From Darkness To Light - Ephesians 5:6-14

I usually don't give a disclaimer before a sermon, but I feel like I have to this morning. I've been coughing for the last week. I've kind of had this post-nasal drip that probably all of us have experienced before. And so I have a cup of water up here. I usually don't have anything to drink, but I brought it up here just in case that I have to take a break throughout the sermon. I down some cough syrup, about 30 minutes ago, to hopefully limit some of the coughing, and then I've got a little bit of a cough drop here in the side of my cheek. Hopefully it's not a distraction for you guys or for me. But just put it out there because usually I don't have any of those things on a Sunday morning. And hopefully we'll just limit some of the coughing. But if I have to take a little break, get a little drink of water or cough it out, just be patient with me and we'll just keep moving on with the sermon, all right? So this past spring, this year, I had just finished my PhD after working on it for 6 years, and one of the 1st things that I wanted to do was to take my two boys camping in our backyard. My boys are 8 and five. They were 7 and 5 at the time, and they had never been camping, because dad just was busy with the 4th child, which was called PhD. And we just didn't have the opportunity to do it. And so I had finished it, and about 2 or 3 weeks after I turned it all in and was done. I decided we're going to go camping in our backyard. This is great 1st experience for us. And so we pitched the tent right there in the yard. We zipped ourselves in for the night. But at some point, I woke up and the whole tent was just full of light. Like my eyes were hurting. You know what that's like when you walk out of a dark movie theater, right? And it's like 2 o'clock in the afternoon and just hits you and you just can't open your eyes all the way and it's like uncomfortable. So it wasn't just a bright light. Like the birds outside were going off like alarm clocks. They were, and it wasn't a beautiful noise. It was like, they're all hitting just at the same time screeching. It felt like they had just surrounded my tent. It wasn't a gentle little chirp. It was full volume, blast for all the birds in the neighborhood. And they're sinking their alarms, going off all at once. So I sat straight up, completely convinced that it was like 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning. And so my boys are there. They're also up because of the light and the birds, and I look at my watch, and it's 5.45 a.m. Like, 0 gosh, I guess this is just like what it's like outside. I'm used to the cold, dark comfort of my bedroom. And all 3 of us were wide awake now, super disoriented. We're all ready to march, right back inside, into the comfort of our beds, into the cold, dark comfort of our rooms. Now, why tell you all that? For this reason. Because I think that's such an honest picture of what it's like when we get hit by a really strong light. Light doesn't just always arrive gently. It doesn't always arrive exactly when we want it to. It isn't always welcome in our lives. Sometimes it's loud, sometimes it's early, sometimes it's uncomfortable, it's disorienting. Uh, and that's basically our whole sermon this morning. Uh, we were in the dark. Jesus turned on the light and he says, now wake up. It's time to get up. And whether we feel like it or not, Jesus is turning on the light. Whether we want to go into a cold, dark, comfortable place or not, Jesus says, I'm turning on the light. Awake, 0 sleeper, is what he says in our passage. So we're going to pray again, and then we're going to jump into Ephesians 6, what Winstone read for us earlier. Ephesians chapter 5, starting in verse 6, going through verse 14. So let's pray once more, and we'll jump into this passage together. Lord, thank you for gathering us here. to this time and this place to worship you, to be reminded of all the blessings, all the good news that we have in Christ, that when we were far off, when we were dead in our sin, you loved us and you pursued us. You entered into our world, into our mess, the chaos of our lives, to pull us out of it, and to pull us close to you. And so, Lord, we sit here this morning as people who are redeemed, who are blessed, who are forgiven, who have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm because you've secured it for us. And so we thank you that we have the opportunity to hear from you this morning. I pray that we would have Minds to hear, ears to hear, and eyes to see the beauty of your word. We pray this all in Christ's name. Amen. So we've been going through the book of Ephesians. for the last few months. And last week, we were in the 1st 5 verses of chapter 5. Chapter 5, verse one through five. And so we talked about who we are. We talked about what love is, and we talked about what love isn't. We looked at those 3 things. Who we are. We're meant to be children of God, that we imitate Jesus. And then what love is, love steps up, love serves and loves sacrifices. And then Paul goes into 3 verses about what love is not. It's all these things like sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, all these counterfeit versions of what our culture will sometimes say, that's what love looks like. And Paul says that's not love. And now Paul continues into verses 6 through 14. And so here's where we're headed this morning. Let's take a look at these 4 phrases, these 4 words here that break down