"Not Even a Shadow" Ephesians 5:7-14 Sunday Morning Worship Service

I'll read for us, beginning in verse seven, down through verse fourteen.

This is a, you know, it's like all of Ephesians, it's hard to tell where one paragraph starts and or ends and another one begins, because Ephesians is basically one long run-on sentence here.

But I think starting at verse seven and treating verse seven through fourteen as one complete thought will be helpful for us.

Verse 7.

Therefore, do not become partners with them, them being the sons of disobedience from verse 6.

For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

Walk as children of the light.

For the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.

But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible.

For anything that becomes visible is light.

Therefore it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine in you.

This passage in Ephesians 5 certainly describes a war of worldviews.

It is written by Paul to the Ephesians culture, the culture of Ephesus, a culture that celebrated immorality, a culture that celebrated sin.

They called vice a virtue and virtue vice, a culture that was turned on its head morally.

And as you understand, Paul's logic here in Ephesians 5, it's not confined to Ephesus, but it's a transcendent logic.

This is something that is true of every culture from Babel to present-day United States of America.

We are prone occasionally to viewing our own culture's sin and depravity as unique, as if we were the first culture in the world to go to war against the Bible, but it is not so.

It is perennial.

It is every culture really in world history that has gone to war against the Bible.

And by the way, when you say going to war against the Bible, you mean going to war against God.

People are angry at the Bible, not because they're angry at the Bible, but because they're angry at the God of the Bible.

People hate the Bible, not because they obviously have read it or studied it or anything, but they hate the Bible because they hate the God who wrote the Bible.

And so it is typical of cultures to be hostile to God and to his word.

In our own present-day American culture, you see the Bible referred to as hate speech, which is another way of saying, of course, that God is hateful.

If you're calling the Bible hate speech, the author of the Bible would then be considered hateful.

And this is true today.

A Christian's role in society today is to basically be quiet and not expose the deeds of darkness to just accommodate everybody and their sexual deviance or their materialism or any of the sins really in Ephesians 5.

When you look at the list of sins that Paul condemns here, it's coarse jesting and filthiness and foolish talk and covetousness, which I'm going to just call materialism in our own American world, idolatry, sexual immorality.

I mean, these are the sins that are practiced by the sons of disobedience.

These are the sins that are practiced in the Ephesian world, the Roman world, and are certainly practiced and celebrated in our own world today.

I said earlier that every culture in world history has gone to war against God, from Babel to Israel to America.

You recognize the Bible isn't predominantly about America, but America doesn't stand out from the other nations of the world.

In fact, if you look at the Old Testament, most of the Old Testament is about Israel, and Israel certainly knew who God was, and most of the Old Testament is about Israel rebelling against God.

The nations of the earth at Babel decided to build a tower up to God.

I mean, who does God think he is up in heaven like that?

They're going to build up to God and show God who's in charge.

And I just love the condescending language in Genesis 11 that God decided to go down and see what was going on.

Nice tower you got.

Our culture, although once described as a Christian culture, has certainly always been at war against God.

It's kind of a pastime of some people to try to identify one generation of American history as worse or as better than another.

But sin and open rebellion against God has been part of our nation's history since its founding, which is true also of every nation.

With that said, there's also simply no denying that what you see in our culture today is also different than what you've seen before.

You do see a wholesale moral revolution in our culture.

I read that Carl Truman book that I've talked often about, read uh this summer, had a very interesting observation that I'd never heard said quite this clearly before.

But if you go back to, you know, the 1800s, the Bible in our country was kind of considered to be true.

Its default position was truth.

Even if you had some kind of unitarian view of God or some kind of, you know, all roads of all religions leave to God, which was common even in the 1800s, there was still the supposition the Bible was true.

You get to the 1900s, and it's more of a the jury is still out kind of thing.

Maybe it's true for some, maybe it's not true for some, whatever you want to do.

Kind of relativistic.

The Bible could be true for you or not true for you, who cares?

You go to present day, certainly the Bible is under attack, and its default position is that it's not true.

You think the Bible's true, you better defend it.

Nobody's gonna assume that it is true.

I remember being in California in the Proposition 8 court case, which was certainly covered and portrayed differently in California than it was in the rest of the country.

That was the Proposition 8 was the constitutional amendment in California defining marriage as heterosexual.

