Amen. Thank you. You may be seated.
But as we gather as the saints to celebrate and worship the
Savior who gave us life eternal, it's always a good day. Continue
to be in prayer for many of our families. A couple of them are
at a marriage conference this weekend, and I was able to connect
with them this morning. They're doing well and being
blessed. We have many families and people within our church
who are still dealing with sickness. So continue to pray God's healing
in their lives, and most importantly, that God's will be done. in it
all. Continue to pray for you, yourself,
you as a body, as a fellowship, that as God continues to lead
you and direct you as being part of Grace Truth Church, that you
would see clearly what it means to be part of the body, that
you would recollect and know fully that it is not a place
to be, but a people to be of, and that we are more interested
in seeing the body become beautiful rather than big. And so I just
ask you to please pray for me, pray for my family, pray for
you and your family and pray for us as a family as we continue
to pursue the planting of grace truth. And very, very soon we'll
be looking at petitioning members, those who feel led to be a part
of this fellowship. And so please pray. Do not take
it lightly. Do not come to the table nonchalantly
as though it's just sort of something that you need to do. Pray diligently
for being a member of the body of Christ is a free gift from
God, but being in covenant relationship and fellowship with the local
church is an absolute blessing, but it also is a responsibility.
So I want you to understand that it's not something that's going
to be easy nor simple as we grow into maturity in the head who
is Christ. And so with that, we've had a couple of weeks in
and out of Ephesians dealing with a couple of topical issues. Theologically, we've looked at
covenant. As we've learned out of Ephesians, and so today we're
back into Ephesians 5 as Brother Dave read Ephesians 5. I'm not
going to preach all that text, but I do want to remind us of
it. I want us to turn there to Ephesians 5 chapter 5, looking
at verse 1 and just be reminded a few minutes about some of the
things that we have indeed learned through this journey in this
letter. First of all, if you remember
about chapter four, let me give you a little outline of chapter
four and five moving forward. Chapter four, we see to what
worthy of the call to which we've been called. And in that walking,
we see Paul giving us are actually chapters four and five. So as
he begins chapter four, we know that God is calling the church
to indeed walk in a way that reflects the nature of his holiness,
walk in a way that reflects the nature of his power to show the
world, indeed, in the powers of darkness, that Christ is victorious
because the church exists The world knows that Christ is who
he is, not that they have the knowledge of eternal life for
knowing of Christ and knowing Christ and more importantly,
Christ knowing you is a stark difference. Many people consider
the fact that they have the right facts in their mind and thus
they agree with them and therefore they have eternal life in that
is not eternal life. Eternal life is being reborn,
as we'll see in just a moment. But as a way of review, we know
that Paul talks about unity in the body. He says that the. word
of God and that God himself in Christ, when he was victorious
over sin and death, gave to the church life first and foremost
as a foundation. And then he established the church
and in the church, he gave apostles and pastors and teachers and
evangelists and others. It's not a full list, but he
gave these offices to the church for a reason. And the reason
for that is that they may grow up to build itself up So that
the church is not some stagnant entity that sits apart from the
great spiritual chasm of the clergy and yet is just fed and
pounded upon until they start to be chiseled into the likeness
of Christ, but rather that those who are overseers and servants
to the body. rightly divide the word of truth
and in turn give grace to the church through the word of God,
teaching them and admonishing them and exhorting them and sometimes
rebuking them. But also we, as the clergy, are
indeed part of the body, brothers, just the same. And so that being
the case, we come to the table understanding that Paul is saying
that the gifts to the church through the word of God, those
who administer the word are for the sake of the church building
itself up. The work of the ministry is the
work of the word of God, the work of the power of God's spirit
moving in and through the church so that the church would grow
up to the fullness of manhood until Paul says it this way,
until we all attain the unity of the faith, the knowledge of
the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the statute,
the fullness of Christ. Why? So that we may no longer
be children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, but
that we would. By human cunning and craftiness
and all of that sort, but rather speaking the truth in love We
are to grow up into every way into him who is the head into
Christ and listen to the words there of Paul He says from whom
the whole body Joined and held together by every joint with
which it is equipped when each part is working properly makes
the body grow so that it builds itself up in love and See, the
body is to grow itself. The body is to be equipped and
then to continually equip itself as it is continually being equipped
by the word of God. And so there is no preacher that
grows you. It is you and the sisters and
brothers around you that grow you through the oversight of
those elders. But then also in that same context,
then those elders are also brothers in the church that are responsible
for being part of the building up and being built up. So we know that we are to walk
worthy. We're to walk worthy in unity, as we've looked several
months ago. In unity, we ought to have a
unity of being, that we are one body, one faith, one baptism,
one Lord. We talked several weeks about
that one faith and understanding the importance of having a solid
foundation of doctrine and theology and knowing that the Word of
God teaches us who God is. And therefore, if we worship
not the God of Scripture, we worship the God of idolatry.
The God that is actually created by our own minds and our own
hearts. And that is no God of salvation
at all. Neither is the Son whom we create out of our hearts and
minds or traditions. Though traditions are important,
though history can teach us a lot, we are not bound by traditions
in history. History is not our authority. The Word of God is
our authority. And so, historically, the Word of God is our authority.
