What I want us to talk about
together in this time is our pursuit of holiness, our pursuit
of godliness, our being radically different from the world. And
I'm not talking about radically different with external things. I'm talking about radically different
with internal things, our attitudes, the use of our tongue. the choices
that we make that affect the steps that we pursue, the use
of our body. We need to be a people so distinct
that we stand out as lights in the midst of a dark and sinful
generation. And I fear at times so many Christians
are trying to be as much like the world in order to win the
world to Christ. And there's a sense in which
Paul says we've become all things to all people that we might win
them, and I became as a Jew that I might win a Jew, and I became
as one who is not a Jew that I might win those who are not
Jews. There is that, those cultural bridges that we recognize that
give us opportunity to share Christ because there is some
commonality between us. I'm not referring to that. What
I'm referring to is the use of our tongue and the use of our
mouth. I'm referring to our moral purity, our holiness. The word holiness means to be
set apart from sin and to be set apart unto God. That is what God has called each
and every one of us to be and to do. Leviticus 11, 44, God
says, I am holy, therefore you shall be holy. It's repeated
in Leviticus 19, verse 2, I the Lord your God am holy, therefore
you shall be holy. Peter quotes it in 1 Peter 1,
verses 15 and 16. And without question, what God
has called us to is a life of holiness. what we saw last night,
in love He predestined us under the adoption of sons that we
might be holy. And so God's desire for our lives
is that we be becoming more and more like Jesus Christ. That's what the word Christian
means. It's a diminutive form of the word Christ, which means
little Christ. We are to follow Christ. We are
to talk like Christ. We are to emulate Christ. We
are to imitate and mimic Christ. His words are to be our words,
and we must be those who resist temptation. We flee immorality,
and we pursue purity and godliness. That's what I want to speak to
you about in this session. So, I invite you to take God's
Word and turn with me again to the book of Ephesians, to Ephesians
chapter 5, and I want to begin by reading in verse 3 the text
that we will look at. I want to draw special attention
to verse 8, and we'll eventually be there in our reading, Ephesians
chapter 5. And beginning in verse 3, and
just by way of reminder, the preacher has nothing to say apart
from the Word of God. It's when the Bible speaks, God
speaks. And so our desire is for God
to speak to our hearts. This is not me speaking, this
is God speaking through His Word. His Word is inspired, it is inerrant,
it is infallible. It is the very plumb line for
our lives by which He is measuring us and by which we must measure
ourselves. His Word is like water that washes
us and sanctifies us and cleanses us. It's a fire that burns within
us, and it is to burn away the dross and the false alloy of
our life and leave behind a pure, blameless life. Paul, as you
know in the book of Ephesians, it's six chapters. The first
three chapters are doctrine. And we looked at some of that
doctrine last night. The last three chapters are duty,
and the order is very important. First, what we believe, and then
how we behave. And Paul lays the foundation
in this book with sound doctrine and high theology that is to
be the very cornerstone and foundation of our lives. It's what we believe.