It was uh people sued against it, and the federal judge struck it down.

In the rest of the country, it was certainly portrayed as a case about gay rights and definition of marriage.

But in California, and the judge's ruling was very clear, it wasn't even about that.

The judge's ruling was essentially that Christians voted disproportionately in this election than in other elections.

Uh, it was President Obama's first election, and a lot of the black churches had come out in droves, and Christians voted disproportionately they had before.

And Christians voted overwhelmingly in favor of Proposition 8.

Therefore, it was a Christian sexual ethic.

What the Bible teaches about sexual identity and what the definition of marriage is, that Christians were trying to apply to the country or to the state, and because it was influenced or directed by the Bible and the Christian sexual ethic, therefore that was an unconstitutional violation of church and state.

Because, in other words, to make it even shorter, because Christians voted in accordance with what the Bible said, therefore their votes can't be counted.

And that was the ruling.

And it wasn't heard on appeal.

The Supreme Court didn't pick up the appeal, and so that stands to this day in California.

Again, not even predominantly about sexual immorality, although certainly see the connection between sexual immorality and silencing believers.

And to be clear, I'm not saying that this current generation of, you know, denying God and attacking the Bible and abortion and sexual celebrating sexual immorality is worse than previous generations that celebrated slavery or segregation or is better than those generations either.

I'm not, it's a kind of a fool's errand to pit one generation against another in our depravity.

We're all depraved.

But I do want to note that it is common for some to try to find a political solution to a culture's decline into depravity.

There are those that want to minimize the sins of our current generation in order to justify voting for those that celebrate them.

And there are those that want to perhaps exaggerate how bad our society in our world is to motivate people to find a political solution for it.

Whenever you find a political solution for a spiritual problem, you're not, I think, really barking up the right tree.

And I know elections have consequences, and elections matter, and political leaders can restrain evil or advance evil.

I get that's true, and I'm thankful for leaders that restrain evil, and I pray for more leaders that would restrain evil.

And so I know elections are significant, but that's that's not my point, nor is it Paul's point in Ephesians 5.

Paul's point in Ephesians 5 is that culture is at war against God.

And what are you gonna do about it?

And the solution in Ephesians 5, verses 7 through 14, is not go vote the right way.

Ephesians 5:7–14

What are you gonna do about it, Paul says?

And he's gonna describe a life that goes from darkness to light.

What this picture is of here in Ephesians 5, verses 7 through 14 is about people that are born into darkness that will leave the darkness and come to the light.

Ephesians 5:7–14

That's what this is describing.

If you understand that you're born without saving faith, then you are born into a culture that is at war against God.

Whether the American culture, the Israeli culture, the Roman culture, you're born into a culture that is at war against God.

You're gonna grow up in that culture.

You're gonna grow up with the vices that are described in Ephesians 5 being normal in the world around you.

And then at some point, you come to faith in Christ and you are transferred from the domain of darkness to use the language of Ephesians 2, you're transferred to from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of his light.

So you go from darkness to light at your conversion.

And your life gets altered, and you go from living in darkness to living in the light, from being darkness to being light.

That's the change that takes place as you're, in a sense, relocated.

That's what Paul is describing in Ephesians 5, verses 7 through 14.

Ephesians 5:7–14

That transfer from darkness to light, and then how you live that out, how that transfer manifests itself in your life.

Earlier in Ephesians 5, he was talking about very personal sins.

Our first sermon in this series, I titled Not Even a Hint because of the language in Ephesians 5, verse 2.

Ephesians 5:2

There should be not even a hint of sexual immorality in the church.

Next sermon I titled Not Even a Whisper, because Paul says there should be no hint of that foolish or coarse jesting and crude joking, filthy speech.

It's out of place, he says in verse 4.

So there should be not a hint of sexual immorality, not even a whisper of inappropriate speech.

And this little paragraph here, I'm calling not even a shadow, because he says those Christians go from darkness to light, they should be putting the shadows behind them, they should be putting the darkness behind them and living out in the light.

And what transitions here between the very personal sins of a sexual nature at the beginning of Ephesians 5 to sins of a verbal nature coming from the heart, very personal is what you're speaking inside of your heart.

He's going to a more cultural phenomenon here that you're living in a culture that speaks of uh sinful activity, that celebrates sinful activity, that they do some deeds in secret that are shameful, and you're expected to condone them or at the very least not draw attention to them, just to accept them and move on.