And every time we begin to move away from Sola Scriptura, we
find ourselves in a mess. We find the humanistic ideals,
the cultural relativism. We find all of these different
fallacies and this cunningness of man. We found all the ways
that people decide that, hey, We want to take him and make
this the essence of what the church is and is to be doing.
And then next thing you know, the world at large starts to
look at the church and say to itself, well, that's what Christians
are and that's who Christians are and that's what the church
is and that's what the gospel means. And then, lo and behold,
we find ourselves in a position to where we don't even look like
what God has created in the scriptures. And we wonder why people are
not interested in talking to us about that which we have.
Well, we know that the world will not love us because it does
not love him. It hates him. And so it will hate us. But let
the world hate us because of our Christ and because of the
true son of God who died and gave himself for us. But do not
let the world hate us because we are hypocritical and judgmental
and overbearing and perfectionist lying in the face of the mirror
before us. Let us look deep into the Word
of God and see what it says and thus do it. Let us understand
that there is indeed a purpose for our being here today and
it is not to be fed the Word of God, but to be nourished so
that we may grow up and mature. It is not the feeling of worshiping
God, it is the truth and the spirit of worshiping God in that
truth and spirit so that we might grow up and be a people for God's
possession by His grace for the sake of His own glory. If we
are not, indeed, moving to that end, we are wasting time and
I could find a lot more different and possibly better things to
do if that's not our goal. Well, we know that because we
exist, we have unity in our being, and then we also see versus seven
to sixteen of chapter four, that there's a unity of purpose, a
unity of focus moving from seventeen to thirty two of chapter four.
This is just review to get us back in the mindset of where
we're headed today. 17 through 32, we know that there's
a foundation of the church and how it should be worthy. First,
it's worthy and it walks worthy in unity and unity and unification
of the church, but also in the diversity of that unity that
each part works individually, but corporately so that the individual
Christian is of no import if he or she is not working to equip
the body to be something beneficial for the body as a whole. Then
we see the second way that we walk worthy, and that is to walk
in holiness. The foundation of holiness we
see is in Jesus Christ, who through his life as a human being fulfilled
the holy requirements of God and the law. And then in his
obedience, he had displayed holiness. And thus we are righteous because
Christ is righteous and he gives that righteousness to us. And
then we see that Paul begins to talk about the features of
holiness. This is what it looks like. This is what it does not
look like. And then in chapter five, where we are today, we
see there, therefore, because of this, because of the unity
of the faith and the power of God at work in you and because
of Christ and His holiness and His righteousness and the establishment
of the church through Christ's finished work, then therefore
be imitators of God. How in love as little children,
not only just little children, but beloved children, children
who are loved, as John says in chapter three of his first official,
see what kind of love the father has given to us that we should
be called the children of God. And so we are. It's not just
a name, it's a being. It's a nature. We are out of
that which God is and that Christ has given us righteousness. Now,
what that doesn't mean is that we're little gods walking around
or little Jesus is walking around. Why would you even say that?
Because I have been bombarded by that through the years. People
believe that. There are actual theologians
who come to the table with that as their mantra. We're little
Jesus's. We're little Jesus's. Let's just do what Jesus did.
What would Jesus do? I don't know. Let's buy a bracelet
and look cool in the process. And so why don't we look and
see who Jesus is and fall on our face and worship him for
the glorious person he is, for the glorious God that he is,
and recognizing that if it weren't for his righteousness, we would
stand condemned with all the righteous works that we could
muster and all of the benevolence that we could expel. So in that
we see the first is we walk worthy by walking in unity. Secondly,
we walk worthy by walking in holiness. And thirdly, we walk
worthy by walking in love. And then fourth and fifth, we
won't get much to the fifth today, but maybe next week, probably
not, maybe two weeks. Today, we're looking at the fourth
way in which we walk worthy, and that's we walk worthy in
light. And then after that, we see Paul through the latter part
of chapter five, verses 15 through 21. He teaches that we walk worthy
in wisdom and that will touch on that today. I will spend some
time dealing with that more focus. So today we look at the fourth
way in which we walk worthy as a people. Notice I said a people.
Please do not take this sermon or any of these sermons out of
the book of Ephesians and apply them personally and pragmatically
to your individual life by yourself in a closet. It makes no sense
to do that. We are not Christians unto a
closet. We're Christians unto the body. And so we are to be
a part of the body. And if we're not a part of the
body, the scripture tells it as it is, that it's a matter
of discipline. It's a matter of sinfulness that
that we are not engaging in that which God has put in our heart
to love. And so either two things, one of two things is true. We
are not of Christ or we are disobeying Christ and rejecting that command
which God has put in us because there's something in our flesh
that won't let go. And so either way, there needs to be something
that's aligned, repentance and faith or obedience and discipline. Discipline, of course, always
being corrective and gracious in nature, not judgmental and
damning, but corrective and gracious. And so let's look there at Ephesians
chapter five, starting in verse three. It says, but of course,
we look there, we know we should be imitators of God and walk
in love as Christ loved and gave himself up for us as a fragrant
offering sacrifice to God, but sexual immorality and all impurity
and covetousness must not be named among you to remember those
sermons. Church, you remember us talking about these things,
looking at the contrast of what these things are in light of
the holiness of God and the power of Christ in us. We do not want
to be named among these things. And he says, let there be no
filthiness or no foolish or crude joking which are out of place
because they do not belong there. They don't fit. There's no place
at the table set for such things in the life of the church. And
so if we individually are acting this way, then we corporately
are going to be seen this way. We are only going to be seen
as holy as the most sinful person in our group. And so with that,
we must be very careful that our sins do not shine a bad light
on the brothers and sisters around us and that we don't get the
letter that Corinth got saying, shame on you. I'd like to say
that you are spiritual people, but you're not. You're infants
in Christ. I try to give you food and you can't even get off
the milk. And so I can't tell you new things and deeper things
and greater things. And you can't even move along
in your worship and your maturity because you're allowing sin to
reign unchecked in your church. Get rid of the sin, cut it out,
get rid of it. Stop it. Repent. Stop selling
your differences with the world and let the gospel reign in your
lives. Forgive. Or you haven't been forgiven.