And then in chapter 4 beginning in verse 1, he makes the bridge
and he says, as we as those who have been called with a holy
calling, we are to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. There's
a high call of God upon our lives. As we saw last night, it is a
sovereign call by which we have been called from before the foundation
of the world. And it should have an extraordinary
effect upon every moment of every day, the choices that we make,
the path that we pursue, the company that we keep, what we
set before our eyes, the music that we listen to, the books
that we read, what we pull up on our computer screen, the movies
that we attend, the conversations that we keep. This high call
of God upon our lives should radically affect every area and
every dimension of our lives. The entirety of our lives, from
the top of our head to the bottom of our feet, should be marked
by the pursuit of personal holiness. And so, in chapter 5, beginning
in verse 3, is one section of this larger section of how to
live the Christian life. And Paul writes, beginning in
verse 3, it's very hard-hitting. It's very straightforward. There's
no spiritual goosebumps to be felt here. This is adult conversation
from the apostle to us. But immorality or any impurity
or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among
saints. And there must be no filthiness
and silly talk or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather
giving of thanks. For this you know with certainty,
that no immoral or impure person A covetous man who is an idolater
has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 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 be partakers with them. for you were formerly darkness,
but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,
for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and 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, and
he now quotes Isaiah 60 verse 1, "'Awake, sleeper, and rise
from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.'" Part of the challenge that we
face in living a life of personal holiness and godliness is the
fact that we live in a very dark and corrupt culture that is becoming
increasingly dark and wicked and depraved every passing day. We have watched on television
recently the past weeks and extended back last months of corruptions
within our government officials as they have fallen again and
again to prostitution and pornography. Going so far as to even reveal
themselves in lewd and crude ways. The most recent scandal
involved a sitting U.S. congressman from the state of
New York named Anthony Weiner. Now, Weiner was the uprising
upstart for the liberal Democrats. He was positioned to be the next
mayor of New York City. He's been married only 11 months. And he began having improper
communication online, Facebook, with young women, women he didn't
even know, women he's never even met. And then Weiner began to
take pictures of himself, and he meant to send it to one of
these women, but by mistake posted it on Facebook for the whole world to see. And then when he was approached
by it for the next ten days, to ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN,
everyone, he blatantly denied it and said his webpage had been
hacked into and called everyone a liar that was bringing this
insinuation, this wasn't me. It's… it has been pulled together
with trick photography. until he was finally forced to
hold a press conference and confess his sin, only because someone
else had an even more lewd picture, crude, pornographic picture of
himself and said, if you don't tell the truth, you're going
to force me to release this. It's about the tip of the iceberg,
really, of our whole culture and our whole society. And with
the availability through the high technology these days, immorality
and all kinds of crudeness are but just a click away. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor
of this state of California, it has just come out that he
fathered a child. with his longtime housemaid,
and the housemaid lived with the family, and the child was
born, and his wife and children never knew that this was their
father's child. She was pregnant at the same
time his own wife was pregnant. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer
resigned after being caught in the disgrace of using a call
girl service, linking him with a prostitution ring. And then there's John Edwards,
senator in the past from North Carolina, presidential run, this
last election and fathered a child with a campaign worker, and then
apparently has used campaign funds to try to cover it up. The whole time his wife has cancer
and is dying, and he is out having an affair and a fling. And on
and on it goes. The governor of South Carolina,
Mark Sanford, resigned after it was discovered he's flying
down to Argentina to have some kind of a rendezvous and an affair
with some woman in Argentina. New York representatives, Florida
representatives, Louisiana senator, Iowa senator, the previous New
York governor. to say nothing of President Bill
Clinton during his time in office and before office. This is but
representative of the sewer in which you and I live. There has
never been a more decadent society in which to live than the one
in which you and I presently find ourselves. Our country is
unraveling like a cheap sweater. And all around us, there is the
cesspool of iniquity that is splashing on us, this decadent
society in which we live. It is a culture of death. It
is a culture of depravity. And we need to hear these verses.