That's the culture he's describing.

And you're going from that to leading a life in the light.

And so he's moving from personal sins to sins that are happening in the world around you.

And so that's why it's important to locate this paragraph in your mind.

It's important to locate it in a cultural context, in a culture that celebrates sin and promotes immorality, as do all cultures.

And then to challenge you to move from darkness to light.

You're walking the darkness, you want to walk in the light.

There's three steps to go from darkness to light.

And I reiterate all my caveats.

This is true about every culture in the world.

It's not saying that one culture is worse than another.

Every culture is sinful and a rebellion against God.

The exact nature of these sexual sins and sins of the mouth and sins of the heart as far as covetousness and idolatry, the exact nature of those sins will be different culture to culture.

But the point is the cultures are in rebellion against God, and the solution isn't political, it's personal.

As you turn from darkness to light.

Leave the darkness.

Don't partner with them, he says in verse 7.

That's the first imperative in this paragraph.

Therefore, do not become partners with them.

Notice even the way it's worded, become partners, there's this implication that you've gone from darkness to light.

Now that you're in the light, don't become partners with those that are still in the darkness.

The partnership has been severed at your conversion.

You've gone from darkness to light.

You're supposed to be walking in love and in life and in the light of Jesus Christ.

So don't now re-up your partnership with those in the evil, those in the darkness, those in the world.

You need to separate her, as he tells the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 6, come out from among them.

What partnership does light have with darkness?

What partnership does Christ have with Belial?

Come out from among them, Paul says.

He's not telling you to cease all contact with people in the world.

Of course, if he were to tell you that, you'd have to leave the world.

But he's telling you to cease partnership with those in darkness, with the sons of disobedience, is the phrase in verse 6.

Now, the word for partners, it's very similar to the, the Greek word is very similar in meaning to the English word of a business partner.

The Greek word has this implication of your fortunes are tied to somebody else's fortune.

You remember the three-legged race where you know that they used to do in the pre-COVID world in elementary schools, you know, you tie your legs to each other and the three legs race across the field.

Well, you and your partner are going to finish at the same time.

You're not going to get first and somebody else second, somebody else third, and then your partner fourth.

You're tied together.

That's this word for partnership or a business partnership.

You know, if you're a business partner with somebody and the business does well, you both gain income.

If the business does poorly, you both lose income.

If your business partner declares bankruptcy, you're not far behind.

That's the concept.

Your fortunes are tied together.

And there's a Greek word for that, and that's the word that's used here, where Paul says, don't become partners with the sons of disobedience.

And the implication is because the end of their fortunes, how their story ends, if you're tied to them, your story will end the same way.

Well, how does their story end?

Verse 6 tells you the wrath of God will come upon them.

Their story ends with hell.

Their story ends with God's judgment.

The wrath of God will come upon them.

So if you're tied to them, if you're handcuffed to them when they die, where do you get drug?

He's saying if you're partners with the sons of disobedience, then hell is your destination also.

He's not saying Christians can lose their salvation, or he's not saying that.

He's not saying that.

He's not saying there will be Christians to go to hell.

He's certainly not saying that.

He's using that structure of an argument to compel you to break from darkness to light.

He says it differently, 1 Corinthians 15, 33.

Bad company corrupts good morals.

You come to faith in Christ, you change who you're spending your time with.

You change the kind of friends that you have, because over time, bad company will corrupt good morals.

And you might say, the immature Christian might say, not me.

Bad company doesn't corrupt me because I am invincible.

No, bad company corrupts good morals.

As Proverbs 32 says, birds of a feather flock together.

It's not really Proverbs 32.

Don't look that up.

You need to separate from those in the darkness when you come to faith in Christ.

Now, I think more mature believers understand this.

If you've been following the Lord five, 10, 15 years, you you have this, I think you understand that principle.

Because your heart has changed over the course of following Jesus in your Christian life.

You know, you've been a Christian 10 years.

The kind of friends you have and the kind of things you love in this world have changed, where really you're not even drawn necessarily to being friends with people who live who live in the world because they like different things than you like, and they watch different things than you watch, and they talk differently than you talk, and you know, you're raising your kids and they're raising their dogs or whatever.

And, you know, you just have different lifestyles that draw you to each other.

It's just different, and so the friendships kind of run out.