And now we see that Paul's continuing this type of discussion with
Ephesians, not necessarily in a rebuke, but in a reminder.
There's no crude joking. They're out of place. But instead,
let there be Thanksgiving. The antithesis or the comparison
of the world's ways is all of the things that satisfy the flesh,
the snarkiness, the crudeness, the inappropriateness. And the
opposite of that is that we praise God, do all things without grumbling
or complaining, that you may be a light in this crooked generation.
We ought to show, as we'll see at the end of this sermon, that
we indeed are the light of the world and that Christ is the
light of the world and that what we do as the light of the world
is that we shine the image of the Holy One of God through us. And so now we see that there
is Something we should be sure of in verse five of chapter five,
for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually
moral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater. These have
no inheritance in the kingdom of God in Christ. Verse six,
let no one deceive you with empty words 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,
and this is where I'm going to start today. Therefore, do not
become partners with them, for at one time you were darkness,
but now you are light in the world. Walk as children of the
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. So let's think about this for
a moment. What we see today is a comparison between light and
darkness. It's given several times in scripture. We see it
in John's gospel. We see it in John's epistle.
We see Paul dealing with it several times. We understand that the
light of the Old Testament is the display of God and the knowledge
of God. We understand that darkness is
always representative of those who are dead and trespassed and
dead in sin and unable to see and savor and love and affection
and worship Christ. And so in this, the light versus
darkness, The holy reflection of God's nature and redemption
in the church is then visible. It's visible in the walking of
the body. So walk worthy. The holiness
of God, the light of God will display itself in the walking
of the body. And we walk not separately, but
corporately together in one accord in the light of his holiness.
And as we saw last week or the week before. We walk in the power
of God. Because it's a very far stretched
church to come to a place where we think we have to walk in our
own power. We do not have power within our flesh to walk in the
light of God. God has placed us there. He's
rescued us out of the darkness and placed us into the domain
of the kingdom of his son and the domain of light and the kingdom
of light. And therefore, by his power, he holds us up. He restores
us. He secures us. And so when we
see the sin of our flesh coming out and over and abundantly rolling
down the hill, we know that it's because we have failed to believe
in the only Son of God. It doesn't mean that we've failed
to believe unto salvation, but at that moment, in that circumstance,
this thing, we in some sense, Have forgotten to exercise faith
in the gospel, or worse, we've refused to exercise faith in
the gospel. So when our faithlessness comes out, what is our hope?
Oh, wicked man, am I? What am I to do? Christ Jesus,
that's our hope. For he cannot deny himself, for
he is faithful. He cannot deny himself. The power
of God is at work in the church. And that power reflects the fullness
of God's glorious grace in Jesus Christ. So let's look at two
things. Let's look or three things. Let's look at the darkness and
let's look at partners and let's look at the light. That's what
Paul's laying out here. And no, this is not a complete
exposition of these things. It'll do for today and we'll
pick it up again next week. But the darkness is what is what
is Paul say here? The darkness. This is the place
we once were. What is the word to use? We were
cut off. He's talking to the Ephesian
Christians, but this very much applies to us. We were once cut
off. We were alienated. We were dead
in our sins and trespass. So in other words, the light
was hidden from us. We stumbled, therefore, in the
darkness. We did not know where we were going. And we were not
able to see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4. We could not see. And see,
the thing about this darkness is that so many times we just
sort of downplay it. We downplay the reality of the
darkness of the depravity of the human nature. We downplay
the seriousness and the gravity of sin. We take it and we go,
OK, that was dark. I'm glad I'm not in the darkness
anymore. And really, in the sounds of our mind, we go, was I ever
really in that much darkness? Was I ever really in the place
where I was blind and walking around and stumbling? I don't
remember that. Well, remember this. The Scripture says that
this darkness pervades the innermost being of all mankind with a deep
and dead blanket of depravity and self-reliance, unbelief,
self-pleasure, hedonistic benevolence and self-worship. What does that
mean? That means this, is that the darkness is so dark that
we can't see that it's dark on top of the darkness. And so we
think we're seeing light, but ultimately we're looking into
a nothing, into a void of darkness. And we imagine that we see what
we don't see, that we see we can't see. You see? And so in
that this blanket of darkness seals our hearts and our minds
and our eyes and our ears and our hands and our ability. It
seals the very core of our being in a place that we cannot see
that we're self-reliant, that we're self-pleasuring, that we're
self-seeking, that even when we do what I said, the hedonistic
benevolence, That means that we might even do kind things,
but we do kind things out of the need to feel good about us
doing kind things. And that is sinful. The only
self-satisfying hedonism that is allowed is seeking after Christ,
who would give you the greatest joy, and so you want to be happy
as happy can be, and so you seek after that which is worthy of
that type of joy. Anything else is idolatry, anything
else, according to Paul, is covetousness. And as we know, Paul confessed
that as one of his own sins in Romans. All this boils down to
self-worship, if you think about Romans chapter one, Paul tells
the Roman church that no one is without excuse. No one can
say, I didn't know, for God has made himself visible. He's made
himself known. His divine power is seen. And
so what we do is we exchange. We exchange the glory of God
for the love of the things that He's made, including ourselves.
