Children of Light
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· 5 viewsLiving as the light of God in this dark world
Notes
Transcript
Today we are going to wrap up our series from Ephesians by looking at what it means to be children of light.
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine 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.
I want to address three main points in today’s message:
Light is our identity
Light brings truth to our mind, heart, and will
Light makes an impact on the darkness
When the apostle Paul refers to us as the children of light, he is referring to our new birth into God’s families. There are many things that identify who God is but second only to the fact that God is love is the important truth that God is light.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
God is without sin, without falsehood, without wrong motives, or any hint of evil intentions. All that He is, all that He does, all that He says is pure and true. When we follow the path of God and grow in the likeness of Christ, the light of God becomes our identity. You’ll notice that the text says that we were once darkness, not that we were in the darkness, but rather the darkness was in us. The structure of these words is not accidental, Paul isn’t saying “You were really good people trapped in the dark against your will.” There is no mistaking the fact that the text identifies us with darkness, sin, and evil. But praise be to Christ, who has rescued us out of this darkness, saved us from ourselves, and brought us into His marvelous light, so that we too could be children of light.
And you might be saying, “Well that is a very harsh and extremely negative view of human nature” but unless you are able to see this truth, God’s wrath and judgment makes no sense. At the end of the day, there isn’t much that separates our society from the evil practices that were judged by God throughout history. I don’t want to make this message about abortion but it is a pertinent topic these days, isn’t it? I would agree that the new law in Texas is a bad one but careless legislation doesn’t make abortion right. As someone who has been a part of aborting a child before becoming a Christian, I understand the thought process that it takes to recuse oneself from taking responsibility for ending a pregnancy. I remember my girlfriend in college coming up to me and sharing the news that she was pregnant. In our mind, we both knew there wasn’t a decision to be made. We were not in a committed relationship nor would we ever be, we were also both too young, and too much to live for, so we terminated that pregnancy for the sake of freedom of choice and personal ambition. Of all the consequences of sexual relationships outside of the covenant of marriage, this one is probably the most devastating.
Any way you cut it there is no moral justification for abortion except perhaps for cases of rape and danger to the mother’s life. Even if you use the “My body, my choice” argument, that’s not coming from a moral high ground. A fetus is not a useless appendage or a cancerous growth, at the minimum it’s the beginning stages of life and for nine months, that emerging life is the most beautiful part of a woman’s body. I say this tongue in cheek but even the most unattractive and mean-spirited women seems to glow with beauty when they are with child. And I would be worried if the Satanic temple is standing behind your cause…it might be time to think about what side you are on. When abortion has been allowed, it has always been a concession to the existence of human irresponsiblity and sin, not a bold faced fight for some fundamental human right.
I’m certainly not here to judge you if you have had the unfortunate experience of going through an abortion. There is forgiveness and mercy, just as I have personally experienced but I share this because for me that event is a stark reminder of the darkness that was in me, that at one point in my life, I was capable of such things and how grateful I am that the light of Christ has transformed my heart. I am eternally thankful that I am not that person anymore and that I see, what was hidden before, the sanctity of life from the womb to the grave. As King David so famously wrote:
Psalm 139:13–14 (ESV)
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
The dignity of human life begins in the womb. That is the final word for me and every other argument is just empty words that ultimately proves mankind’s rebellion against the light of God.
As the apostle John points out:
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
I think Christians and non-Christians, both somehow make the mistake that God’s anger is over trivial matters and that the only reason for his wrath is simply because good natured, innocent people choose not to believe in His Son. God is not that fickle. The very fact that only the life of the Son of God could save us reveals the severity of the darkness within us.
So what does it mean for us to be identified as the light? I like to think of light as an acronym for Living in God’s Holy Truth!
This brings us to our second point which is that the light of God brings truth to our mind, heart, and will. As a child of light, when is the last time that the truth of God actually helped you make a decision on a social issue. When was the last time the truth of His word helped sway your emotions so that your heart broke over the things that really matter to God. When’s the last time you acted differently, changed your behavior, even regretted a choice that you made because the Scriptures convicted you. If this has never happened to you, I don’t know if you can consider yourself to be a child of light. If this hasn’t happened in a long time, you are probably not in a good place as a Christian and you need to return to the Lord. The light in us can be dimmed by what we see and how we perceive the world we live in and Jesus gives us this fair warning.
but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
I believe a major reason for the ineffectiveness of Christianity in our culture is the loss of God’s holy truth. It would seem that Christians no longer give much weight to the power of truth. But once you lose truth, you lose the conviction to act.
One of the catch phrases of contemporary Christianity is the need for the church to be relevant. I would agree wholeheartedly that we need to meet people where they are and provide pertinent solutions to their everyday problems. Where I would disagree is in the methodology that we find in the church today. In the quest for relevance many Christians want to become indistinguishable from the world, they would rather blend in than stand out.