That's a normal thing that happens.

But this is a very much an entry-level point about this, that for the new believer, this is important to understand.

When you come to faith in Christ, there's going to be a big difference in who you should be spending your time with.

I remember when I came to, when I got saved, this was a this was a big deal for me.

I got saved between, you know, right before I started college.

I played soccer in college, and my teammates, for the most part, the team was young, we were all, you know, most of the team was fresher.

We'd played club soccer together growing up.

I've been friends with these guys for years.

We'd been going to parties together for years.

We'd been going on road trips with our club team for years together.

These were these were my friends.

We all go to college together, only now I'm a Christian.

And so I want to justify it in my mind.

I want to keep going to the same parties, but I know the things that were happening there were sinful, so in my mind, I'll just go to the parties, but I won't sin with everybody else.

That's the logic.

You know, there was one Mormon on the team.

I was the one Christian, there was one Mormon.

It was the two of us that were weird at parties.

Then he gets raptured right at the beginning of the year and goes on his mission trip.

I didn't even know he was a Mormon.

He just disappears.

What happened to Joseph?

Oh, he's in Korea for two years.

What?

Now it's me.

Just stuck there.

You think I'll go and I'll use it as an evangelistic opportunity.

Well, that's just weird for you and for them.

You know, you can't have a serious conversation in that kind of environment.

The kind of sober conversation that the gospel demands doesn't really take place there.

Some of my teammates did end up coming to faith by the end of my time in college, and it was not because I went to parties with them.

But rather, people were actually able to sit down and share the gospel with them.

That's how people come to faith in Christ to hear the word of God.

You can't justify evangelistic outreach as an excuse to be partners with those who are sons of disobedience.

And this is something that new Christians have to learn.

New Christians need to be told that because new Christians don't, you know, they might know it in their heart, but they need a little bit of help because they don't have it all figured out.

So this is very much an entry-level point that you're supposed to leave the darkness, as it says in verse 7.

Don't be partners with them.

Because you used to be darkness, verse 8 says.

Or verse 11, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.

Don't participate with them.

Separate from them.

Again, Paul's not saying you can't have any acquaintances in the world.

Okay, you're in your neighborhood and you get asked to serve on the pool board in your neighborhood, and the other members on the local neighborhood pool board are not Christians, and you are a Christian.

You can't say, no, I can't serve on the pool board because of Ephesians 5, verse 7.

Ephesians 5:7

Would be a good excuse.

Probably not a valid use of verse 7.

You can be on the pool board with non-believers unless being on the pool board leads to friendships, it leads you to compromising your morals and loving things in the world and starting to live and act and talk like the people of the world, then that's a danger.

So then, yes, it is talking about that.

And separate and grow, mature, and you're faithful.

But I mean, that's the push here.

For you to be aware of what's affecting you, for you to be aware of what you're starting to link your fortunes to.

Don't partner with them.

Paul says.

Clearly, he's talking at the very least about marriage.

A believer shouldn't marry a non-believer.

Because think of the grief and harm that will cause.

Either you're going to stop caring about what's most important to you for the sake of your unbelieving spouse, in which case you're compromised, or you're going to can hold fast to your faith, in which case it's conflict after conflict.

It's totally avoidable beyond just marriage, certainly he's talking about friendships that alter your desires and alter your motives in life and alter your ethics.

Bad company corrupts good morals.

What will happen is the weeds of the world will choke out your faith.

You can't live in both worlds successfully.

You can't live in darkness and light successfully.

One will overpower the other.

And so Paul says don't partner with them.

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime, right?

And here the time is eternity.

The time is God's wrath.

So Paul says, think about that before you lock arms with the sons of disobedience.

So first, leave the darkness.

Second, live in the light.

Live in the light.

This becomes the imperative in verse 8.

Walk as children of the light in the middle of the verse.

Walk as children of the light.

This is the fourth walk command in Ephesians.

We had an indicative back in Ephesians 2.

God has appointed good works for you to walk in.

So there's this when you come to faith in Christ, God has already laid out where you'll be walking.

That's predestined by God before time.

He has appointed you not only for salvation, but also for good works to walk in.

So that's Ephesians 2.

Then Ephesians 4 starts this list of four walk imperatives, four commands to walk.

Ephesians 4, verse 1, walk in unity, walk with other believers.