We love the human body. We love the human ability. We
love the human intellect. We love the human procreation.
We love the human essence. And we love the human world.
And we think that we are doing what is best. We will come to
the place where we can seek out that which is better for mankind.
We will build a tower to heaven and call it the cure for cancer.
And call it literacy. And call it benevolence and call
it feeding the hungry. Nothing wrong with those things,
but be very careful, church, to not mistake those things for
gospel power, for they are not. And God will tumble that down
and confuse our minds just as he turns those over in Romans
one to the reprobate mind that is in them. And then they are
sealed to do what is unnatural according to his holiness. This
darkness creates a God of our own making and the salvation
of one's own choosing. The darkness, as we can learn
in Paul's letter to Timothy, actually, excuse me, in Titus. We just read this this morning.
The darkness feeds the myths of this world. We are turned
over sometimes in darkness to the myths. We believe the mystical
things, the myths like, well, Jesus isn't really God until
such a point or or maybe that saying these words will save
you or maybe we can offer this. And if we do all of these things
and we share this love that it proves we're Christian and we're
fine. What are some myths, there's many myths. And many people feed
into these myths and they gather teachers to give us these myths,
sort of. Well, if you haven't a faith,
you have all that you've ever desired. Well, not if the desire
of your heart is the world. The Bible says that the desire
of your heart is the world and you don't love God at all. And
as a matter of fact, the love of God is not in you, that you love
the world and therefore you push the world, they push God away.
You can't have both. Jesus says you cannot serve both
two masters. No one can serve both God and
money or anything that is related to money, such as the world.
First John 2, 15 through 17. And so in this, what happens?
Well. This darkness feeds the myths
of what I call Christian myths and mystics called Christians
who dare to declare that Christ is save them, but the Christ
they declare is no Christ at all. And the good news that they
seemingly proclaim and hold to is no good news at all. There's
nothing good about its proclamation. This darkness produces the sensual
expression of inward delight in the things that are contrary
to the holiness of God. Why? Because that's what the
flesh does. And so this darkness covers up
the senses. And because of this darkness,
God's divine justice must rain down and it must rain down, as
Paul says, there on the sons of disobedience, the sons of
disobedience of who we once once were. God declares to us, to
the world, be holy, for I am holy and those in the darkness
say to God, you be quiet. The darkness and her children
long to satisfy themselves with the natural flesh, which is contrary
to the new man that is created in Christ Jesus. And so, as the church is instructed,
empowered to walk in love, she is likewise able to walk in light. As we see. The one who walks in darkness,
of course, friend, is not of God. These, what does he say
there? Do not have an inheritance. Let
no one deceive you. Because of these things, the
wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience, the one who
is sexually immoral and pure or is covetousness has no inheritance
in the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Do not fall
prey to thinking that you know what it is that you're talking
of. The darkness. Does not walk in light. The darkness
does not walk in love. The one who walks in darkness
is not of God. These who walk in darkness do
not have an inheritance, and this darkness produces a desire,
as we've seen, the desire to lucidiousness and to debauchery,
to sensuality, to greed, to power, to benevolence and hedonistic
ideals. But this darkness also produces
a desire to deceive. And then the darkness clouds
that one who desires to deceive and thinking that they're not
even deceiving in the first place. And so this darkness desires
to deceive. Why? Because what better place
to be in life when you feel the urge, the pressure of the truth
of the gospel and that light in some ways is shining on you
and you don't like it. It hurts your eyes. It exposes
your nakedness. It makes you look exactly as
you are and the blemishes of your soul are clearly seen in
the face of God's beauty. And you don't want it. You want
to hide. And so what better way to hide
than to blend in? and find others who can be enticed
to see things your way. And so we deceive one another,
we who are in the darkness, but none of us who are in Christ
are in darkness. Those who are in darkness deceive,
and in turn we feel better about our own demise, and we feel good
about that cheap grace which we hold so delicately in our
pocket in fear of sitting upon it that it might crush. Checking
every few moments to see if we've broken the crucible of that grace.
Seeing the blemishes and the dirt and the cracks. Knowing
full well that one day that too will crumble. We're not too sure
of it. We hold it up and hold it far enough away. It looks
pretty good. It looks pretty solid. But we all know that we've
been deceived if we believe that. Those who are in darkness are
definitely deceived. And what they want to do is feel
better about their demise and their cheap grace, and thus they
will fight. They will fight with every tooth
and nail and fiber of their being to infuse such teaching into
you, beloved. They will do whatever it takes
to take the children of the light and to try to push the darkness
into our faces and to try to stick that which is darkness
into our ears and eyes and try to entice our flesh with that
which is darkness. Therefore, the scripture says,
don't listen to them, don't give ear to stupid and fruitless arguments. We see that in several places,
matter of fact, it's in Titus explicitly that way, Paul tells
Timothy that a good soldier does not entangle himself in civilian
pursuits, but rather entrust himself to the one into whom
he's enlisted. We fight the good fight and we
run the race to that which we're entrusted to, that we're enlisted
to. And so, children of the light,
do not listen to those who are in darkness. Do not listen to
their arguments and to their pleas. Do not listen to those
who try to deceive you, but plug up your ears and walk into the
face of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit that he might
strike that garbage from your ears. Remove yourself from their
ways, lest you fall prey to the lie and remain in the wrath of
God. So then it tells us, do not Be partners with them as
an introduction. We've seen that the light and
the darkness do not mix, so we don't want to be partners with
those who are in darkness, do not become partners with them.