our passage. We have the caution, the change, the challenge, and the charge. That's our passage this morning. That's how it's flowing through Paul's argument. And remember, we're dropping into chapter 5. But this is a continuation of Paul's entire argument. All right? So sometimes we, you know, we break them up Sunday to Sunday, and it can feel a little disjointed, and especially if you haven't been going through Ephesians with us. There's so much that Paul's already declared about who we are. And so sometimes we can read passages like this or last week and they can be discouraging if we don't know the context of all that he said. So I'm going to try to take us through this one step at a time. Paul's going to caution us about what's trying to deceive us. He'll show us that the change, the change that's already true of who we are. He will challenge us and how we're meant to live because of that change, and then he's going to charge us to do something about it. And that's where he ends this week in this passage. So let's take these one at a time. The 1st one is the caution. The caution. So let me just say that this is going to be, for some of us, maybe a little bit technical. We're gonna, like, slow it down a little bit, because we don't have a lot of verses to go through this morning, and some of them can be a little bit difficult to understand, just how it's worded in the English. And so for some of us, it might feel a little technical. Hang with me. We're gonna get through it. I've tried to make a complicated thing as simple as I know how. And so if you miss it this morning, that's not on you. That's on me. Just try to hang with me through it. Let's start looking at verse six. Let's read this. It says, let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Now, notice Paul starts with this caution, this warning about deception. And he uses this word deceive. Let no one deceive you. Well, deception is not the same word as lying. He doesn't say, let no one lie to you. He says, let no one deceive you. He's trying to say that this isn't something that's going to be obvious to you. Like a lie comes straight for you. He says, it's empty words. Empty words. He wants you to know, these are dangerous words. Uh, because they never sound like lies. He's trying to point out, this is gonna sound reasonable. This is gonna sound culturally appropriate. They may even sound kind, compassionate, you might be able to reason your way through some of these empty words. And I think for a lot of us, it doesn't take us long in our culture to hear things like this. Every culture has empty words, every generation has empty words, and so this week I tried to like think through some of our empty words and our culture. I'm sure we could come up with a whole list, but here's a few of them. Hey, there's this new trend and everyone else is doing it. So if you don't want to get left behind, get on board, right? It's technology's moving quick. And so just get on board or get left behind. Hey, if it's not hurting anyone just go for it. Like, it's not hurting anyone in the process. You're not getting hurt. So just, just do it. What about this one? You only live once, right? So just live it up. It's your life. Just go for it. Uh, don't you think God just wants you to be happy? Like he just, God wouldn't want you to go through hard things, would he? This is really hard, so God doesn't want you in that hardship. Just, he wants you to be happy. so just get out of that thing and be happy. Uh, here's a big one. My body, my choice. Um, I just get to do with my body whatever I want. Hey, that's your truth, but you know what? I've thought about it, and that's not my truth, you know? Man, you've worked so hard. You really deserve that. You've put in the tithe and the effort, that that thing that you wouldn't normally do, Ah, I think you've earned it. I think you really deserve it. So just go get it. Get what's yours in life. Now, some of those may sound like good phrases, and maybe we've used them before. But oftentimes Paul's going to say they're empty words. There's just no wisdom in them. There's no life to be found in them. They don't sound evil. They don't sound sinful. They sound like a siren song. Many of you, how many of y'all have seen Christopher Nolan's, the Odyssey, this summer. Some of y'all who have read the Odyssey. Okay, a few more. That's great. All right, awesome. I have not seen Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. It was the Odyssey was assigned reading for me in middle school. And as I was preparing this sermon, I thought about this scene, the scene with the sirens. You remember those? So there are these creatures, whose singing was so beautiful and so alluring that sailors would steer their ships right into the rocks and kill their entire crew. And so Odysseus had his crew tie him to the mast of his ship, and then the entire crew fills their ears with wax so that they can keep rowing past the island of the sirens, because they're singing this song that's so deceptive, it's beautiful, music. And so he just, he says, I'd go crazy. If I'm not tied to this thing, and I would lead everyone to their death. And so tie me up to the mask because I want to hear the beautiful song while you guys fill your ears with wax and keep on rowing past this island. And I was thinking about, like, Homer's onto something there. Because no one ever got lured to their destruction by an ugly song. By beautiful words. It's always it always sounds like