Ephesians 4:1

Ephesians 4, verse 17, walk in holiness, separate from the world, sanctify yourself.

Ephesians 4:17

Ephesians 5, verse 1, walk in love towards other believers.

Ephesians 5:1

Or 5 verse 2, I guess.

Walk in love as Christ loved us.

And then here, walk in light.

When you take all this together, you're supposed to walk in unity, holiness, love, and light.

You're united to other believers, so you walk differently than the world.

You're walking with love towards those you're united to, and that is walking in the light.

The progress of your walk, the progress of your life is illuminated by God and His Word.

I say live in the light.

The command is walk, but the idea of walk, you know, it's an idiom for the normal way you're walking your life, where you're wearing your path out, where you're walking every day.

You want to walk in the light.

You're commanded to walk in unity, holiness, love, and light.

I love how here for the negative command, Paul gives you a negative reason.

For the positive command, he gives you a positive reason.

So the negative, what I mean by that, he says, don't partner with them so that you don't go to hell.

But do walk in the light because you are light.

Do you see how the negative command is a negative reason?

The positive command is a positive reason, which just keeps you away from legalism.

He's telling you to do these things.

You stop partnering with them so you avoid hell, but you do these things, you start walking in the light, not because you're earning or meriting anything, but because of what God's already done to you.

Positively, what God's done to you should compel your action.

He says, walk in the light because you are light.

Our minds play tricks on us.

You probably think this says.

And now you are light.

Darkness is, you know, obscuring and death and deceit.

Immorality, sinful.

That's what darkness is.

But now when you come to light, it's the opposite of all those things.

It's not immoral, it's moral.

It's not deceit, it's truth.

It's not evil, but it's goodness.

It's not death, but life.

It's not hiding, but exposure.

This is why John, 1 John 1, says that God is light.

1 John 1, verse 5.

1 John 1:5

God is light.

He himself is light.

God illuminates.

God is pure action.

He reveals himself.

God overflows into the world.

So he illuminates himself.

God is the speaker, he speaks the world into existence.

And he reveals himself to us.

If God didn't reveal himself, we wouldn't know him.

The only way we can know truth, and God is truth, the only way we can know truth is if God lights it up.

And God is light.

In other words, God is self-disclosing.

He's illuminating himself.

How do you see light?

How do you see light?

Well, you turn the light on.

Well, how do you see the light that's coming?

It's just that's what happens.

You see light.

That's God.

God reveals himself.

Now sin hides God.

We sang the song earlier, though the darkness hide thee.

Darkness and tries to obscure God, the clouds can block out the light, but God Himself is revealing.

And so the command here is that you have left the darkness because you were darkness, and now you are in the light because you are our light.

God has revealed Himself to you, making you light.

You are now in the light of Christ.

God is revelation.

Christ is the very light of God incarnate.

And you, through faith in Christ, are linked to Christ.

And so you are light because you are in the light.

Your deeds have been exposed, and you are illuminated, and the Holy Spirit has opened your eyes and you understand truth, you are light.

Revelation 21, verse 3 says, God's glory is his light.

Revelation 21:3

You seek to glorify God, you are light.

Because he is light.

And light causes growth.

You understand this principle.

Light causes growth.

You want your plants to grow, make sure they have sun.

We have a fig tree in our sunroom.

The fig tree grows figs, supposedly.

Our cat eats them, I think.

Wretched animal that it is.

But the light, in theory, grows fruit.

It's the same with you.

If you are light because you're in God's light, you should be producing fruit in keeping with light.

Well, the fruit of darkness is obvious.

It's sin, it's lies, it's deceit.

But the fruit of light is also obvious.

It is, well, it's listed here for you in verse 9.

The fruit of light is found in what is good, right, and true.

What does light produce, verse 9 says?

It produces goodness.

It's a moral term, like morally good as opposed to darkness, which is morally wicked.

ESV says good and right.

The word right there is the word for righteousness.

You're declared righteous by faith in God.

It's the righteousness that God has through your faith in Christ.

He declares you to be righteous.

It's a judicial term.

You are made sinless.

You are made righteous because of your faith in God.

That's the fruit of light.

This is what God does.

God sanctifies.

And you are made good and right and true because God is true.

He reveals himself.

I mean, light can't hide.

Light is self-revealing.