Verse seven, what does that mean? Oftentimes we think that that
means we all might be in the world at all. Let's build a big
wall and let's separate those which are in the world. Oh, as
blessed as that would be, then we would violate them to command
to go into the world and preach the gospel. We'd violate the
command to love our enemies and to pray for those and bless those
who persecute us. How do we bless those who persecute
us when they're cut off from us? They're already cut off and
alienated from the promises of God. They're already dead in
their trespasses of sin. And as we said yesterday in our
elder course, that the point of the church, one of the main
things that the church does, apart from celebrating and worshiping
to the praise of the glorious grace of God, is that we are
those who dig up that which is dead and we get bloody. As we
proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to that dead corpse and
it stands up and walks. New birth. Do not become partners
with Him. That does not mean to isolate
ourselves apart from the world. But Scripture says to be in the
world, but not be of the world. Do not be of the essence of the
world. Do not be known by the world's ways. And so, do not
be partner, because the light cannot partner with darkness.
No one can profess to be in the light and walk in darkness. No
one can say that they are in Christ, but yet walk in the fruit
of disdain and wickedness. Partnering suggests, and as some
some translations translate it, fellow sharers. And what that means is do not
be one that is in their way and actively in their way. What do
you mean? Well, do not be in their sin.
Do not participate in their sin, because if we participate in
their sin as partners, if we do what they do, if we walk where
they walk, if we say what they say, if we see what they see
and we hear what they hear, we eat what they eat, then we are
partners with them. People look at the world and
they look at us and they go, there's no difference. There's
no difference. So we're active in their sin,
and if we're active in their sin as a partner, then we're
also active in their guilt. As a partner, and if we're active
in their guilt as a partner, we're active in the judgment
of God against them. As a partner, the light has come into the world,
but they love the darkness rather than the light. Why? Because
Jesus says to Nicodemus in John three, because their works are
evil. Christ comes and shines and those who see are no longer
in darkness. They look at the son of man lifted
up and they believe. And they have been born of the
spirit of God and they have eternal life. How? How do they have life? By looking, because they have
been born again. And it's not just a mere glance. It's not a, I'm seeing, what
am I looking at? It's a gaze into a new way of
seeing. The rebirth is that which God
has done in the life of the person who was once dead, a corpse apart
from Him, and He brings them to life by His Holy Spirit. And
then what happens is, then when that person gazes, With a new
heart and a new eye, they see the beauty of the Savior and
they love him beyond all measure and comparable to that which
has ever held their affections before. He must be born again. Paul says
it. As he testifies before the king
in Acts 26, listen. In this connection, I journeyed to Damascus with
the authority and commission of the chief priests at midday. Oh, King, I saw on the way a
light from heaven brighter than the sun that shone around me
and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen
to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language,
Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick
against the goads. And I said, Who are you, Lord?
And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, but rise
and stand upon your feet. For I've appeared to you for
this purpose, to anoint you and appoint you as a servant and
witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those. In which I will appear to you.
delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles to whom
I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from
darkness to light and from the power of Satan to the power of
God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those
who are sanctified by faith in Me. Therefore, beloved, you are no
longer in darkness. For the gospel of Jesus has come
to the light of that new heart, and you have seen and heard and
believed. And God has made you alive with Christ and has seated
you at the right hand with him. It is done. And you have, but
you have not yet. You are, but you are not yet.
And we will be when we see him face to face. Do not walk in
darkness. Paul warns the Corinthians, 2
Corinthians chapter six, Because, but as servants of God, we commend
ourselves in every way. Listen, by great endurance in
afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots,
labors, sleepless nights, hunger, by purity, knowledge, patience,
kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, by truthful speak and the
power of God with the weapons of righteousness for the right
hand and for the left, Through honor and dishonor, through slander
and praise, we are treated as imposters, yet we are true, as
unknown and yet well-known, as dying and behold, we live, as
punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,
as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, yet possessing
everything. We have spoken freely to you,
Corinthians. Our heart is open wide. You are
not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections.
In return, I speak to you as children. Widen your hearts also. Do not be unequally yoked with
unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness
with lawlessness or what fellowship has light with darkness? What
accord has Christ would be loud or what portion does a believer
share with an unbeliever? None. Partnering with darkness, being
yoked with darkness is indeed being identified. It's not just
marriage. It's everything. It's being allied with darkness. So the darkness stands in the
corner of what is right, but they do so out of a motive of
sin and wickedness. Don't stand with darkness. Don't
be identified with those who are not in Christ. The body of
light and grace does not identify with the body of darkness and
death. Nor those who walk and live and
exist as darkness. So how do we identify with darkness,
you might ask? Well, I've got a few things that
I think might help answer that. First, I think we identify with
darkness when our affections are not of the light. when we
love that which darkness loves, when we love those who are in
darkness because of who they are and what they stand for.