the best thing you've ever heard. It always sounds like such a tempting route to take. And especially when everyone around you is also going that same direction. It's hard. It's hard to be the fish that goes in the other direction. It sounds so enticing, so exciting, up until where it doesn't work and it isn't. And I think our culture is always ready with a beautiful sounding excuse for the very sins that Paul says us tells us not to touch. And that was last week. 3 verses about all these things that we shouldn't do. And so Paul tells us plainly. Hey, don't don't let anyone trick you with empty words. Don't be a fool. Pass it through God's word. Don't let them fill your mind and your heart with these empty sayings that promise you things that won't live up to what you think they will. But I think sometimes we could say, hey, but why, Paul? Why not? Like, I mean, some of those words sound pretty good. Like, some of those paths take me to places I actually want to go. I want to be the VP. I want to be the CEO. I want to retire with multimillions of dollars, right? Like those paths sometimes sound great. Why not, Paul? Well, look, look at verse six. Paul says, because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Not the wealthy. He's not saying that that's wrong. He's not saying with those with ambition. He says the sons of disobedience. The wrath of God. Now, I don't know how you feel about that phrase, the wrath of God, but it's probably something that you try not to focus on when you're going through your Bible. Like we'd rather focus on like the love of God, the mercy of God, the grace of God. Like, we love those passages, and rightly so. But Paul decides not to skip over this. So a question should be, what's going on here? What is the wrath of God? Well, let me start by saying what the wrath of God is not. The wrath of God is not God just losing his temper. The wrath of God is not, God's just having a bad day. And sorry, guys, he's just gonna take it out on us. He's just angry. And so just have to let him get through his emotional anger and then he'll move on. That's not what it is. Wrath in the Bible is God's settled, stable, correct, righteous response. to sin and evil that's done to real people that are made in his image. That's the wrath of God. So think about a judge who hears a case that's dealing with real evil. Like things that I, I thought about like maybe, can I give you guys some examples of some real evil? I thought, with some of the kids in the room, I don't want to. Some of the abuses and injustices that are going on this world, but think about a judge that's presiding over it. And he hears about all these horrible things that are being done to people. And he's dealing with these things. And what if after hearing all the evil things that someone did, the judge just was like, I don't know. Like, I mean, who am I to judge? Uh, everybody's got their own truth. We'd be like, uh, you're the guy to judge, right? You're the judge, you're sitting up there. We would, we would call that judge tolerant. We would call him corrupt. He's not doing his job. See, we have to understand that God's wrath isn't the opposite of his goodness and his kindness. God's wrath is actually proof of it. It's proof of his goodness and kindness. A God who feels nothing about abuse, nothing about injustice or cruelty, he wouldn't be a loving God, he'd be an indifferent one. He wouldn't care about it. So when the Bible tells us that God's wrath is real, and it's coming for someone, it isn't telling us, God is this big scary guy. It's telling us that God takes our sins serious enough to do something about it. Now look at that phrase, the sons of disobedience. Every time I read this, I kind of think it sounds like a bad name for a heavy metal band, like, we're the sons of disobedience, but, um, this is a side note. Paul isn't joking. So who are the sons of disobedience? Because some people read verse 6 and they're not sure, who are these people? Like, the sons of disobedience is plural. Sounds like a group of people. Are those who are being, are they, those who are being deceived, or are they the ones who are doing the deceiving? Because look at verse six, if the wrath of God is coming for the sons of disobedience. I don't want to be a member of that band, right? I don't want to be a part of that group because the wrath of God is coming for them. So this one instance, this verse is actually where the original language is kind of more clear than how we translate it in English. So the Greek, when you go through it, it's a little bit more specific about what Paul's saying. So long story short, without going into all the weeds, the sons of disobedience are the ones doing the deceiving. Okay? So put more plainly. Let's look at verse six. You could think of verse 6 like this. Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience, who are the ones doing the deceiving with empty words. Okay? So sometimes it's not clear, we think, is it the person that is it the group that are deceiving others, or is it the group that's being deceived? It's the group that's deceiving others. Okay? So the wrath is coming for these sons of disobedience. And that shows up in several places. And if you have a really good memory, you'll know that that exact phrase, the sons of disobedience, it actually showed up back in chapter two, the very beginning of chapter 2. So let's pull that up on the screen. It's verses one through 3 that it shows up in. And it says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, and once you once walked. So Paul's already gone through chapter one about all the blessings we have in Christ, he gets to this and he says, this is who you were. You followed the course of this world. You followed the prince of the power of the ear, the spirit that's now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all, he Paul's putting himself in there, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. We were by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Paul's juxtaposing who we once were with who we are now. And did you see it? That phrase, the sons of disobedience, shows up right there in verse 2. And then in verse three, so it says, among whom we all once lived, and were by nature children of wrath. So Paul is including himself, when he says, we were all, at one point, sons or daughters of disobedience. We were all at one point children of wrath. That's the life that apart from Jesus, we used to live. So when Paul then uses that same phrase again in chapter 5, let's go back to that slide. He's not telling us that we're still in that category. He's not because chapter one, already called us, chosen, adopted, forgiven, sealed by the Spirit, given inheritance, chapter 2 said, you're already called as alive, and then even in verse 8 of chapter 5 that we're going to get to, Paul saying, you are light. So what's he doing? He's describing people who want to lead you into the darkness. He's describing these people that are going to experience the wrath of God, the sons of disobedience because they're deceiving others, and they want to deceive you. And then that brings us to verse seven. It says, therefore, do not become partners with them. I think this verse can often be misunderstood. Um, some people may hear it and think, so I can't be friends with unbelievers. Like, is that what the Bible is saying? Like, I just need to cut off every relationship with anybody who isn't a Christian. But that's not what Paul's saying here. And there are several other places where Paul doesn't affirm that. The word for partners means something closer to like a fellow participant. He's not saying, hey, just don't become friends with these sinful people. He's talking about joining in on what they're doing. Because there's a real difference between being at the table with someone and partaking of the meal with them, right? Sitting at a table with somebody doesn't mean you're eating everything that's being served to them. You can go through life with people and love them without ever partnering in the sin that they're committing. Jesus did this all the time. He ate with tax collectors. They called him a friend of sinners. and he never once sinned. He was fully present with people who were far from him, without everyone's joining in on the sins they committed. And so here's the caution. that the Bible gives us, just plain and simple. Don't let empty words talk you into joining a way of life that Jesus already rescued you from. That's what Paul is cautioning us. Don't let empty words, talk you into joining a way of life that Jesus already rescued you from. That's the caution. Let's move on. We got to move quick. Second point is the change. Look at the 1st half of verse eight. Just a little short verse that we have here. For one time, you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Let's read that again. For one time, you were darkness. But now you are light, and the Lord. That's kind of a weird way to say it, right? Like, shouldn't he say, but for one time you were in the dark, you were in darkness, but now you were in the light? Paul doesn't say that. He doesn't say we were in darkness. He says, you were darkness. That's not a location. That's an identity. So I was thinking about it this week. My son, one of my sons, Zeke, he's five. earlier this year, he spent an entire afternoon in our mud pit in the backyard. And he's playing around with his toys. He's filling things up, and he's just covered in mud. And I'm just watching him from the back door, like, this kid is such a mess, but he loves it. He's enjoying it. I'm going to have to clean him up before he gets inside. Otherwise, we're gonna have mud everywhere. He's got mud all over his arms, all over his legs, his clothes, his shoes, his face has mud on it. But at no point would I was I like, hey, that kid is made of mud. As much as he got covered in mud, we could cover him all up with mud. At no point is he the mud. He's just in the mud. That's the difference between in and is. He doesn't say we were in darkness. He says you were darkness. And we've watched Paul make this same move before. Old self, new self. Dead in sin? Alive in Christ. He's using these things, these same moves to show us. And then after the word darkness, look at that 3 letter word. It's one of Paul's favorite words to use. My kids make fun of me every time I say this word. They giggle. Chapter two. Paul has said it before. But God, being rich in mercy. But now in Christ, Jesus, who you once were far off, have, you've been brought near, uh, to the blood of Christ. Chapter 4. But that is not the way you learn Christ. And then in chapter 5, but now you are light in the Lord. Paul is showing us this comparison, this difference between who we once were and who we are now. And Paul just can't stop celebrating all that God has done over and over in this letter. Paul explains the difference between who you were and who you are now. And every time he