After first hour, somebody showed me a really cool picture of a match that was lit with a light.

Maybe you've seen this picture.

I'd never seen it before.

A match that was lit with a floodlight shining on it, and so in the wall behind it, you see the shadow of the match.

But you don't see the shadow of the light.

It's really cool.

The shadow looks like a match that's unlit, and yet there's a flame burning.

That's the nature of light.

Light doesn't cast a shadow, light removes shadow.

Light illuminates, and when you come to faith in Christ, your life goes from shadows to light.

You're supposed to live in the light.

You're supposed to walk in goodness and walk in righteousness and walk in truth.

Those in darkness don't promote goodness.

You know, when light and darkness come together, either the light overpowers the darkness or the darkness obscures the light.

This is why you can't partner, Paul says, with non-believers.

You're supposed to leave the darkness, otherwise it will corrupt you.

You know, I think of Haggai chapter 2.

Haggai 2 · chapter mention

If the priest has something that's pure and he touches something that's impure, does what is impure, what is dirty, become clean because it touched something pure?

And maybe you're not familiar with the Levitical priest laws, so let me use a more American analogy.

If one of your kids' French fries falls on the floor and they take it and they rub it on all the rest of their food, does that clean the rest of the food?

You follow the logic?

But mom, I can eat the fry that fell on the floor because it's now touched all my other clean food, and so the germs have gone away.

Well, no, it has now ruined everything else.

Light when it comes into contact with darkness will either expose the darkness, or the Christian who's trying to live in the light, when he comes in contact with darkness, he'll either expose it, or he himself will be corrupted.

And so Paul says, separate from them and now walk in the light.

Live in light.

Look at verse 10.

What does living in light sound like?

Well, it's trying to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

The fruit of light is found in all that is good, right, and true, so try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

You know, I've had somebody complain recently about this passage here.

They wish this passage was more practical.

Like, shouldn't it tell you what to do?

Like, shouldn't there be a list of six things to do before breakfast?

To walk in the light.

And instead he just says, try to discern what's pleasing to the Lord.

That word discern is the word for, it's not the normal word for discern.

It's the word for test.

It's the word that's the man in Luke says, Jesus, I can't follow you.

I need to go test my oxen.

I need to see if my oxen are strong before I follow you.

I mean, talk about a lame excuse.

It is that you're testing something to see if it's true or if it's counterfeit.

You know, you you hold up a$100 bill to the light and you look for the band to the middle of the bill, and like, oh, there's the band.

It's a true bill.

You're testing it.

That's this word.

You're trying to test something to see if it's pleasing to the Lord.

So how do you walk in the light?

You have a choice to make.

You hold it up to the light and you look for the band.

You hold it up to the light and you say, is this choice going to be pleasing to the Lord?

Will the Lord have joy?

Will this be pleasing to the Lord if I make this choice?

And if the answer is yes, then it's walking in the light.

And if the answer is no, then it's walking in the darkness.

Paul doesn't give you a list of things you're supposed to do here.

He just says, ask yourself, does my life seek to be pleasing to the Lord?

That's the baseline level of Christianity here.

Do you love the Lord?

And if so, do you want to be pleasing to him?

So ask yourself before you do something, would this be pleasing to Jesus?

Is it pleasing to the Lord?

Test it.

Hold it up to the light.

You know, the Bible gives you examples.

If you just search for what the Lord's desire is in the New Testament, you'll find all you'll find all kinds of things.

You know, it's God's desire.

The Lord delights not in damning people, but in saving people.

1 Timothy 2, verse 3 through 4.

1 Timothy 2:3–4

The Lord desires that people everywhere be saved.

So God desires you to be saved.

God desires you to be sanctified.

That's all over Ephesians 5.

God wants you to walk in the light.

Or 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3, very straightforward verse.

1 Thessalonians 4:3

This is the will of the Lord, your sanctification.

It's not a complicated verse right there.

Like, oh man, I wanted it to tell me which job to take or what school to go to or who to marry.

No, this is the will of the Lord, your sanctification.

That's what God wants for you, you to be sanctified.

God wants you to be submissive, 1 Peter chapter 2 says.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

This is the will of the Lord, that you submit to the authorities above you, so you silence evildoers.

Hebrews 9, verse 14, God wants you to be serving in the church.

Hebrews 9:14

Philippians 1, verse 29.