We identify with darkness when our actions are dark, or worse,
when our actions are somewhat gray. A sign that still hangs
this day on my grandfather's office wall in his construction
company that's been closed since the 1980s says, if it's almost
right, it's wrong. If it's almost light, it's dark. There's no shades of light. There's
no shades of holiness. It's either righteous or it's
wicked. There's no black and white in the economy of God's
nature and His holiness. We as the church, we walk and
identify not with the darkness through our affections and our
actions, but we identify with our affections and righteousness
and holiness. We identify with our affections and our actions
as we walk in the nature and the habit of Christ. And the
third way I believe we identify with darkness is when we allow
listen very carefully, church, because next week I will show
you without a doubt that this is the case when we allow such
darkness to invade our hearing, to invade our seeing, to invade
our thinking and our living. When we let that jump into our
light. To the light of our eyes and the eyes of our soul, we
are indeed not aligned with rightness, but we are allied with darkness.
That's where the wisdom comes in. As we'll see soon. And so we've talked about the
darkness and we've looked at partnering or not partnering
with those who so live. Now, let's look at the light,
the light Friends, we are the light. We are the light in many
ways, but three specific ways or excuse me, four specific ways
that we understand the light. I could teach a several month
series on the light of Christ. I could teach forever on the
grace of Jesus Christ. John, as we know in John one
and John two and John three and four, the whole gospel, especially
the first two thirds, is about the light of Christ. And how
he's shining into the world, but that the world loves the
darkness and even says this is the judgment that they love the
darkness. Because their works are evil. And so we're in the
light where creations of God's love and grace toward us in Christ
Jesus, and because of that, the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God shines out of us. So that's number one. We are
in the light because the light of God's knowledge and His glory
is reflected in us. It's within us. Jesus says in
John 17 that this is eternal life, that they know you, the
one true God, and know Jesus, the Son whom you have sent. Eternal
life is being known by Jesus Christ and to be known by Jesus
Christ in an effectual way, in a gracious way, is that he allows
you to see him. Nicodemus says, oh, we know that
you are indeed from God, for no one does the things you do,
except God be with him. And Jesus says, Nicodemus, you
can't see me. You have not been born again.
Be born again. How? That's the work of the Spirit
of God. So the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God, Psalm 36, 9 says, for with you is the fountain
of life in your light. Do we see light? We cannot see
light without light. We cannot see righteousness without
righteousness. We cannot see holiness without
holiness. And so we are the light because
the knowledge of God has been planted in us and we see it.
We are the light because We are the light of God's holiness.
Ephesians 4, 24. And to put on the new self. What is the new
self? It pushes off those sins. It fights against sin. It puts
to death the old man, for it has been crucified in Christ.
And then Paul says, the new self, which is created after the likeness
of God. What is the likeness of God?
God's holiness is a display of His intrinsic worthiness. Without
holiness, God is just some maniacal being who's demanding something
that's not rightfully His. He isn't due honor just because
he's big and bad and powerful. He's not due worship just because
he can smite us because he has the power to do so. God is due
honor and worship for he is holy. He is worthy. He is righteous. And we walk in the light and
are in the light And part of that is that we are the light
of the holiness of God, because we have been created after the
likeness of God. And it's not just my inference
from that statement. Paul then says in the very next
breath in the same sentence, in righteousness and holiness. And the third way we are in the
light is we're in the light of the joy of Christ. That that
I just read out of Second Corinthians, chapter six, we see all of those
things were given unto death, but we live. We're poor, but
yet making everyone rich. We're hated, but we're loved.
We're not well known, but we're known by everyone. What in the
world is happening here? We're struck down, as he said
in chapter four, but we're not destroyed. Always being given
over to death in the body for your sake, which is for your
glory, do not do not be frustrated, do not fear, do not fret. Be joyful, have thanksgiving. So the light of the joy of Christ
light is song for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart.
Psalm 97, 11. And Isaiah 9. The people who walked
in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwell in the
land of deep darkness on them has light shown. You have multiplied
the nation. You have increased its joy. They
rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad
when they divide the spoil. And later there, well, if we
could just go there and just take a few minutes, we don't
have time. The government shall sit up shall
sit upon his shoulders. He'll be called Wonderful Counselor,
Almighty God. The light of the joy of Christ,
that which was in the beginning, that which we have seen and touched
with our hands and heard concerning the word of life, that which
was made manifest to you, we now proclaim to you that you
may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is
with God and with the Son, Jesus Christ, and our joy is complete,
that your joy may be complete. We write these things, John says,
that your joy may be complete. The fullness of the light is
joy in Christ. holiness, knowledge and joy. That knowledge of God, which
is eternal life, brings about the holiness of God reflected
in the sun and His righteousness and holy affections, and then
the light of that joy that comes out of knowing that we have been
recreated in the power of God and are sustained by His power.