does we see that something drastically changed. And we weren't the ones who changed it. We were darkness, then Jesus, now light. And notice the verse doesn't say, now you have light. He says, now you are light. And it happened in the Lord. It's not because we cleaned ourselves up. It's not because you got a certain education level. It's not because you read a specific book. You got high enough IQ. It's not because you made enough money or you were born in a certain country. It's because of what he did. is because we got joined to him. And what was already true of him became true of us. So we are light because he is light. We were darkness. We were born in darkness, children of wrath, sons of disobedience, and he said, because of Jesus, you are now light because he is light. So here's the change, plain and simple. You're not becoming light by trying hard enough. You already are light in him. That's the change. So 3rd point, the challenge. Let's look at the back half of verse 8 through verse 12. He says, walk as children of light. Let's stop right there. I was thinking about this week. What is light? We're dealing with a lot of abstract principles here this morning, darkness and light. Paul does get specific. He was specific the last couple weeks, but this time he's pretty abstract with us this morning. And so I was thinking about, what is light? Light isn't just the absence of darkness. Sometimes people have defined light that way. It's just the absence of darkness, but light actually produces something. You've seen these grow lights. Let's go to the next slide. These grow lights that are shown on a lot of plants that you could buy. If you don't have enough windows in your house, or maybe you've got a plant in a specific office where you don't have access, or you want to put it further from a window, maybe it's an interior room. You've seen these grow lights that people have over their plants. And it's not just, so the plants can be seen. It's so they can grow. The light isn't there just to keep the darkness away. The light is making something happen. Light causes growth. So he says, as we continue, in verse 9, for the fruit of light, is found in all that is good and right and true. He says, hey, walking as children of light isn't primarily about doing bad things. Like sometimes that we can think that that's true. Walking in the light is just, I can't do all these bad things, God. You made a list of all the things I can't do. And so if I'm gonna walk in the light. I just have to have the absence of bad things. That's not what he's saying. He's saying it's the fruit of all that's good and right and true. And Jesus, Paul is consistent with this, Jesus is consistent with this. The way that healthy fruit grows is from a healthy tree. Jesus said it. So the same way, healthy things grow from a healthy life. And there's no healthy life apart from Christ. So if you want to be living in the right and good and trueness of life, he says, join yourself to Christ, you're in his light. And then in verse 10, he says, try to discern what's pleasing to the Lord. That word for discern is like a testing word. It's this 1st century word that it's like someone holding up a diamond in the light at the marketplace and trying to discern, is this a real diamond? I'm about to invest a lot of money in this. It could also be used as a testing word for pottery. A lot of times, you'd put something in the kiln, and if it didn't fire right, it would fall apart. It would break apart. And so pottery makers wouldn't want to lose money. And so they try to piece the pottery back together. And they try to piece it in a way where you couldn't see the broken lines, but then they would put it in the market, and the way you test it is you hold it up to the light. Just like that diamond, and you hold up the pottery, and you turn it around, you see, can I see any cracks? And if there's no cracks, it's sincere. It's one piece. It's true. And so Paul uses that word, test it, discern it. He says, not that you should ask, is this technically allowed, am I allowed to do this in my life? He says, I want you to have this lifelong posture of constantly saying, I want to please God. I want to please him, what pleases him, what brings joy to his heart? Because he's a dad that I want to please. I want to bring joy to him. That's the posture that Paul wants you to have. Discern. test it, have wisdom, consult others. And then look at verse 11. He says, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. Now we've got 2 commands stacked in that one verse. We've got, don't participate and then expose. So what does that mean to take no part into expose? Well, I don't think that Paul means, hey, go and be the sin police for everyone around you, right? Like, get to the point where you're just imitating Christ so well that you bring the checkboard around everywhere you go, the checklist, the clipboard, and you're just like, I'm the send police, I'm going to call people out today. That's my job. I'm the most mature person in this family, in this house, in this workplace in this community. And so I just got to call people out. Paul said to do it, don't partake, expose it. Well, this isn't a command to catalog other people's failures, and then hold it up for everyone to see. Look at the metaphor that Paul's been using. He's been talking about darkness and light. So what happens when a light is turned on? It exposes the darkness. Just by being on. And I think that's how we're meant to