Philippians 1:29

It's the will of the Lord that you would suffer for the sake of Christ.

You take all those together, what's God's will for your life?

That you'd be saved, that you'd be sanctified, that you would submit to the authorities above you, that you would serve in the church, and that you'd suffer for Jesus' sake.

That's what's pleasing to the Lord.

The rest is just kind of details.

So Paul says, don't take part in the unfruitful works of darkness, verse 11 says.

Don't contaminate your Christian life.

Instead, walk in the light.

Test the things in your life to see if they're good and pleasing to the Lord.

This is what a Christian does.

A Christian says, I want to know if this will be pleasing to Jesus, and then you do that.

So first, you leave the darkness.

Secondly, you now start walking light.

Do you see the progress?

You leave the darkness.

Now you're walking in the light.

But that's not where your Christian life ends.

You don't just leave, the Christian life is not just about not sinning, and it's not just about not sinning, but yes, obeying.

There's a third component to it.

The third step Paul describes here is that you light up the night.

You expose the deeds of darkness.

Verse 11 says, take no part in unfruitful works of darkness.

Instead, expose them.

You're lighting up the night.

Notice he says, he doesn't say expose those people.

He says expose their works.

Expose the sinful and unfruitful works of darkness.

Expose them.

The word expose them rather just means illuminate.

Cast your light on them.

Draw attention to it.

Light it up so that everybody can see it for what it is.

Sin festers in the darkness.

Sin grows in the darkness.

Sin prospers where there's ambiguity about what it is.

So shine a light on it.

Light reveals what you're dealing with.

Light transforms it.

You suddenly see it for what it really is.

Last night my family was leaving a friend's house and walking through their yard to get to our car, and there was tree roots in the grass, and so we take out our flashlights and light up the roots, and they're not dangerous.

You just, when you see them, they just walk over them and get in the car and drive away.

That's what light does.

It removes the danger.

They were dangerous, put a light on it, not dangerous anymore.

Around you in the world is filled with tree roots.

There's all kinds of things that are dangerous for Christians in the world if they're not lit up.

You shine the light on it and the danger goes away because you see it for what it is.

Darkness traffics in lies, but Christians expose the darkness by shining the light on it, bringing truth to it, which is kind of where we circled back to the beginning.

At the beginning, we talked about how you shouldn't partner with those in the darkness.

They want you to be quiet.

They don't want you to identify their sin.

They'd rather you just accept it and celebrate it.

And, you know, the whole in our culture right now is off the charts with this.

If you give something a good-sounding name, then it's good.

And it's hate speech to give something a bad-sounding name, but here you're commanded to name things what they are.

It's shameful in verse 12 to even speak of the things they do in secret.

Again, speaking particularly of sexually immoral sins here, it's shameful to even speak about them.

They do it in secret.

But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible.

So how do you expose things that are shameful to speak about to the light?

Well, it starts by naming, calling it the right name.

Say what it is.

If something's a sin, you call it a sin.

If something is sexual immorality, you call it sexual immorality.

And this is true not just even with sexual sin.

This is true with every sin.

You know, your kids complain, you know, and you discipline your kids.

You're not disciplining them for making your life difficult.

That's not a sin, making your life difficult.

You're not disciplining them for showing you sass or something like that.

You're disciplining them for grumbling, for complaining.

Those are sins, the Bible calls them sins.

You're disciplining them for not honoring their father and their mother.

There, that's a phrase in the Bible, and that's bad, and you use you call it the right names, and that exposes it for what it is.

That gets away from the argument about who was which kid was right and which kid was wrong and who started it.

You put all that aside.

When you name the thing the right name, you're grumbling, you're complaining.

Well, that goes all the way up into the grown-up world, doesn't it?

You know, when you call sins what the Bible calls them, sexual immorality, covetousness, anxiety, use the words the Bible uses.

It brings such moral clarity to convoluted issues.

When you just say what the Bible says about it, it exposes it.

It exposes it.

And when something is in the light, it's obvious how wicked it is.

And the light has that kind of revealing effect.

We talked about this a few weeks ago at the start of Ephesians 5.

You know, if you're dealing with sin in your life, you confess it to the Lord, of course.

But secondly, you confess it to somebody else because that attention helps shine the light on it.

That accountability doesn't keep you from sinning again, but it certainly is a motivation to sanctification.