We can't get over being thrilled with everything that we are in
Christ Jesus, no matter how bad or dark the world might try to
step on us. And then, I guess, two more things. But Jesus says in John 8, 12,
I am the light of the world. And then he says in Matthew 5,
14, you are the light of the world. Let your light so shine before
men that they see your good deeds. Why? Why should we strive for
holiness and good works? Because God had created us before
the world began to do them. That's why. And when they are
done, we come to the light because we want us to see. We want to
see it. John 3. And then everyone can clearly
see that these works have been carried out in God, and so God
gets the glory. And Jesus says, Let your light
so shine before men so that they may see your good deeds and give
glory to your Father who is in heaven. That's why we do it.
You want to give God glory in all things, you've got to walk
in holiness. You've got to walk and reflect in the light. You've
got to walk in love and affection for things that God loves and
His church. How, by his power, we are children
of the light. Look at verse eight. Ephesians
five. For at one time, you were darkness,
see that. And so you were in darkness,
so you were darkness. But now you are the light of
the world. Therefore, walk as children of
light. Look at that parenthetical there,
verse nine for the fruit of light. is found. Wait a minute, how
do I know I'm in the light? Because the fruit of that light
is found, where is it found in all that is good and all that
is right and all that is true. Think on these things, church,
practice these things, church, strive for these things, church,
love these things, church, try to discern what is pleasing to
the Lord. And take no part in the unfruitful
works of darkness, but instead expose them. There's too much
there for today. But in closing, let me give you
these. As children, we've been commanded to do something, and
these commands in closing are very simple. It's walk. Walk. Now, I'm not going to impose
what's not there, but imagine the idea of what this would have
said if it had said lie down. It's easy to lie down in your
faith and thus avoid. Temptation and sin and everything
else, no one sees you, no one sees anything. We must walk. That's not the point, but how
do we walk? What do we walk toward? We walk
in a manner that is good and right and true. We walk with
discernment. We look at it. And the root of
that is discriminate. We become discriminatory toward
that which we see. We look and we always think and
walk in a way that is true and right. And as we're walking and
looking, we see and we make a judgment, not past judgment, make a judgment. You've got a yellow light and
you go, it means slow down. Am I close enough to go through
or should I apply the brakes? You make a judgment. You don't
say that stupid light be gone. and judge it. You don't pull
out your gun and fire it and blow it out and keep going. You
make a judgment and you say, I must stop. I see. I know the truth. I understand
the sovereignty of the state of Georgia and its laws. I understand
the sovereignty of God and the physics of this car that's going
to crash into me if I continue to move. And so therefore, I
make a judgment. I know what I need to do. I walk, drive,
whatever it might be in a way that is worthy of living. And
not dying and sometimes in the flatulence of my brain, I make
step on it and go. And the Virginia Highway Patrol
will give me a nice little greeting card. I don't know who I'm talking
about. We must do what is what is right
and true, discern what is pleasing, so we look and we discern, we
go, what should I do? Is that pleasing to God? And
we don't look at the person, go, you're disgusting. It's easy
to do in the flesh. But we do in the spirit go, whoa,
that's wicked. That's darkness. And you know
what? We ought to run from that. We
separate ourselves, we back up. It's like in the day, I imagine,
I imagine how it was in the days of of antiquity where someone
had to play, you know, if they walked near you, they could wipe
out a whole people. They weren't being ugly. Oh,
you look nasty. Stay away over there. You smell.
They all smelled. But that dude had stuff coming
out of his skin and his eyeballs and his ears. And I mean, that's
just messed up. And it's messed up because if
he gets too close to one of your kids, your kids get it and then
it could just wipe out your entire village. Everybody dies. And
so what they would do is, as they saw and as they found people
throughout history with plague or with boils or with leprosy,
they'd cover them up so they wouldn't be so repulsive to see.
They'd try to help hide it and then give them a bell or they'd
make them yell out, unclean, unclean, as they walked through
the city. And when you heard unclean, you'd
say, well, what is it? You knew what it was about. And
you went to the other side of the street, not because you hated
the man, but you knew that if you weren't careful, you'd kill
everybody. Such as sin and wickedness and darkness, darkness. If we
just go, that's all right. That's just them. It will invade
us. It will plague us and we will kill the church. And sin
will destroy our homes and destroy our marriages and destroy our
children, destroy the faith of our fathers, it will destroy
the Word of God, it will destroy the image of Jesus Christ in
the body, it will destroy the fellowship, it will destroy the
worship. And then we've got mystery and myth and all of this junk
because we see something's not right and we have to come to
cunning and creativity to fix it. And so we antiquate, I mean,
we assimilate things. Because we think, well, all the
ways of the old are antiquated. So we push them away and we come
up with the new and the crafty and we go, oh, wow, everybody's
excited. They're plugging in. We've got some momentum going
here. Things are growing. Things are going. But we're running
around in a hamster wheel in a rat race of death, rotting
to the core of our soul. And God is not glorified. I got to discern what is pleasing. Another way we walk is we walk
in the fruitful works of light. Look at that verse nine. It's
just to see this. These are summary points. I'm
just outlining this right now. We're not going to preach this.
It's going to outline that we walk in the fruitful works of
light for the fruit of light is found in all that is good
and light and true. And try to discern what is pleasing to the
Lord. Verse 11, take no part in the, look how he puts it,
unfruitful works of darkness. So what does that mean? Everything
that is functioning in the world of darkness and those who are
darkness is unfruitful. And let me give you a way of
understanding that is death. And it is worthless. It is vain. That's the word. The word vanity
means worthless. Worthless. Instead of the negative and saying,
don't walk in the unfruitful. I put in the positive. We're
walking. How do we walk? Well, we walk in and we see the
unfruitful works of darkness because we've got discernment.