expose darkness. Not primarily by pointing fingers, but by simply living as people who belong to Jesus. And sometimes it does mean speaking the truth in love, Paul has said that in this letter, especially when it's a brother or sister in Christ. Especially when someone's in the family. We speak the truth in love. But it could also mean that our lives become a light that exposes the darkness around us simply by being present. I remember for me, I've been walking with Jesus for 27 years now, and I really started to grow in college. I got plugged in with a parachchurch ministry. We were doing weekly Bible studies. We were memorizing scripture. I was being discipled and discipling other guys, and I was meeting with my mentor one day. Several years in, I think I was like a senior in college, and he was like, hey, Tyler, you know how people respond when you walk in the room. And I was like, oh no, I'm in so much trouble. I must not be a good influence. And he was like, no, people get their act together when you walk in the room. I was like, what? It's like, yeah, they stopped talking about the things they were talking about. Uh, some of them clean up their language. Some of them were telling crude jokes and they stopped in the middle of a joke. Some of them were using foul language, cussing, and as soon as they saw you, they stopped or they apologized for it. What's happening there? You're not calling them out on it. He said, you just walked in the room. It's not because you said anything to them. It's because they know how you live your life. And whether they realize it or not, whether they're aware, they feel ashamed for the way they're living theirs. You're a light. You walked into the room and you're exposed to the dark. So you don't need to point it out. You can speak the truth and love to your brothers and sisters, but you don't need a rail on a blog post. You don't need to have all the 10 reasons why the culture is just awful. You don't need a tweet about it. You can just be the light of Jesus. He'll expose it. He'll show the world. Our lives are meant to be a testimony, not a judgment to the lost. So then Paul gives a command about those living in darkness. Look at verse 12. He says, for it's shameful, even to speak of the things that they do in secret. I was thinking, man, here's a good question to ask. I ask myself this week, here's a good question to ask yourself. Does something need to stay hidden in order for it to survive? Is there something in your life that needs to stay hidden for it to keep going? And if the honest answer is yes. Then it's a part of your life that's living in darkness. And so here's the challenge Paul has for us, plain and simple. Don't just avoid the dark. Let your life in Jesus expose it. Expose your own sin. Don't just avoid the dark. Let your life in Jesus expose the sin in your life. That's the challenge. And our 4th point this morning. The charge. Look at verses 13 and 14 as we wrap up the charge. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible is light. So he says, hey, light doesn't just reveal the darkness, whatever gets exposed becomes light. So in other words, light doesn't just diagnose, light transforms. Which means that the light of Christ doesn't just reveal the darkness, it has the potential to change it. It did in our lives. The moment that Christ showed up, you were changed. You're transformed. And that stabilizing light brings growth. And then Paul closes this section. With a line that probably came from like an early hymn. A lot of scholars think that this is Paul kind of bringing a few Old Testament passages together, maybe a few passages in Isaiah. Some scholars say, maybe there's a little Jonah influence there. He says, therefore, it says, he's not quoting anything specific other than maybe an early hymn. And maybe that hymn was actually sung at baptisms, some people, some scholars believe. It says, awake, O sleeper. And arise from the dead. And Christ will shine on you. So, here's the charge, plain and simple. Paul says, hey, wake up. Because Christ is already shining. He's already come. Whether you're ready to see him or not. That's the charge. Wake up. Christ is already shining. Whether you're ready to see him or not. Now before we close, I want to ask a few questions. And I could give you a list of things to start doing or stop doing. That's usually how application works, right? At the end of a sermon. You get a few, one, two, three, uh, application statements, but I've been doing something different. I don't know if y'all have noticed the last few months. I've been asking questions instead. Because a statement tells you the answer, but a question forces you to sit with it. A statement can sometimes, like when I receive a statement personally, sometimes it just bounces off of me, sometimes I get defensive. I'm like, oh, that doesn't apply to me. But I found in my own life a good question. It tends to follow me home. Like, a good question just tends to sit with me. And so I've just been doing application questions rather than statements. There's nothing wrong with statements. We'll continue to do them from time to time, but there's so much nuance in our, each of our lives, our seasons, our age, what we've gone through. There's so much nuance in scripture that I think questions can sometimes penetrate more than statements. By the way, the next time that you go through the gospels, underline every time that Jesus asks a question. There are more than 300 questions