Is the light that as something is known, it's sanctified, it's revealed.

Darkness does not want to do that.

Darkness traffics in lies.

But the fruit of light is truth.

And so you speak the truth about things.

And when you speak the truth about it, it becomes visible.

And Paul's not even making some kind of like, you know, profound, transcendent point here when he says anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible.

He's just, it's a truism.

When you turn the light on, you can see.

You follow that logic?

The light is turned on, you can see.

That's all he's saying.

And when something becomes visible, it is light because light is truth.

When you see it, you're able to understand what it really is.

So that's the full progress here of the Christian life.

That's how Paul's overarching path here.

Before he gets to more practical stuff in a few weeks, he starts with separate yourself from the darkness.

And then he goes to live, like actually obey and live in the light.

And then he ends with, now you're using your words to expose other sinful things, and that's going to have a sanctifying effect.

It's going to help other believers and it's going to convict non-believers, and other people are going to be convicted by your words, and some will hate you, and some will come to faith, and then wash, rinse, repeat.

It's the same process all over again.

But then this little stanza ends, this paragraph ends with something unexpected.

And I say unexpected because we haven't seen this before in Ephesians.

It ends with this little lyric from a song.

It says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

This is not an Old Testament quotation.

This is a most likely a song that was sung in church, a song that they would know.

Paul, before he wrote Ephesians, you know, had spent time in Ephesus with the church there.

He had worshiped with them over several Lord's days.

So he apparently is familiar with one of the songs that they sang in church.

And he quotes it back to them.

I love this.

It's a little window into what kind of songs they sang at church.

And did you look at this?

It's interesting to me that the song is even kind of addressing non-believers.

Awake, O sleeper.

And speaking of those that are still in the darkness.

So there's something about the Ephesian church that was attractive, that was drawing even people that weren't believers.

And I'm not saying it was secret-sensitive, like they were straight up being confronted by the song.

You know, they came to church and everybody's singing a song like, wake up, sleeper.

Sleeping, of course, is a euphemism for death.

You know, if somebody is asleep, it's a euphemism for saying that they're they're dead, and the song is calling them to wake up.

You know, it's we sing similar songs here.

We sang a song a few weeks ago, uh, Rise Up.

Uh I think this is what the name of the song was, and it had very similar lyrics to this.

You hear the voice of Jesus calling us to rise up out of the grave like Lazarus.

You're brand new, the power of death can't hold you, so rise up.

We sang that song, I think, two or three weeks ago.

That's this song practically.

Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Get out of your grave.

So think of the convicting element of that.

You come to church and there's a song about going from death to life.

You were dead in sins and trespasses, and now you're alive in Christ Jesus.

We sang, and can it be this morning?

I was in the dungeon, the dungeon flamed with light, my chains fell off, and my heart was free.

We sang that song of Confession this morning that Jesus Christ shine into our night, drive the dark of doubt away, and let your glory fill our eyes.

And we sing this practically the same song here.

Wake up, sleeper.

Arise from the dead, which you can't do yourself.

You understand that, right?

If you're dead, Lazarus couldn't make himself come out of the grave.

It required the voice of Jesus to say, Lazarus, come out.

When Jesus calls and you answer, you come out from the grave.

And Christ shines on you.

You go from darkness to light.

That's the transition that happens.

If you're here this morning and you have never trusted Jesus Christ, understand that this song in verse 14 is about you.

It's a command for you to wake up, to recognize that you're living in darkness, and to turn your eyes to the light of the world, namely Jesus Christ, who is the light of God, who comes to earth, who led a perfect life, who died a horrible death on the cross, paying the penalty for our sin, and then was buried into the grave.

And Jesus could take himself out of the grave because he's the author of life, and he rises up from the dead, and then through the Holy Spirit causes other people to place their faith in him as well.

This is the command that you go from darkness to light.

It's the command that you go from living and being partners and being in darkness because you are darkness to going to living and partnering, having unity with those in the light because you are light, and only Jesus can do that to a person through faith in him.

Lord, we're thankful that you have called us from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, from death to life.

And you've done that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As he rose from the grave, we now have a new life that we can live in and walk in.

That you would cause us to cling to you and grow in godliness as we seek to be conformed more and more to the image of Jesus Christ.

We know it's your work that does that in our life, and we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thank you for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and church information are on our website at ibc.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.