Ephesians 5:8-14

Those of you that know me well know that I have AI have a thing

for books. I think I have thousands of

them. 1952 John Steinbeck published East of Eden.

It's my favorite American novel and is in my estimation, the

best one ever written. It's a story that that retells

the story of Cain and Abel over multiple generations within

American context. The the central question that is

asked in this novel is is whether an individual's are are

trapped in the darkness that they inherit or whether they can

somehow rise above it. The novel turns on a single

word. It's drawn from the story of

Cain and Abel in in Genesis 47. In Hebrew, the word is Tim

shell. It means it means you must or or

you may or or thou mayest. And, and in context of, of

chapter 4, it speaks to resisting the sin that is

crouching at your door when, when the Lord is speaking to

Cain and saying, you know, if you do well, but if you don't,

if you don't, then sin is crouching at your door and, and

you must resist it. When Steinbeck presents,

presents this word, he presents it as a, as a word of

possibility, the idea that sin does not have to rule over you,

that it is possible for you to choose another path.

You know, it's, it's a powerful idea.

It it offers hope for an individual without without

denying the reality of of darkness that is inherent within

our world, but it also leaves the the weight of of change

resting squarely on the individual.

Yes, it's possible for you to overcome sin, but whether you do

so or not depends finally and ultimately on yourself.

When Paul writes Ephesians 5, he begins with the same dark

realism. In verses one through 70 names

sin without euphemism. He speaks of sexual immorality,

of impurity, of greed, and of corrupt speech.

And he warns that that these patterns ought not mark the

lives of those who are part of Christ's Kingdom.

But Paul goes out of his way to acknowledge that darkness is

real, that it's inherited, and that it is destructive.

But as we follow Paul's logic, he goes much further than than

Steinbeck ever could. In verse eight of our of our

text for today, Paul does not say that you may become light if

you choose Well, he says rather at one time you were darkness,

but now you are light in the Lord.

This is this is not the language of of possibility, but the

language of, of declaration. This is this is not an

invitation to do better, but an invitation to transformation.

Where when we read Steinbeck and we see the word Tim shell it,

you know Steinbeck, he places his hope in human freedom.

Paul places hope in union with Christ.

The gospel does not say merely that you may rise from darkness,

but it says that in Christ you have already been raised.

And because that is true, Paul can Paul can command his readers

to walk as children of light. Paul is.

Paul is not urging some type of self improvement.

He's proclaiming a spiritual awakening.

He's reminding the Ephesian believers that the that the

light has already broken in and that the power to walk in

holiness comes from Christ himself.

Steinbeck tells us you may. Paul tells us you are.

It's a vivid illustration between the difference between

human resolve and gospel power, between the between the hope of

choice and the certainty of grace.

Read with me, if you will, our text for today.

We'll be in Ephesians chapter 5, verses 8 through 14.

Ephesians 5:8–14

It reads, For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light

in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for

the fruit of light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and

truth. Trying to learn what is pleasing

to the Lord. Do not participate in the

unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.

For it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are

done by them in secret. But all things become visible

when they are exposed by the light.

For everything that becomes visible is light.

For this reason, it says Awake sleeper and arise from the dead

and Christ will shine on you. I think as we begin to unpack

this text for today, it's important to recognize it.

You know, verses 8 through 14 just don't just don't sit in a

vacuum somewhere that they that they don't stand on their own.

Paul is Paul is not beginning a new thought here, but is rather

drawing a conclusion that rests on everything that is already

said in the letter. In verse 8, Paul makes one of

the most definite statements in the New Testament about the

identity of Christians. You know, saying you were

formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

This sentence assumes that something decisive has already

happened. It assumes that that God has has

acted it. It assumes that the gospel has

done more than forgive, that it has transformed lives.

Turning back, if we go back to Ephesians 2 one through 5, it

reminds us that we were dead in our trespasses and sins, but God

being rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ.

Art and Lloyd Jones, when referencing those verses,

insisted that they destroy all moralism.