We need to have them impressed upon our hearts yet again, that
God has called us to a high standard of holiness, and He's not lowering
the bar one inch. He is not accommodating us to
make things comfortable. He will supply grace and the
power of the Holy Spirit to raise us up to His standard of purity. But let there be no mistake,
God is not marginalizing His standard for personal holiness. This is little different from
the world in which the Ephesians lived. They, too, lived in a
very depraved and wicked society. And as Paul writes this, it was
necessary for Paul to write this because they're rubbing shoulders
all around them in the marketplace, in the workplace, in their families
with all kinds of vile behavior. And there is this reminder to
them that you need to be different, and you need to stand out, and
you need to shine like light in the midst of a dark and sinful
generation. In the middle of Ephesus was
one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was the temple
of Diana, right smack in the middle of Ephesus. It was a magnificent
structure. It boasted around its perimeter
127 columns. These columns were 60 feet high. Can you imagine just the immensity
of this temple of Diana? And inside the temple of Diana,
it was filled with prostitutes and eunuchs. And traveling businessmen
from far and wide rerouted their travel, that they could come
through Ephesus. And there hit some euphoric high
inside the temple of Diana here in Ephesus. There were all kinds
of raw sexual orgies that corrupted all who entered. The immorality
just spilled out and spewed out of the temple of Diana and flowed
like a backed-up toilet into every little street and every
little part of the neighborhood until they had immorality and
impurity up to their nostrils. It was in such an environment,
not unlike ours today. that God planted this little
church of Ephesus. Many, if not most of them, had
been converted out of this wicked culture, and now find themselves
in Christ. And they find themselves dressed
in the righteousness of Christ. Their rags of self-righteousness
and their rags, their filthy, stinking, rotten rags of their
sinful past have been removed through the gospel and the power
of regeneration. And they have been clothed now
with the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. And Paul now
writes to them and admonishes them with imperative verbs. that
they must walk in the light, and they must walk away from
the darkness, and they must not blend in with the culture. They
must stand out. In fact, if they are to make
a difference, they must be different. They must shine like the noonday
sun, brighter than ten thousand suns in the sky amid the darkness
of this generation. And so it is for each and every
one of us here today. As we look at this passage, I
want to begin in the middle of it. I want to begin in verse
8. I want to begin by drawing our
attention to verse 8, and then like concentric circles, I want
to work my way out from the epicenter. And there are five things that
I want you to note. It's a very simple outline. It
would be very easy to write down. I want you to see first what
we were. At the beginning of verse 8,
Paul writes, for you were formerly darkness. This describes the past of every
believer in the church at Ephesus. And it describes every believer
in every place, in every generation, across the board, no exceptions. Every one of us were born in
darkness, and we lived in darkness. The word darkness is a metaphor. It's a picture of being in spiritual
darkness and being in moral darkness. Darkness is a metaphor for being
lost. It's a metaphor for being ignorant
of God and being unable to see God and unable to know God, to
just be in the dark regarding God. It's a metaphor that pictures
impurity of life and trafficking in deeds of darkness. And it
represents being in the dungeon of Satan, the dark dungeon of
Satan. In Ephesians 4 verse 18, he writes
to them and reminds them that in their past, their B.C. days
before Christ, they were being darkened in their understanding. It becomes even more intensified
in chapter 5, verse 8, where He says, you were formerly darkness. Not just that you were in darkness,
you were darkness. It's not just that your behavior
was dark. Your very being was dark on the
inside. There was no light of God within
you. It's not just that your conduct
was dark. Who you are and what you are
on the inside, we once were dark. Our character was dark. Our mind
was dark. Our affections were dark. Our
desires were dark. Our passions were dark. Paul reminds these Ephesians
that they might see the stark contrast between what they were
and what they have become. And they need to understand they
have not gone from one hue of gray to another hue of gray,
but that they have gone from pitch black dark to bright light. This is what we all once were.
Whether you were… whether you grew up in the church or whether
you grew up out of the church, whether you were born in a Christian
home or whether you were born in an unchristian home, every
single one of us in this building today, all 3,200 of us, we were
all born in darkness. Luke 179 says that we sat in
darkness. Psalm 107 verse 10 said that
we lived in darkness. Isaiah 9 verse 2 said that we
walked in darkness. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4 says,
the God of this age, that is Satan, has blinded the minds
of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the
gospel of the glory of God. Can you remember what it was
to live in darkness? Can you remember what your life
once was before Christ? Can you remember what it was
when you could not see the truth and when you could not know –
when you did not know God? This is every one of our paths. For some here this morning who
have not yet come to faith in Jesus Christ, this is your autobiography
of your life in the present. If you're wondering what is wrong
with your life and why things don't work together for good,
it's because you're living in darkness, moral, spiritual darkness. But I want you to know second,
not only what we were, but what we are. I want you to know second
what we are. Paul says in verse 8, for you
were formerly darkness, but now you are light. I told you last
night, Martin Lloyd-Jones has said, praise God for the butts
in the Bible. And here is another one of these
glorious butts. But now, meaning presently, you,
referring to all the believers in Ephesus, and all the believers
here today and around the world, but now you are present tense. This is our new spiritual condition. You are light. What a radical
change has taken place in our lives. Being saved is no small
thing, and it's far more than just paperwork in heaven, where
we're taken out of one column and put into another column,
or where just there is the covering over of our sins. Our very lives
have been radically changed by the power of the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Listen, if the gospel has not
changed your life, you need another gospel. Because the gospel is
the power of God unto salvation. And we become light, not merely
in light and walking in light, but we become light ourselves. And this refers to the new nature. that we receive in regeneration.