that Jesus asks. He asks more questions than he answers questions. The one guy who knows more about the universe than anyone who's ever lived asks more questions. Isn't that fascinating? He directly answers only a small handful of questions that he's actually asked. Okay, so the questions. Let's get to 4 questions for you to consider. What am I watching or reading or listening to that I would just never show anyone? Like, I'm low grade embarrassed. I'm low grade, ashamed, if someone were to see the thing I'm reading or watching or listening to. Second question, which relationship keeps pulling me toward the dark? Is there someone that, um, I'm partaking in the sin with? They're not just a friend. You can have friends that aren't believers. You should have friends that aren't believers, but partaking in their lifestyle, something Paul's warning us not to do. Don't be partakers of it. Don't partner with them in their sinfulness. Grow in Christlikeness. Is there someone that's pulling you towards the dark? What sinful habit do I keep putting off dealing with? Like, I know, oh, it's there. I know I should work through it. Man, I'm gonna do that when I get married. I'm gonna do that when I make more money. I'm gonna do that when I've got an easier circumstance. I'm in a better season. What's something, a sinful habit, a pattern in your life that I'm like, I just, I gotta deal with that later. I can't deal with that now. In my life, what is surviving in the darkness? What's something that I just keep doing, that if it was brought to the light, it would lose its power. It would lose its habitual presence in my life. In my life, what is surviving in the darkness? Four questions I want you to consider this week. And then let me wrap up with the 4 points as well that we have, a caution, a change, a challenge, and a charge. Paul is saying a caution against empty words. Don't let them deceive you. Don't have these platitudes, these pithy sayings that are in the culture that are going to lead you astray. They sound good for a moment. Test them. discern. Ask someone who knows scripture who's been walking with Jesus. Is that a good way to live my life? A change from darkness to light. He says, this is no longer you. Your light, you were darkness, now you are light in the Lord. There's a change, a fundamental transformation that happened. So then he says, I want to challenge you to walk in the light. Walk where Jesus walked, imitate him. The darkness loses power in the light, expose it. And then a charge. Wake up to Christ. Wake up to the Lord. And maybe the honesty this morning is that you're somebody that has been sleeping. And you've been, you've never actually turned from your sin and trusted in Jesus. Maybe you've been sleepwalking your whole life and you've never once really woken up to the truth. The truth that you're loved. You're wanted. Jesus died for you. He came for you. He loves you. Or maybe you're a believer and you're just, you've just been dozing off. You know Jesus, but somewhere along the way, it's like you lost him. There's a dark corner of your heart that just got comfortable. And honestly, that's every believer at some point. We're all prone to doze. We're all prone to hide in the dark. We're all prone to drive back to an old address. We're all prone to wander from God. But if we love Jesus, we keep confessing our sins to one another, and we keep running back to him. So he says, wherever you are this morning, hear this charge sitting in verse 14. Awake, O sleeper. Arise from the dead or from your sleep. Christ will shine on you. Remember that tent in the backyard? The light showed up, whether we were ready for it or not, at 545 in the morning, and the 2nd it did, every instinct in us wanted to go right back inside, into the cold, into the dark, into the comfort of our room, that's what felt right, and that's the caution Paul gives us. Don't get pulled to partner with the darkness. God made us to walk in the light, to know him, to love him, to obey him. But too often we love the dark. We hide in it. It gives us comfort. We reach for the beautiful sounding words that cover up our sins and without Christ. We are sin sick and we are hell bound. But Jesus didn't say he didn't stay seated up there to hand out judgment. He came down to carry a cross. And he took our verdict. He took the wrath of God upon him. He took on our sins. And then in John 8.12 that we have on the screen for us. Jesus said these words, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The words of Jesus. Paul echoes those words. And on the cross, Jesus took the wrath that we deserves. He didn't deflect it onto someone else. He absorbed it into him. And 3 days later, the father raised him from the dead. And now the invitation goes out to everyone in this room, everyone in this nation and everyone in this world, we turn away from our sin from the darkness. We turn towards Jesus and we embrace the light. We imitate him. And the moment we do, the darkness doesn't just get exposed, it gets transformed. We were darkness now in Jesus. We are light. So whatever you've been hiding, whatever you've been trying to manage or keep tucked deep into some dark corner of your heart, God's calling you to wake up. To see the beauty of who he is. Wake up to the reality that the Son of God came to shine his light into your life, and to transform us from darkness. into his marvelous light. Let's pray together.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention