Wisdom/Light vs Foolishness/Darkness | Ephesians 5:11-21 | 3/1/26

All right. Well, good morning everyone.

Uh we are back together going continuing

our study through Paul's letter to the

Ephesians. And we're getting to a really

interesting part of the book where

Paul's transitioned out of his profound

statements about what God has done in

Christ into what this means for our

daily lives. And he's been unpacking the

moral implications of this gospel using

a variety of metaphors. uh temple, tree,

growth, body. He's talked about light

and dark. Today, he's going to talk

about wise and wisdom and folly.

And a big part of what we're going to

touch on this morning is the role of the

Holy Spirit in all of this. How does God

through the giving of the Holy Spirit

help us to walk in light, to walk in

wisdom, to walk in love, to love the

truth, and speak the truth in love? Um,

if you're new to the Christian faith,

one of the really important things to

understand is that when we put our faith

in Jesus, when we decide to follow him

and strive to imitate his example, one

of the first and most powerful things

that God does is give us himself. He

puts his spirit inside of us to help us

become more like Jesus. But a really

important question to ask when you hear

a sentence like that

and any a very important question to ask

whenever someone says something like

that about God is what does it mean for

him to help us?

What does that mean?

Does it mean he's going to give us what

we ask for or make our lives easier or

take away the things that frustrate us?

To be sure, that's usually what we want.

Often when we bow our knees to pray,

that's kind of on the forefront of what

we're thinking. These things that we

wish were different.

But we've talked many times over this

last year about how not all pain is bad.

About how struggling and strife in the

Christian life often yields strength and

holiness and sanctification.

Waiting can purify us. Hardship makes us

holy. So when I say that God by his

spirit is going to help you,

what should you expect that help to look

like?

As is often the case, someone has

already said all of this way better than

I can. So listen to this short reading

from CS Lewis in his classic book, Mere

Christianity. Quote,

I find a good many people have been

bothered by our Lord's words, "Be ye

perfect."

You might have heard that in your Bible

as be perfect as your heavenly father is

perfect. Be ye perfect. Some people seem

to think that this means unless you are

perfect, I will not help you. And as we

cannot be perfect, then if he meant

that, our position is hopeless. But I do

not think he did mean that. I think he

meant the only help I will give is help

to become perfect. You may want

something less, but I will give you

nothing less.

He goes on, "When I was a child, I often

had a toothache and I knew that if I

went to my mother, she would give me

something that would deaden the pain for

the night and let me get to sleep. But I

often did not go to my mother, at least

not till the pain became very bad." And

the reason I did not go was this. I did

not doubt she would give me the aspirin,

but I knew she would also do something

else. I knew she would take me to the

dentist the next morning.

I could not get what I wanted out of her

without getting something more, which I

did not want. I wanted immediate relief

from the pain. But I could not get it

without having my teeth set permanently

right. And I knew those dentists. I knew

they started fiddling about with all

sorts of other teeth which had not yet

begun to ache. They wouldn't let

sleeping dogs lie. If you gave them an

inch, they took a mile.

Now, if I put it that way, our Lord is

like the dentists. If you give him an

inch, he'll take the mile. He actually

says the L, but uh that's not a unit of

measurement we use in our side of the

English speaking world. So, it's the

mile.

Dozens of people go to him to be cured

of some particular sin which they are

ashamed of, masturbation, physical

cowardice, or something that's obviously

spoiling their daily daily life like a

bad temper or drunkenness. Well, he will

cure it. All right, but he will not stop

there.

that may be all you asked for, but if

once you call him in, he will give you

the full treatment." End quote.

That's pretty well said. Um Paul in this

morning's text is going to explain that

a little more,

what the full treatment looks like in

the kingdom of God. And so, we're going

to pick up where we left off. Um but for

today, the main point is this. Here's

what it means to walk in light in the

kingdom of God. Main point,

light exposes darkness.

Bringing in things into the light

exposes darkness. So, embrace exposure,

mortify sin, and be filled with God.

Light exposes darkness. So, embrace

exposure, mortify sin, and be filled

with God. Please open your Bibles to

Ephesians chapter 5. And let's take a

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

minute to just remind ourselves where we

are in the flow of the argument of this

letter.