It refers to our new being, our new character. We are light. You are light. It's what you
are. It's on the inside of you. It's
your very being. It's your very essence in Christ. And then he further defines it
at the end of verse 8, children of light. Now if we were born
in darkness as children of darkness, in order to become children of
light, this implies that there has been a new birth. that we
have been birthed and transferred from one family to another family. There are only two families in
the entire world, not three, not four, not ten. There are
only two families. There is the family of Satan
and the family of God. And we all began in this world
in the family of Satan. We were sons of disobedience.
Jesus said in John 8 verse 44, you're of your father the devil,
and the lust of him you shall do. We all came into this family
under the tyranny of Satan. That's why we must be born again. It matters not if as an infant
you were confirmed in the church, if you were sprinkled in the
church, if you went through some membership class. You were in
the family of Satan. You were in darkness. But with the new birth, Jesus
said, that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born
of Spirit is Spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you,
you must be born again. Jesus said, except you be born
again, you shall not see the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said,
except you be born of water and the Spirit, you shall not enter
the kingdom of heaven. These here who are children of
light means that they have been birthed by the light of the gospel
and the light of the work of God's grace, and they are now
children of light. 1 John 1, 5 says, God is light,
and in Him there is no darkness at all. That is to say, God is
absolutely holy. God is spotlessly pure. There
is no – there are no moral blemishes in God. And when we are born
of God, who is light, we become children of light. Jesus said
in John 8 verse 12, I am the light of the world. And what
this means for us to become children of light means that we pass out
of the darkness our ignorance and our immorality and our impurity,
the lifestyle that we once lived. We now are children of light. That means that we can now see
God. We now know God. We come into
the light, and we enter into a personal relationship with
the living God. And it means that I now, for
the first time, know myself. I see what I am. I see who I
am. And I have the true knowledge
of God and the true knowledge of self, and I can now see the
world around me. I have a worldview. I see as
God sees. I see heaven. I see hell. I see death. I see everything
as God sees because I am in the light, and His Word is a lamp
unto my feet and a light unto my path. He's caused His light
to come shining in me. Second Corinthians 4.6. For God
who said, let there be light, said light shall shine out of
darkness, is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ,
a supernatural ray of light. has been commanded by God to
shine out of the heavens through the pages of Scripture and filtered
by the Holy Spirit into our once darkened cavern of a heart, and
now we are lit up by God, and God lives within us, and God
is light, and now we are light, and we are children of light. This implies the radical change
that has taken place. We have gone from black to light,
from midnight to high noon, from a dark cave to the surface of
the sun. It is an inward change. This
is not just a mere behavior modification. It's not just an external alteration. It's not just rearranging the
furniture of the Titanic as it's going down. But there is an inward
change at the very depth of our being as God and light now shine. And it's a supernatural change. Only God could have brought this
light to shine into our lives. So we are children of light in
the midst of a dark generation. Jesus, after the Beatitudes,
said in Matthew 5 verse 14, looking at His disciples, He said, you
are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be
hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket,
but on a 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. There
should be light that is just pouring out of our lives, the
light of truth, the light of holiness, the light of love,
the light of righteousness, the light of mercy. It should be
shining brighter than the noonday sun. flowing from, pouring out
from the lampstand of our lives. You are the light of the world. What we were, you were formerly
darkness. What we are, you are light, children
of light. Number three, what we pursue. Note the end of verse 8. Paul becomes very practical,
how this should be implemented in our life, put into practice
in our life. Paul says in these five words,
walk as children of light. This should revolutionize our
daily walk. This should revolutionize the
entire movement of our lives. Now, you no doubt are aware that
this metaphor walk is used throughout the second half of the book of
Ephesians. Let me just draw this to your
attention. In fact, the last three chapters of the book of
Ephesians could really be summarized by this statement, let's take
a walk. So, look at Ephesians 4 verse
1 and 2. He begins by saying that we should
walk in humility. Therefore, I, the prisoner of
the Lord," and don't you just love that? He's not the prisoner
of Rome. He sees himself as the prisoner
of the Lord. Although he is held by Roman
chains and confined in a Roman restrictive place, he understands
he is there by divine appointment. He is there under the sovereignty
of God, just like we heard in the last message. Therefore,
I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner
worthy of the calling with which you have been called." Now, notice
at the beginning of verse 2, the very first step of a life
of walking with the Lord with all humility. No one comes into
the kingdom of God strutting. Everyone comes clothed with repentance,
clothed with lowliness of mind, humbling ourselves, yielding
and submitting our lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And as you have received Christ
Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, Colossians 2, 7. And so,
we are to now walk in humility. humbling ourselves, yielding
to others, considering the interests of others as more important than
our own, dying to self, seeking the will of God for our lives,
pursuing it. Then in chapter 4 verse 17, we
are to walk in purity and holiness. So this I say, and affirmed together
with the Lord," meaning we speak with one voice in this, that
you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk. When he says
the Gentiles, he's referring to those unsaved pagans back
at the temple of Diana. He's talking about those who
are unconverted and who are just caught up in the system, the
evil system of the world, that we no longer walk just as the
Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind, being darkened
in their understanding. No, we are to no longer walk
as we once walked. Repentance is a 180 change of
direction. We once were walking in the direction
of the world. We were going this way towards
hell. We were floating downstream like
dead fish. We were going with the course
of the world, and when we repented, we turned around. We did a 180,
and God turned our hearts, and we now cut against the course
of this world. We swim upstream. We no longer
go with the flow. We're not trying to be like everybody
else. We're not trying to mimic all
of the pagans. Look at chapter 5, verses 1 and
2. Be imitators of God. Boy, that's
not lowering the bar, is it? Jesus said in Matthew 5 verse
45, you shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Be imitators of God. Pattern
your life after God. Allow His communicable attributes
to shine through your life as beloved children. And note this,
and walk in love. Love should be the very steps
that we take every moment of every day, just as Christ also
loved you. Look at chapter 5 verse 15, the direction of our walk, the
trajectory of our walk must be led by wisdom. Therefore, be
careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise. If you're going in the wrong
direction, it matters not how fast you are walking. You are
just going further and further, quicker and quicker in the wrong
direction. We need God's wisdom. We need
discernment. We need the practical application
of biblical truth to our daily lives. All of this is about a
walk, and then interestingly, He says at the end, then we are
to take up the full armor of God in chapter 6 and to stand
strong in His grace. Well, look at chapter 5 verse
8. He says, walk as children of light. This is but one of
multiple exhortations to us to walk. What is the Christian life?
How do I live the Christian life? What does the Christian life
look like? There are many different pictures,
many different metaphors. for Christian living. This is
but one, and it is a very vivid one. We can all relate to this.
The Christian life is like a walk. That means we start in one place
And there is to be movement and direction that takes us to another
destination. And we are in the midst from
the beginning, our new birth, to the destination when we are
with Christ, and the entirety of our Christian life is the
walk in between. It implies that there is effort
that is required on our part. The Bible never teaches let go
and let God. We are to be actively engaged,
and we are to be wholeheartedly involved in putting one step
ahead of another. The Christian life is lived one
step at a time. We live in the present. We live
in the moment. It's lived where the rubber meets
the road, where our lives intersect with the nitty-gritty of life.
We don't live the Christian life in an ivory tower. We don't live
the Christian life up on some cloud bank in the skies, disconnected
from the foul, evil system around us. Our feet are touching this
earth as we are walking. We are not standing still. We
are to be walking away from temptation. We are to be walking away from
certain crowds of people and their influence upon us. We are
to be walking and pursuing godliness. We are to be following after
Christ. We are to be imitating Christ.
None of us, as long as we are on this earth, none of us have
arrived. There is still more of the walk
yet out ahead of us. We are in process. We are in
progress. We're not where we once were,
but we're headed somewhere else. and we are being taken down this
path that has been marked out by God. We are in the world,
but we are not of the world. All of that is implicit in this
metaphor, walk. Are you walking? Are you moving
out? Do you see progress? Do you see
advancement in your spiritual life? Walk as children of light. This word walk is in the present
tense. That means we're to be always walking. We are to be
always pursuing the light. We are never stopping. We are
always walking. This is an imperative command.
This is not a suggestion. This is not an option. This is
– these are orders from headquarters. If we're not walking as children
of light, then we are living in sin. It's in the middle voice,
meaning this is something that only I can do. No one else can
walk for me. Your parents can't walk for you.
Your friends can't walk for you. No one else can do this for you. You must, by faith, put one step
in front of the other and move out. And Jesus said, I'm the light
of the world. He who follows Me will not walk in the darkness."
Meaning, He will never lead us into sin. He is the light of
the world. He who follows Me will not walk
in the darkness, but will have the light of life. Christ will never lead you into
impurity. or into immorality or any kind
of coarse jesting, He will only lead you into that which is consistent
with His own essence and being. 1 John says in 1 John 1 verse
6 that it's one thing to say that I'm walking in the light,
and it's something else to actually walk in the light. And 1 John
1, 6 says that if we say we're walking in the light, but in
reality we are not walking in the light, we lie. John writes, if we say that we
have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we
lie. That means our confession of
faith is a bogus testimony. We lie and do not practice the
truth. But if we walk in the light as
He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.
And the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. The point is, walking in the
light is necessary every moment of every day for every believer. And yes, there are times we trip.
And yes, there are times we stumble. And yes, there are times we are
lured by Satan into corners of darkness. But the true child
of God will be brought back to the light and will continue their
walk in the light. And if one remains in darkness,
John says, that confession is a lie. walk as children of light. Are you walking as
children of light? As others observe your life?
As others oversee your steps? As others would see what being
pulled up on a computer screen? As others would monitor where
you go and who you hang with and What your conversations are,
is there enough evidence that verifies that your testimony
is a true testimony, that I am a child of God and I am a child
of light and I walk in the light? Again, I want to say there are
times we trip and we stumble, and that is why 1 John 1 verse
9 says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And we all are like Peter. We
don't need a bath. We simply need our feet washed
from the daily walk in life where our feet become dirty. Do you
have your feet washed by the Lord? Do you confess your sins
to God? Do you bring and name your iniquities
before the Lord and say, God, I have sinned against heaven,
and I have sinned in Your sight. God, cleanse me. God, wash me,
and I shall be clean. One of the marks of a child of
light is he or her becomes very aware of blemishes and spots
of sin. and we desire to be restored,
and we confess our sin. We are confessors. We are repenters
because we are children of light. Number four, not only what we
were and what we are and what we pursue, but number four, I
want you to see what we forsake. Beginning in verse 3, Paul layers out a few of the deeds
of darkness that we must flee from, that
we must forsake, that we must put off, that must not be numbered
among any one of us here. He begins in verse 3, what we
forsake. but immorality. This word for
immorality is the Greek word from which we derive the English
word pornography. It refers to all unlawful sexual
activity, all sexual activity out