Christianity, he said, is not the polishing of the old man,

but the creation of a new man, Paul.

Paul is not saying live this way so that you might become a

light, but rather because God has made you light in the Lord.

Now live accordingly. The Christian.

The Christian's ethics, John Stott reminds us, always rests

on identity, not not the other way around.

Earlier in the chapter, Paul called the Ephesian believers to

imitate God and as beloved children to walk in love just as

Christ loved them and gave himself for us.

He then contrasted this this Christ shaped love with a life

marked by immorality, impurity, greed, and corrupt speech, all

sins belonging to the realm of darkness.

He goes on to warn in verses 6:00 and 7:00 that that such

behaviors will bring upon those who practice them the wrath of

God, and it concludes with a command not to share in them.

That was all free. By way of introduction, Paul

begins in verse 8 by marking A fundamental change in the nature

of believers, saying, you know, for you were formerly darkness,

but now you are light in the Lord walk as children of light.

Notice that. Notice that Paul does not say

merely that at one time we walked in darkness.

He says that we were darkness. The darkness was not merely our

environment, it was our identity.

That's reminiscent of the description of fallen humanity

that that's given by Paul in Romans 121, where he where he

describes him as being futile in their speculation with foolish

darkened hearts. The change that the Paul is

referencing here is not one that is just primarily ethical in in

nature. The competitor Hohner notes that

this change reflects a change of realm from the mid from the

dominion of darkness into the dominion of Christ's lordship.

Conversion, then is is not to be understood it just as as

incremental moral reform, but a but a change of spiritual

location and identity. Paul says much this thing in

Colossians 113, where it reads for he has rescued us from the

domain of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of

his beloved son. Paul echoes the same thought in

in first Peter 29 and 10 when reminding those to whom he wrote

of their new identity. When he says that you are a

chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for

God's own possession, so that you might proclaim forth the

excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into

his marvelous light. For you once were not a people,

but now you are the people of God.

You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Paul is reminding his readers not not only of what it is that

they must do, but also of what God has already done.

Too often in Hamilton comments, Christians struggle with

assurance because they focus on present weakness rather than on

past deliverance. This verse reminds us that our

fundamental identity has changed, even when our

experience feels conflicted, even when we're experiencing a a

lack of success to where that our identity rests in Christ.

John Bunyan's great allegory, The Pilgrims Progress, gives us

one of the clearest narrative pictures of what Paul meant when

he said you were formerly darkness, but now your light in

the Lord. At the beginning of the story,

Christian lives in a city of destruction and bunion is is

careful to show us that the that the city is not merely wicked,

but that it is that it's ordinary.

It's it's familiar, it feels safe.

It seems, it seems reasonable. Christian works there, sleeps

there, his family is there. Its values are unquestioned.

The dangers are unseen. And, and quite frankly, that's

the way darkness works. We, we don't find Christian in

the beginning of the story seeking for a way of escape.

He's not trying to leave the city.

He's content to remain there until that time that God opened

his eyes to the reading of the book, you know, and suddenly

when that happens, everything changes.

Christian doesn't suddenly become more moral.

He doesn't, he doesn't at that point decide, ah, I've got to

do, I've got to do better. Now what happens?

He sees his sin for what it is. He sees judgement.

He sees judgement written over the city in which in which he

lives and he feels a burden that that he's unable to remove.

You know, that moment is, is not a moment of of self improvement.

It's a moment of illumination. The light has shone on him and

and once he's seen that he can't Unsee that Bunyan shows us in

his work that conversion is not it's not just a decision that

it's a revelation that light has entered the soul.

You know, and here's the crucial part for Paul's argument in

Ephesians. Once once Christian becomes

light, the city of destruction becomes intolerable.

Bunyan tells us that he that he flees the city with his fingers

and his ears, crying out life, life, eternal life.

He leaves the city not not just because he like doesn't like it

or that he dislikes it. He he leaves the city because he

belongs to another. He doesn't leave the city in

order to become a Pilgrim, but because he already is a Pilgrim.

