirit. He is writing this. It's part of the canon.

It is of God and it is true. Now the question is what does it mean? What does it mean? So what it seems to do is be indicating that a believer who is alive has walked out of walking in the light and has walked back essentially to the graveyard. Right?

We were once dead. We were lost. We in our trespasses. And some of these believers sometimes we wander our way back and start acting like we're still dead. And maybe some of you know what I'm talking about.

You're not dead. You're pretending to be dead. You're an alive person pretending to be a zombie. You're cosplaying, if you will. You're trying to act like you're this dead person.

What Paul is saying is awake. Come back and live like you're supposed to. Come back and be who it is you're supposed to be. Start acting like the believer that you are. And this is the thing that's incredible because we think, "Oh, I'm all the way over here.

I've lost my salvation. Nonsense. We already know that that's guaranteed. Salvation is guaranteed. Amen.

It cannot nor will it ever be lost. Even if we're walking once again in this graveyard. But think about it like this way. Most of us know the the uh the parable of the prodigal son from Luke 15. This is a guy who is the son of the father takes his inheritance and ends up in a pig trough eating with the pigs, eating the scraps of pigs.

That's the picture of what we're talking about here. But even with that, the young man realizes who he is. And what does he do? He comes back. And he comes back repentant.

But then notice what happens after that. When the father sees the son, what does he do? He runs to him. And this is the thing you need to understand about our God. No.

No matter how far we wander off, he is ready and willing to come back and renew that light in our lives. We do not lose our salvation, but we can go and walk in darkness. And what Paul is saying and calling these Ephesians to, if this is you, and if this is you, 21st century Americans or whatever country that you're listening from right now, if that is you, come back and walk in the light because that is what we've been called to. That is what we've been called to. Now we remember as we conclude, we were in darkness.

Now we are the light. And the light does not have to raise its voice to expose a room. It only has to be present. The fruit grows. The light grows with inside of us.

It It's not something again that we have to chase after. It's not something that we have to attain. that righteousness is available to us at any time. Truth means that nothing again ends up being left to hide. It is revealed as real and true. And when a believer wanders back into the graveyard, the call is not to be saved all over again.

The call is again to stand up because Christ provides the light and the father again is already running towards us. And so here's three things we can take into this week. First, name it. Take the one thing you would not want to be brought into the light and confess that. And my guess is there's many of those in this room right now.

There's many of those in that room in this room right now. Confess that thing this week. And stop carrying it in the dark. Second, test it before you speak, before you spend, before you click, or before you joke. Ask whether or not whatever that thing is is acceptable to God.

If you walk around and you think, "Okay, God, all of this stuff is yours, but this is mine." You're not walking in the light. Because everything that we have is his. Third, go get someone. There's a believer near you who's wandered. Go in gentleness and and aim at restoration.

Aim at restoring relationship with them. And if you if you say the words right now as I'm saying this, but I don't know how. Ask and it will be given to you. Family, we are not walking toward the light alone. We're not.

We are the light now. Let's walk like indeed we are the light. Let's pray. Father God, thank you so much again for these words, these challenging, encouraging words. And Lord, I pray that the things that have been discussed this morning, the things that can so easily trip us up because Lord, in reality, a lot of this stuff is just counter to anything that we've grown up on, Lord, that we would find ourselves falling to our knees and asking you to help us to understand what this stuff even means.

Lord, thank you so much for for men such as Paul who were willing to pay such a price that that he was willing to write down such words as this, not necessarily knowing how they would be they would be taken, how they would be responded to, but willing to write these things down because they're the truth. And I pray that we as a church family, as individuals, would indeed be more about walking in the light as you, Lord, are the light. And it's in your name we pray. Amen.