As I said a moment ago, the first half

of the book was laying out this glorious

gospel that God has achieved in the

death and resurrection of Christ. And he

has now transitioned in the beginning of

chapter 4 to the implications of it for

our lives.

He's told us that instead of God

condemning us as we deserve, God has

chosen to make us his children. He's

adopted us into his family. However, to

belong to God, to become a child and a

member of his family requires embracing

the family culture.

It requires embracing the values of his

family and the example of his son.

His example, the example of Jesus,

established the tone for how we are to

conduct ourselves, cultivating unity,

speaking the truth in love, striving to

be more like him. We've been called to

depart from our old ways and to bring

everything we do under the rubric of

sacrificial self-giving love and truth.

And to achieve this, we must walk in

light embracing embracing this identity,

but then making a clean break from any

other way of life that flourishes in the

darkness. So that being said, we'll pick

up. We're sort of mid-argument in verse

11.

Chapter 5 11. Hear the words of 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 on you.

Look carefully then, how you walk, not

as unwise, but as wise, making the best

use of the time because the days are

evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but

understand what the will of the Lord is.

And do not get drunk with wine, for that

is debauchery, but be filled with the

spirit, addressing one another in psalms

and hymns and spiritual songs, singing

and making melody to the Lord with your

heart, giving thanks always and for

everything to God the Father in the name

of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to

one another out of reverence for Christ.

This is God's word. Lord, open our eyes

to see light that we might depart from

the darkness forever. Amen.

All right. So, the way we're going to

work through this text is just we're

going to go sentence by sentence. We're

going to break down what I've laid out

as the main point, which I think is a

summary of what this basically teaches.

We're going to talk about how light

exposes darkness. We're going to talk

about what it means to embrace exposure.

We're going to talk about mortifying

sin. and we're going to talk about being

filled with God. So, let's begin by

looking at verses 11 and 12.

It's really important to look at these

two verses together and consider what it

is that they're talking about. What is

he talking about before we ask the

question of how does it apply? Paul

says, "Take no part in unfruitful works

of darkness." Which of course is a

contrast from last week's text in verse

8, which describes the fruit of light of

a life lived walking as children of the

light.

So we had the fruitbearing walk of light

that we're exhorted to walk in. And here

we have the fruitless works of darkness

that we are forbidden from participating

in. And so it's worth asking the

question, what exactly are those? What

are the unfruitful darkness works?

Well, at minimum, if it's functioning

like a contrast, as I said, it's

somewhere in the reverse of goodness,

righteousness, and truth.

badness, sinfulness, and deception

in verse 9.

Second, the fact that these things are

described as darkness probably implies

they are morally evil.

Probably worse, they are things so

appalling that you keep them private

from your family and friends.

In verse 12, these are things that are

shameful to even talk about. But I think

the real key is at the end of verse 12

when it says they are things that they

do in secret.

they do in secret.

They do probably refers back to the sons

of disobedience in verse six. And the

fact that even they, the sons of a

disobedience in verse six, do them in

secret

means, listen to me,

everybody knows it's wrong.

Not even everyone.

Everyone agrees it's wrong.

You don't keep stuff a secret if you

think it's okay.

These are not morally questionable

things that some of the neighbors

thought was fine and others the

neighbors thought were wicked. These are

things that everyone thought was dark

and unfruitful.

Take no part, Paul says, in these kinds

of activities. [snorts]

It's shameful, he says, to even speak of

them.

I don't think when he when he says it's

shameful to even speak of them, I don't

think he's saying it's shameful to talk

about them publicly or to address them

specifically, I think he's talking more

about like going into details and

talking about it like it's a trit thing

or joking about it.

In the same way that love should shape

speech,

truth and goodness should determine the

degree of detail we go into when we

confess our sins.

It is shameful to speak, I would say,

casual casually or gratuitously about

dark things that we do in secret.

But instead, he says at the end of verse

11, we should expose them. We should

bring them into the light. We should

make them known. So it can't when he

says it's shful to speak of them, both

those things like you can't take a hyper

literal don't talk about them, but bring

them out into the light. It's like how

do you do that? Uh, don't talk about

them means don't be gratuitous about

them, but bring them out into the light

where they can be seen. Confess them is

probably how you should understand that

walking in darkness is bad.

Participating in the works of darkness

is bad. But there is something worse

than participating in the unfruitful

works of darkness. And that is having

done it, keeping it a secret from the

people who want to help you.

hiding in the dark. That is worse than

the sin itself.