Just as it says in First Corinthians 517, if anyone is in

Christ, he is a new creature. This brings us to our second

point. Today.

Having established our our new identity as light in the Lord,

he exhorts us to walk as children of light.

Once again, this this can't be emphasized enough.

Paul doesn't say walk as children of light so that you

might become light. He says because you are light in

the Lord, walk as children of the light.

As we said before, Christian ethics always rest on Christian

identity. The imperative flows from the

indicative. Because, because God has changed

who we are, we are then to His. Romans 64 exhorts us walk in

newness of life. Paul does not leave his readers

uninformed as to what walking as children of light looks like.

Verses 9 and 10 tell us that the fruit of light consists in all

goodness and righteousness and truth, trying to learn what is

pleasing to the Lord. What Paul is calling them to

hear is to walk in a manner worthy of their calling.

Harold Honer notes that goodness, righteousness, and

truth correspond to God's own character, suggesting that that

sanctification is ultimately about conforming to God.

It's not merely rule keeping. This goodness, this

righteousness, this this truth, coupled with with trying to

learn what is pleasing to the Lord is described as the fruit

of light, emphasizing growth rather than instant perfection.

In a parallel passage, Paul contrasts the deeds of the flesh

with the fruit of the Spirit, saying that the fruit of the

Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and

faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, illustrating that

sanctification is is something that is spirit produced, not

self generated. I think when we as as believers

are are charged to exhibit goodness, it doesn't it doesn't

simply refer to moral correctness, but to but to act

of benevolence, Francis Folkes comments.

It is goodness expressed toward others, kindness, generosity and

a willingness to seek the good of neighbor shaped by the gospel

and reflecting the self giving love of Christ.

That's what that's what goodness looks like when we talk about

righteousness. It's not, it's not just this

idea when someone says, oh, that person is righteous, that

they're, that they, that they keep the rules, that they do

right things, that they're socially respectable.

It's it's more than that. What Paul is referring to here

is, is living a life ordered according to God's revealed

will. Michael Allen speaks of

righteousness this way, says it's the fruit of belonging to

the covenant. Lord says it reflects loyalty,

faithfulness and obedience shaped by relationship rather

than by fear. Like the last word of that,

since it's shaped by relationship rather than by

fear. Truth.

It includes honesty and integrity, yes, but it goes.

It goes deeper than that. A life marked by truthfulness is

1 where confession and conduct correspond.

It's the it's the opposite of hypocrisy and double mindedness.

You know, it's, it's important to under score this point that

truth is I'm sorry, find my place again, it's the opposite

of hypocrisy and double mindedness.

Ian Hamilton underscored the point that truth is especially

important in a passage concerned with light and darkness because

darkness thrives on secrecy, on pretense and distortion, while

light produces lives that are transparent before God and

others. As we come to verse 10, it

describes the posture of the Christian life.

Light not only bears fruit, but it also seeks discernment.

Paul uses a present participle says you're trying to learn in

order to describe the ongoing process of moral understanding.

Believers are not are not merely given a list of rules and left

to follow them mechanically. They're they're called into

relationship with God, a relationship that requires

thought and prayer and attentiveness to God's will with

with the ultimate aim of that relationship not being is this

allowed, but rather does this delight my father?

This is how we are to live. As we come to verses 11 through

13 of chapter 5, Paul encourages his readers to have no

fellowship with darkness, but rather to subject it to exposure

by light. Verse 11 begins by saying do not

participate in the unfruitful works of darkness.

This love of darkness is has always been associated with with

evil. Jesus spoke of this and in John

31921 saying this is the judgement that the light has

come into the world and men love the darkness rather than the

light, for their deeds were evil.

For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to

the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed, but he

who practices the truth comes to the light so that his deeds may

be manifested as having been wrought in God.

Paul's command goes goes beyond forbidding just overt sinful

behavior. This this verb participate

implies a sharing or a partnership or complicity with.

Ian Hamilton warns that the that the greatest danger facing the

church is not it's not one of a blatant rebellion, but gradual

accommodation. Partition participation often

begins subtly, not not with a denial of of the truth, but with

silence when confession is required.

Paul refers to these deeds of darkness as as unfruitful.

He's drawing a he's drawing a deliberate contrast between the,

the fruit of the light that we're, that we are told to, to

emulate and then the unfruitful deeds of, of darkness.

And that while darkness may may promise fulfilment, may promise

freedom, may promise satisfaction, It it, it produces

nothing that endures it. It promises life, but it

delivers emptiness. Paul is not content that his

readers just be satisfied with not participating in the

unfruitful deeds of darkness. He goes on to inform them that

is their responsibility to expose them.

Jesus illustrated you know how this was to be done in in

Matthew 514 through 16 where he tells his disciples.

He says you know you are the light of the world.

You know a city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does

anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the

lampstand and it gives light to all who are in the house.

Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see

your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

This this exposure that Paul is advocating is, is not just an,

an aggressive denunciation or a public shaming.

He's not. He's not authorizing some sort

of of moral exhibitionism or or public or self-righteous

confrontation. What what he's getting at is

that is that exposure happens primarily through contrast.

The light exposes darkness simply by being present.

Michael Allen interprets this language of of exposure within

within a broader biblical theology of holiness, and he

says this. He says God's holiness always

exposes sin, but this is not done to humiliate his people,

but to bring them to repentance and restoration.

Thus, exposure is redemptive even when it is uncomfortable.

Adam warns that when the church loses its distinctiveness, it

loses its ability to expose darkness at all.

That accommodation neutralizes witness.

When it come to verse 12, Paul inserts a bit of nuance and

perhaps a bit of warning as he begins to tell us how it is that

we go about exposing the deeds of darkness.

He says it is disgraceful even to speak of the things they do

in secret. Paul is.

Paul is not advocating ignorance here, but rather restraint.

There are those sins whose whose detailed discussion from the

pulpit can corrupt rather than edify.

It doesn't serve a useful purpose.

The late Pastor William L Watkinson's in in 19 O 7

preached A sermon entitled The Invincible Strategy, where he

downplayed the value of verbal attacks on undesirable behavior

and championed the importance of good works.

Or as I like to say from our text today, or the fruit of

light. Saying this, he said

denunciatory rhetoric is so much easier and cheaper than good

works and proves popular. And it is far better to light

the candle than to curse the darkness.

I mean, it's, it's, it's exactly what Paul says in our text that

you're to, to live a life marked by righteousness and truth.

That's what it means to light a candle, be, be light, walk as a

child of light in the darkness is exposed.

We don't have to curse the darkness in all its varied forms

in order to expose it for what it is.

The solution for exposing sin for what it is without

sensationalizing it is found in verses 13 where we as believers

walk as children of light bearing the fruit of light,

goodness, righteousness, and truth among those who are

walking in darkness. Light doesn't merely condemn

darkness, it reveals reality. Whereas whereas darkness is

deceptive and it and it distorts reality, light restores

perception and allows things to be seen for what they really

are. And once and once sin is seen

for what it really is, it, it loses its deceptive power.

It's no longer as appealing as it once was in it, and it gives

opportunity for repentance and transformation.

Verse 13 ends with the word words, everything which becomes

visible as light and taking superficially that could be

misunderstood to mean that somehow exposure to the light

automatically makes something good or that somehow sin

transforms itself into righteousness simply by being

revealed. But but Paul means neither to be

to be exposed by the lies to be brought into contact with Christ

and we brought into contract with Christ places an individual

in a position where they can no longer plead ignorance.

Their darkness has been revealed and a decision must be made.

You know, repent and be transformed or resist and be

hardened. I'm a child of the 70s and 80s.

When I was a kid, it seemed like everybody smoked, you know,

between the Philip Morris ads. They were pretty cheeky, you

know, what people put up with to enjoy them.

Or the Marlboro Man. I mean, why wouldn't you?

It was the best thing ever. And while while the cigarette

manufacturers knew in 1963 that nicotine was addictive, they

didn't see fit to disclose it to the general public until the

year 2000. You know, light was finally shed

on the industry and the risks associated with consuming their

product. You know, an individual today

may still choose to consume those products, but it's no

longer something that's done in ignorance.

You know, on every carton and every package of cigarettes that

you pick up in the United States today, there is a warning label

that accompanies that. And it's pretty stark.

And if you want to see one starker when they go to the

Paris airport on your way back in, every package of cigarettes

in the duty free shop shows a picture of diseased lungs,

diseased hearts, a person on a ventilator.

I mean, it's, you know, here, buddy, you want to smoke.

I mean, it, it's something you're, it's not something that

is done in ignorance and horror. Yes, you may willfully decide

to, to do that behavior, but it's, but it's not, it's not

something where you said say I didn't, I didn't know.

And that's, that's what that's what Paul is saying.

When you when you live as light amongst a World of Darkness, it

is something that reveals to them how it is that they are

living in it and shows a a different way.

The label on a pack of cigarettes does not exist to

condemn the person that's smoking.

It's there to encourage them to stop, to make a better choice,

to warn them of the consequences of continuing.

And in the same way as as we walk as children of light in a

darkened world, we operate in much the same fashion.

We are, as Paul says in Second Corinthians five 20s ambassadors

for Christ. You know, as though God were

making an appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ,

be reconciled to God. Our passage today concludes with

Paul exhorting his readers once again, saying, awake, sleeper

and rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.

Paul is expressing the implication of light exposing

darkness if exposure is is primarily redemptive and the

proper response to being exposed is awakening.

Paul's comment here can be directed not only at

unbelievers, but also at believers, believers who have

become spiritually inattentive, believers who have become

complacent towards sin, who have compromised their vigilance.

Paul exhorts his readers to arise from the dead, echoing in

the earlier language of spiritual resurrection that we

see in chapter 2. One through 6 of this same book.

Paul is reminding his his readers that they were once

dead, but they have been raised with Christ and and they ought

to live in that reality that that sanctification is, is a

resurrection life worked out over time.

This is the promise that is made at the end of verse 14, not that

Christ may shine on us, but that He will shine on us.

Just as just as God is shown in our hearts to give us the light

of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ,

leading to our salvation, so Christ shines on us now,

sustaining us in our Christian walk.

This verse reminds us that sanctification is is a

continuing awakening, that that spiritual sleep is a real danger

for believers, and that Christ Himself provides the light we

need, and that His grace not only saves but awakens.

In conclusion, let's revisit Paul's main points of emphasis

in our passage today. He began by reminding them of

their change in identity, that they who had been in darkness

were now light in the Lord. He followed that up with an

exhortation to live as a child of light, exhibiting the fruit

of light participation. Unfruitful deeds of darkness

were then forbidden. Believers were instructed

instead to expose them. Exposure was shown in verse 13

to to force a choice to repent or to continue in sin.

And finally, and finally, we are invited to step into the light.

I'd say to you this morning, if you're feeling exposed, if we

feel like somehow the light is shining on you and that's less

than comfortable, well, congratulations, that's a good

thing. Too often, too often, we pray

that the light would just be dimmed.

If you just turn it down a little bit, I'd be a little more

comfortable. Instead of asking as David did,

you know, search me, O God, and know my heart, try my try me and

know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me

and lead me in the way. Everlasting exposure, as as Paul

has shown us this morning, is the doorway to transformation.

You know, and, and it's my prayer, if that's, if that's

where you find yourself today, that you walk through that door,

that you don't try to close that door and you don't try to turn

out the light, but that you walk through that door.

Thanks for listening. To learn more about Heritage

Church or if you'd like to respond to this sermon, visit

our website at www.heritageshawnee.org.