In our desire for relevance, large swaths of the American church have conformed to the prevailing culture and in so doing, we have become irrelevant. We are now the followers of social trends rather than the leaders. We allow secular culture to dictate our ethics and morals. Instead of being on the forefront of ethical and social thought, we find ourselves being moved by empty and meaningless slogans. The ideas of the world have become the beliefs of the church and what John Gresham Machen, feared early in the 20th century is becoming a reality.
“False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel.”
Once the church loses its grasp of the truth, it can no longer function as light. Back in the mid-eighties, there was this very popular book entitled “The Road Less Traveled.” It sold something like 30 million copies here in the US. I reread it recently and was surprised by the overtly Christian overtones. I was shocked that a book like this actually sold so many copies and reminded me how much American society has changed. The author recognized that living for truth is really the road less travelled because it is not an easy one. He writes:
“What does a life of total dedication to the truth mean? It means, first of all, a life of continuous and never-ending stringent self-examination. We know the world only through our relationship to it. Therefore, to know the world, we must not only examine it but we must simultaneously examine the examiner.”
Very few modern people are dedicated to truth, all we talk about is our narrative which may or may not have some truth interlaced into it. And for all the processing that we do, there is rarely any critical self-examination that leads anywhere. Only the Scriptures provide a mirror by which men and women can truly see themselves and from there make the right judgments about the world.
More than being relevant, Christians need to make an impact and in order to make this impact, we need to be as different from the world as light is from darkness.
We have to love what the world hates and hate what the world loves. We need to have supernatural wisdom to discern when good has been turned into evil and where evil has been accepted as good. There is fair warning of this from the prophet Isaiah.
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
And the extent of our difference has to be universal, we are called to be different from both the nominal church and the secular culture, meaning Christians must stand in stark contrast to those who are irreligious as well as those who are superficially religious. The greatest tragedy in church history is our constant tendency to conform to the prevailing culture rather than establish a definitive Christian counter-culture. So it seems like we are a cheap, outdated version of the world and it is no wonder people are not attracted to us because we offer them nothing substantially different.
One of the main objections to being intentionally different is the fact that we will be viewed as a group of self-righteous bigots who pride themselves in their morality. This is one of the reasons why we don’t really see the value of our distinction but one of the essential themes of the Bible is that God’s purpose throughout history is to call out a people for himself, to make us holy, just as He is holy, and to set us apart from the world. And the reason why God does this is so that we can be used for the purpose of redemption, restoration, and renewal. The world will not fix itself and so we are given this high privilege and duty to be God’s vessels. In fact, the gospel of Matthew records Jesus giving Christians this charge in the emphatic.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
It is as if He is saying, “You and only you are the light of the world.” I want you to let that sink in a little bit and realize that it has two dimensions. The first is in the positive, you and only you can make a real impact that will matter for eternity. But the second is in the negative, as you see the world fall apart around you, Christians have the responsibility to make a difference, we have to rise up to the challenge as the darkness surrounds us.
What is interesting in this passage is that Jesus delineates his argument for light in two directions. First he mentions that the lights of a city that is on a hill cannot be hidden but then he narrows it down to individual houses in which each person lights a lamp and instead of putting it under a bushel, chooses to put it on a stand. A city is only as bright as the lights of the individual houses that are a part of it. The church is only as bright as the indwelling presence of Christ in each believer.
We are the light of the world because the light of Christ dwells within us. Maybe this is arrogant to say but I firmly believe that Christians are the only ones that can bring light into the darkness, life to the dead, and real change in the human heart.
Matthew Parris who is a journalist in England and an avowed atheist has written articles about the good that Christianity has done in his home continent of Africa. In covering the various charities and NGO’s in Africa he has objectively recognized the fact that Christians and only Christians have made lasting impact.
“Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do…In Africa, Christianity changes people’s hearts.”
“Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were … influenced by a conception of man’s place in the Universe that Christianity has taught.”
How does the light of Christ make a difference? 4 things:
The light produces the fruits of goodness, righteousness, and truth
Goodness refers to the generosity of our spirit
Righteousness means conformity of your heart and life to the moral laws of God
Truth is not simply intellectual knowledge but moral truth which is not only to be known but to be done.
The light enables us then to discern what is pleasing to God and what is not pleasing to Him. Only the light of Christ can help us discern the real motives and intentions of our hearts. This is why it is so important for us to bring all our thoughts and actions into the light of God so that whatever we do, we do so with pure hearts and clean hands.
The light exposes whatever is evil. The best way to get rid of evil is to drag it into the light. Whether it’s the evil that remains in our hearts or the evil practices in our society, exposing these things to the light is the only way to cleanse them.
The light transforms what it touches into light. We are talking here about the power of redemeption and healing. Light doesn’t just expose and condemn, it also heals, gives life, and awakens.
Ephesians 5:14–16 (ESV)
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.
Over the last year, our world has talked so much about being woke but that’s not what the church needs, we need to be awakened by Christ, who proclaimed this about himself:
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”