Let me say this again so it sinks in.

It's bad to participate in the works of

darkness. It's bad to wander out into

the dark. But if you come back, there is

help and hope and forgiveness and

healing. The only thing worse than going

out into the dark is staying there.

If you stay there, you will get lost.

When you get lost, you lose the ability

to come back.

Sometimes people wonder who Paul is

talking to here and they introduce

these, I would say, unhelpful

distinctions that Paul doesn't have in

mind. They go, "Well, is he talking to

believers or unbelievers?" He's talking

to people who are tempted to participate

in works of darkness. That's who he's

talking to.

Don't create new distinctions that he

doesn't introduce.

Are you participating in works of

darkness and are you covering them up?

Yes or no? That's his question. And if

the answer is yes, I am doing that and I

have covered it up. You are commanded by

the living God to expose those things.

to bring it out into the light, to

confess to someone the truth, to come up

out of the shame, out of the guilt, out

of that tomb, that dungeon, that grave,

and come out into the holy light of God

in Christ.

If you are walking in darkness this

morning, brother, sister, friend, if you

are living living in habitual

unrepentant sin,

today is the day to repent.

Now is the time to repent. Tomorrow is

not promised. An hour from now is not

promised. I don't know when you're going

to meet the Lord,

but this is his word to you. Expose it.

Bring it into the light. Confess it to a

brother, to a sister, someone who is

going to love you and preach the gospel

to you.

Rip off the tarp that's hiding the sin.

The storm is coming to blow it all away.

Anyway,

Paul says, "Take no part in the

unfruitful works of darkness.

There has never been any good fruit from

hating someone in your heart. There has

never been any good fruit that has come

from despising your neighbor, from

drunkenness, from sexual immorality,

from obscene talk, from participation in

greed and the exploitation of others.

There has never been any good fruit

that's grown up from hidden lusts or

gossip or hypocrisy or envy or idolatry.

There's never been good fruit that has

sprung up from fixing your hope and your

faith on things far lower than God.

By the way, that's not a matter of my

opinion.

That is objectively true.

Take no part in these things, but if you

see them, expose them. bring them to the

light. Which brings me to the next

verse. Embrace exposure.

Embrace being exposed.

You know, this verse was initially kind

of confusing. It says, "When anything is

exposed by the light, it becomes

visible. For anything visible is light.

If anything's exposed by light, it

becomes visible. And then the visible

thing becomes light."

I feel like if you overpress the

metaphor, you'll twist yourself into a

pretzel like I did. Um, you don't want

to overly literalize Paul's metaphor.

Paul's metaphor is that the light helps

us to see. Light make things makes

things visible and things kept in

darkness can't be seen.

But when they've been out been brought

out into the light, it becomes visible

by the light. And eventually that thing

exposed by the light can become part of

the light. Also,

think about what happened to me. I mean,

I feel like I talk about it kind of a

lot, but it's worth thinking about. I

was in the darkness until God through

Christ brought his light into my life

and he exposed my sins for what they

were. There was a dark and distorting

evil that was hurting me, twisting me,

causing me to walk in all kinds of other

terrible sins. And it turned out by

going to God about that, I'm addicted to

cocaine. Help me. By giving him an inch,

he took the mile.

When his light began to shine into my

light, the first thing I thought was,

I'm doing drugs and I need to stop. But

when Christ came in, he revealed with

greater clarity, I was not just doing

drugs. I was stealing to pay for it. I

was not just doing drugs. I was lying to

people to cover it up. I wasn't just

addicted to a drug. I was amping myself

up to 10,000 feet to get these feelings

to go away. And then I was drinking beer

like a mad person to try to come down

every single day.

I was serving a different god named my

flesh.

And I was doing every evil thing I

needed to to feed my false god and

satisfy my false god.

But then the light of Christ came into

my life.

That light did not create these sins. It

exposed them. It revealed them to me.

And I in turn was called to expose those

sins to be others to to expose them to

others to be honest with other people in

my life about what was really going on.

And look at what happened. I mean, I

just like talk about it publicly all the

time now. and no one gets mad at me or

hates me for it.

There was a time in my life where saying

what I just said was the most horrifying

thought I could possibly think of.

Everyone knowing what I'm actually up

to.

What are you looking at right now as you

hear this?

You are looking at Ephesians 5, the

light exposing and making visible and

turning that thing made visible into

light.

A few years later, I started meeting

with other people who were dealing with

addiction as I've been now. And 18 years

after the fact, what was made visible by

the light is now part of the light. And

I use everything that I have learned to

help others.

Paul has his own version of this kind of

the New Testament. He talks about his

own self-righteousness. He t he does it

a couple places. He does it really

clearly in Philippians 3. He talks

about, you know, as far as everyone else

was concerned, I was a Jew, the greatest

Jew of all. I was number one in my rabbi

class. I knew the law backwards and

forwards. I was totally righteous. No

one could find any guilt in me. I was

unparalleled in my knowledge and outward

compliance of the law. It just turns out

though, it was all a cheap imitation.

All of that performative work was

inadequate. It turns out it was so

inadequate I consider it to be something

equivalent to garbage

compared to actually knowing Christ

and being forgiven and healed by him.

Once he was in darkness and now he's

brought into the light. He used to think

he could earn his way into

righteousness, but he was discovered you

cannot be good enough. You can project

an outward appearance for a long time,

but you cannot keep it up forever. All

of us sin. All of us sin. And it's going

to leak out eventually, and you will be

exposed for what you really are.

Whatever value he derived from being

thought of as a great person, as a

righteous person, he began to count it

as worthless in comparison to gaining

Jesus.

If you will humble yourself, you will

receive glory from him.

I'm saying it all like this because we

tend to primarily think of our sin being

exposed as a bad thing, as a scary

thing.

But for Paul

and also for me,

exposing my sin was a good thing.

Getting out of that way of life, out of

that darkness is a thing to be

celebrated. It's a thing to praise God

for.

When our sin comes out into the light,

we not only have a chance to heal from

it, that very thing that we kept in the

dark has a very real chance of being

transformed into part of the light

itself.

Your confession of sin today becomes

your testimony of the Lord's grace

tomorrow.

And your confession of the Lord's grace

tomorrow can become your ability to

serve others and lift them out of that

same darkness.

It's a rich and beautiful cycle.

And this beautiful hymn in verse 14

gives us one of the big reasons to do

it.

Paul says in verse 14, "Therefore," it

says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from

the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

There is a long rich discussion about

what that text is. Is Paul quoting an

ancient hymn? Is this a baptism formula?

Is this It's all so deliciously

interesting, I don't have time to talk

about any of it and actually cover this

text. So, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't

know who I'm apologizing to. Maybe I'm

mad at myself and I don't get to talk

about everything all the time, but it's

all interesting and cool. It's probably

a hymn based on Isaiah 26:19 and Isaiah

Isaiah 26:19

60 verse1, but we're not going to talk

about that. I just said

what's more critical is what Paul is

clearly implying here.

You should bring your sins into the

light because it's going to be like

waking up from sleep.

It's going to be like raising up out of

a grave.

And you will not be greeted by the

things that you fear will greet you. You

are going to be greeted by Christ

himself, by the great physician himself

who has come to give you the full

treatment.

The promise of this hymn of light

[snorts] is that by coming out of your

sins, you'll find Christ. In the waking,

in the rising up out of the grave, you

will not be greeted by the things you

fear, but by Jesus.

The great lie that the darkness tells. I

I deleted this from my sermon, but now I

feel compelled to say it. John chapter

John 3 · chapter mention

3, Jesus talks about being the light

that's come into the world. And I'm

going to miss I I wrote it down. I

delete it. The exact quote, but Jesus

says, "People don't come to the light

because they love the darkness and they

don't want to be exposed by the light.

We hide and we cherish our sins. But

then worse than that, we're afraid that

something really horrible is going to

happen if we just come out and tell

everyone the truth.

The lie is that the darkness is where

you're safe.

The lie is that the darkness is better.

And of course,

you've probably noticed that as the

darkness tells you that, as it tells you

it's better here, it torments you and it

sickens you and it weakens you and it

threatens you if you think about

leaving.

The darkness is a den of lies.

Try to just

I'm sure there are some of us in here

who are thinking of a specific sin right

now. So, let's just do a simple

exercise. Try to come out of yourself

for a second. Try to come out of that

dark cave of darkness and look back in.

There you are stuck inside.

There is a person sitting inside the

darkness who genuinely believes that

they are safer, that it's safer to stay

in the place where your soul is dying.

While God through his son Jesus through

his word to you this very morning is

saying, "Come out into the light and be

healed. Come out and meet Christ."

Christ wants to heal you.

In the light, there are no threats. In

the light, there's no sickness, no

poison, no fear. In the light, there is

grace and truth and help and healing.

In the light, there is clarity and the

renewed ability to even understand what

your actual problems are.

In the light, there are people in this

room who love you and want to help you.

I thought for a long time, I'm addicted

to drugs.

But you know what it turned out to be?

I am really, really, really, really,

really sad that my dad died.

And I don't have another way to cope

with these horrific feelings I feel. And

so the only thing I've ever learned to

do when I'm feeling these things is to

numb them with substances.

To numb them.

And it was actually very freeing to

realize I just need better habits.

I just I'm telling myself I'm this

awful, you know, the devil's telling me

you're the worst.

And it's like actually you just need to

probably go for a walk.

You probably need to stop believing

these false things that you tell

yourself and listen instead to what the

word of God is telling you.

The only reason I was able to figure any

of that out is because I exposed my sins

to the light. And being exposed, they

became visible. And what was made

visible became part of the light.

Awake, O sleeper.

Awake,

rise,

and Christ will shine on you.

It reminds me of the song. I think we're

going to sing it at the end here. Jesus

Christ,

shine into our night. Drive the dark

away

until your glory fills our eyes.

He wants to answer that prayer in your

life.

Now, let's say you've done this. You

finally brought out your sins. You've

confessed your need for help. What next?

Part three,

we have to mortify our sin.

Paul says here, "Next, look carefully

then.

Look carefully."

That's the language of vigilance. Pay

very careful attention to yourself. Keep

careful watch over yourself in the

teaching. Keep a watch over your heart.

For from it, from it flows the wellsp

springs of life. Proverbs 4.

Nowhere in any part of the New Testament

will you ever encounter a casual

Christianity.

A Christianity that you're just sort of

like, you know, we'll just kind of see

how it goes.

That doesn't exist in the Bible. Um, if

that's how you try to do it, you'll

fail. It's too hard. It requires too

much.

Paul's expectation is that if you're a

follower of Jesus, you're going to pay

careful attention to what you do and to

what's happening in your heart. Your

walk with Jesus isn't just going to be

something that you feel out and hope

nothing bad happens. If you love God,

you're going to seek wisdom and fear

sin. He assumes that you care more about

your walk with God and the holiness of

your heart than your finances

and your career and your marriage and

your hobbies.

When he says walk carefully not as an

unwise person but as a wise person, he

is talking about what it is that you're

going to focus on. What are you going to

consider most important?

What it says the beginning of the uh

wisdom is the fear of the Lord. That's

talking about what you think is most

important.

Think about that for a while.

Walk carefully not as an unwise person

but as a wise person.

Be careful that you are focusing on the

right things with the right intensity.

Pay attention to how you are valuing

things.

All of us are focused on things we

consider valuable. All of you spend your

time and your money on things that

you've deemed important.

Not all of us have stopped and paid

careful attention to what we're doing

and asked ourselves, is this wise or is

this unwise.

How would you know if it's wise or

unwise?

How would the light of Christ cause you

to live differently? Well, here's a

couple of important things when it comes

to learning to mortify your sin and walk

in a way that pleases God. The first

thing is where he starts. How are you

thinking about time? Paul says, "The

wise person makes the best use of the

time because the days are evil."

Some of your translations will say,

"Redeem the time." That's what the word

literally means in Greek. Buy back

this time that you've in theory lost.

Get it back because the days are evil.

You live in a fallen world full of

brokenness, sin, temptation, and

distractions. And there are constantly

interruptions and disturbances that are

ups there to upset your ability to focus

on pleasing God. And so Paul exhorts you

to try and pull as much of your life

away from the evil of these days as you

possibly can.

How can you try and use your time for

good?

The easiest place to start with that

question is with your time off. How do I

use my time off for good?

And of course, resting is an important

value to God. We ought to rest, but we

also ought to think, how can I love my

neighbor with my time, with my free

time?

And as you move down from your te free

time, you you arrive at like, you know,

what you do for work or school or or at

home or whatever. How do I use that time

to glorify Christ?

You think about it. Are you using time

for good or for evil?

Second, whose will are you trying to

live out? Paul says, ' Don't be foolish,

but understand what the will of the Lord

is.

So, just to say this really bluntly,

like

don't be foolish, be wise.

You and I

naturally incline towards the flesh,

towards being selfish and self- serving.

All of us naturally incline that way.

There's nobody who's ever lived who

doesn't naturally incline what's best

for me. [laughter]

And it actually takes a good deal of

force and energy. It takes a good deal

of training and teaching and repeating

and practicing to get into the habit of

what's best for my neighbor. How can I

serve and love the people around me and

not just myself?

When he says, "Don't be foolish," I

think a very real application can be

made to wanting to do my own will

contrary God's will.

What I naturally incline towards is

folly.

What God naturally inclines to uh toward

is purity, truth, justice, goodness,

holiness, and love.

Whose will are you trying to live out?

Third,

and I guess this is on my mind because

of what we said earlier, but what are

you using to escape?

Paul asks in says in verse 18, "Do not

get drunk with wine." For that is

debauchery.

The word for debauchery refers to being

out of control.

It's something like you hate the way

life makes you feel and so you

intoxicate yourself to try to feel free

of those feelings.

And to be sure in Paul's day, one of the

primary ways people did that was with

wine, was drinking too much and getting

drunk.

And

I think you all I think I've said this

clearly a number of times, drinking

alcohol is not inherently sinful.

Getting drunk is inherently sinful. It's

distorting our ability to love.

But the truth is in our day, people can

do this with alcohol. But you can also

do this with drugs, with prescription

medication, with sex, with vacations,

with shopping, with gambling, with

endless scrolling, with pornography,

with binge watching.

All these things that give us that

short-term dopamine hit that make that

feel good for a second but then dulls

your conscience and weakens your ability

to pray and reduces your ability to pay

attention to scripture and distracts you

from the people and relationships that

might actually help you.

Debauchery

is a treatment for pain relief that is a

treacherous lie.

you're treating boredom, loneliness,

[snorts]

whatever are those negative feelings

that you want to escape from. We all

have, you know, there's the more

socially acceptable like,

you know, and again, this is not

inherently sinful. This becomes

inherently sinful when it's out of

control, when it's debauched,

when there's nothing deliberate or wise

about it.

Debauchery is treating cancer with

candy.

Debauchery is healing a cavity by taking

an aspirin. It feels sort of like it

sort of works for a minute.

It gives you the illusion of healing

while perpetuating or worsening the pro

the problem. It promises relief, but it

just deepens misery.

What are you doing to escape?

You don't want to go the other extreme

with this either. It's not wrong to want

to do things to relax. It's not wrong to

want to relieve stress. Everybody has to

do that. It's part of being healthy.

It's part of the logic of the command

Sabbath and rest.

Everyone has a way of calming their mind

and body down after a day of just taxing

activities and interactions.

But the point is, there are good ways to

seek relief when you were down or

stressed or sad or lonely or ashamed or

whatever. And there are unhealthy ways

to do it. There are debauched ways to do

it.

Don't get drunk with wine, for that is

debauchery.

But instead, he's going to say in a

second, be filled with the spirit.

Choose good stuff. [laughter] Choose

stuff that's helpful that leads to life

and blessing. Worship, pray,

get some exercise, go for a walk, talk

to somebody who loves you, read a book,

play a game, listen to music, make

something, fix something, serve someone.

There's a million things you can do that

are way better for you, and get you used

all these great financial terms and now

I don't return on investment. Is that

one? Way higher payout. You guys h I'm

terrible at this. You know what I mean?

It's way better when you do that stuff.

you get way more out of it.

Don't try and escape bad feelings into

harmful and sinful escapes. Go serve.

It's more blessed, Jesus says, to give

than it is to receive.

If you want to do this, if you are

thinking to yourself, all right, I want

to do that, but I don't know how and I

don't know who to who to ask, ask me.

I'll help you. Ask Scott Jung. There's a

lot of people in this church that are

that would love to help you do that. And

if you're nervous or embarrassed, I just

told everyone I used to snort drugs with

my nose.

And look, they still love me. It's going

to be okay. Come talk to me.

Focus on doing things that please God,

and you will find your mind and your

heart satisfied and less tempted with

the evil days, the evil world.

Which brings us to the final point. be

filled with God.

Instead of getting drunk, instead of

acting debauched, Paul says, "Be filled

with the spirit." And the first thing I

noticed looking at this in Greek is how

it's all plural.

This is something you do together.

Um, Christianity is inherently a

communal religion. It's predicated on

fellowship, on sharing, on us doing

things with one another and not just on

our own.

This exhortation takes on a corporate

dimension of and he uses the example of

making music together, talk to each

other, using God's words, singing

together, praying worship songs over

each other, making melody in your hearts

to the Lord. Do it from your heart. He

says,

and it's interesting. I spent some time

thinking about this is I was like,

should we be singing way more in

service? You know, he's talking about

what we're doing with our heart. I think

the I think the music in some ways is

almost like a metaphor for harmony. Uh

do things

together where you will find harmony in

your shared love for Christ. Do things

together where you will find unity in

your shared worship and devotion to God.

Not all of you can sing or play an

instrument, but all of you can do that.

strive to be in one accord with each

other.

We will never lack for reasons to be at

odds with each other.

There are there are always going to be

reasons to find offense. That's just the

nature of being human together. We will

find reasons to be bothered by our

neighbors. And this says, 'Focus on

pursuing harmony with us, with your

brothers and sisters. Pursue harmony

with your neighbor. And he says, 'd do

it through giving thanks together. Look

for reasons to be grateful, to rejoice

together.

Gratitude is not just a habit of saying

thank you. It's actually a Holy Spirit

wrought disposition.

I've wondered, I don't even know how I

would study this, but have you ever

wondered how we ended up with the

cultural norm of saying thank you when

someone gives us something? Not every

culture does it. We do it. I wonder if

it has Christian roots.

Get in the habit of being thankful, of

expressing your thanks.

A grateful heart, John Owens says, is a

sign of a spiritfilled soul. for the

spirit always points us to the gifts of

God and not ourselves." End quote.

Finally, Paul says at the end there,

submitting to one another out of

reverence for Christ.

The word to submit here is a word that

refers to how we order ourselves in the

various capacities in which we're called

to live. In the church, you submit to

elders. In the home, wives submit to

father to husbands. Children submit to

parents. Uh at work, we submit to our

employers. Out in the world, we submit

to the police. We submit to our

government, to the king or whatever. All

of us are called into different spheres

of life in which we're called to submit.

Men and women, boys and girls, old and

young. All of us have areas where we are

supposed to submit. And all of us, a lot

of us will end up in areas where we have

to to lead and exercise authority.

The big idea is if you rever Christ in

your heart and you are full of the Holy

Spirit, you will do this in reverence to

Christ.

That word says reverence for Christ, but

it's often translated as fear.

In light of Christ's power and holiness,

not in light of the effectiveness of the

authorities. We submit.

You don't submit because you think the

person's doing a great job. You submit

out of fear of Christ.

So this is what it means to walk in

light, to live a spiritfilled life. This

is what it means to expose what's in

darkness, to embrace and properly

respond to that exposure, than to go

about mortifying your sin and striving

to be full of God. And we want to do

this together in harmony with the

church, full of gratitude and willingly

submissive to our God-given authorities

in Christ.

Now, to the person who's heard all this,

and we're almost done. I'm about to run

land the plane here. To the person who

hears all this and looks at their own

life and sees sin in the darkness and

recognizes that to bring it out into the

light might create feelings of shame. It

might create death to your ego. It might

cause pain to someone you love. It might

be uncomfortable or even painful for any

number of reasons. If that's you,

if you are thinking, I don't want to

expose what I do in the darkness for the

same reason CS Lewis didn't want to go

to the dentist. It might be

uncomfortable.

What's the alternative

to just stay in the dark?

Come out into the light. Hear the word

of God. Expose it. Confess it.

Tell the truth to somebody. You don't

have to stand up in the middle of

service and tell everybody. Tell someone

you trust and that you believe loves you

and cares about your soul.

Whatever temporary pain you might feel,

whatever it costs you in the end, I

promise you will consider whatever you

lost as refugees compared to the all

surpassing value of having more of

Christ Jesus.

Arise,

arise, oh sleeper.

Come out of your dark prison. Come out

of your slavery. Come out of your grave.

And Christ will shine on you.

Come out into the light and be free.