We moonwalk backward that way. We slide on out, we detour, we
build a bridge, we blow it up. I don't know how we do it, but
whatever it is in your walk for you to get away from the darkness,
we walk then and the opposite. We walk in fruitful works of
light. And we could we could do sermon
on that. But then what's the next thing? Do not walk in those
works of darkness, walk in the fruitful works of light and then
listen to this. See, this is where we start getting
crazy. And you'll see as Paul continues here. It's not popular,
this is not a popular teaching, but instead expose them. Expose them. Expose what? The unfruitful works of darkness.
Walk in the fruitful works of light. Do not walk in the unfruitful
works of darkness, but expose them. It didn't say ignore them.
It didn't say just get away from them and let them do their own
things and rot. It didn't say do that. Why? Because that's
hateful. But what did it do? It said to
expose them. What is them? What is that pronoun
pointing to? The unfruitful works of darkness.
Did it say the people who work the darkness? No, it said the
words of darkness. That's why we have to be careful
when we see in some of your brothers who do street evangelism, you
see it all the time. If you see other people out there, you are
such a blanky blanky. You're a heretic, you know, and
you hear these people preaching like that. What are you accomplishing?
Are you uncovering, exposing darkness or are you just calling
people names here? What's going on? You're calling
people names. Quit. In fact, there's no room for
that in outreach. But expose dark works which are
useless and fruitless. It's like a dude hammering the
boards into his house trying to build something for his family
with a banana. I'm going to build my house, and he's got a banana.
And he's real wise. He froze it. And he's taking that frozen banana
and he's whacking the world out of that nail. And he's trying
to frame that house up. He is absolutely as loony as
that banana. He'd do better to slip on it
and get a laugh than he would to try to hammer a house together
with a banana. Would you look at him and go,
poor guy, what an idiot? Or would you say, dude, that's
a fruitless work. And he turns around to you and
he has no eyes. He's blind. He don't even know he's got a
hammer, a banana. He thinks he's got a hammer. So we need to expose it. Brother,
that's not a hammer. That's not right. That's not
true. Have some wisdom. You are doing
something that is unfruitful. And dude, you keep slamming that
thing around. I don't know what's going to happen to you. Or worse,
what if he picks up a pistol and starts hammering his house
with it? That's loaded and cocked. Now, just let him shoot himself,
it doesn't matter to me. Expose the unfruitful works of darkness. How do we do that? Well. We expose dark works very quickly.
You can write these down if you want to. We expose dark works
by avoiding them and running from them. What? Flee sexual immorality, flee
sexual temptation, flee, run, you see it, run the other way. You see temptation avoided. You see people practicing sin,
avoid them. Expose darkness, how do we do
that by teaching truth? What good is it? And though we
have to sometimes to go darkness, darkness, darkness, darkness,
darkness, darkness, darkness. Oh my gosh, it's dark. Darkness, light. Light, you know
how to show darkness, shine a light in it. How does God save us? By shining
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Christ in our hearts. 2 Corinthians 4, 6. That's how
he shines out of the darkness. The light is shining out of the
darkness. So we expose darkness by teaching
truth, we expose darkness by living truth, by living light,
we expose darkness by pointing to it and saying darkness, unclean,
leper, careful, warning, repent, trust Christ Jesus. Expose the works of darkness,
showing the light of Christ. This exposing is not a humiliation
and exposition of the worker of darkness, but rather the works
of that worker. And that's one of the things
that we have to be very careful. We are not righteous because we
walk in righteousness. We are righteous because we have
been justified by Christ. Because if all the righteous
works that we can muster were added up, they'd be a death sentence
for us. And walking, if you want to just
boil it all down, is proving God's work in us. Walking in
light is proving God's work in us. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning, and all things were made through Him, and without
Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, John
says. And the life was the light of
men. The light shines in the darkness
and the darkness is not overcome. And there was a man sent from
God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear
witness about the light that all might believe through him.
He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the
light, the true light. John one nine. which gives light
to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and
the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him.
He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But
to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave
the right to become children of God who were born not of blood,
nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of the mind, but the
will of God. We're from his fullness. We've
all received grace upon grace for the law was given through
Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever
seen God. The only God who is at the father's
side has made him known. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish,
but have eternal life for God and not send his son into the
world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might
be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned.
But whoever does not believe is condemned already because
he has not believed in the name of the only son of God. And this
is the judgment. The light has come into the world
and people love the darkness rather than the light, because
their works were evil for everyone who does wicked things, hates
the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should
be exposed. But whoever does what is true. Comes to the light
so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried
out in God. Jesus says he's the light of
the world. Jesus teaches and the apostles
teach that those who are indeed in Christ are the light of the
world. Church, we've got to walk in the light. We've got to cling
to the light. We've got to learn to live to
the praise of his glory and walking worthy of that light. together
as a people to the praise of his glorious grace. Trust in
Christ, believe the gospel of Jesus, that he alone is your
hope. There is no righteousness that
you could muster to make God pleased with you. But when Christ
took your sin. You are free. And all the righteousness that
you perform are not your works, but that which God has prepared
beforehand for you to walk in. So that God could be glorified.
Let's glorify God with our hearts, with our lives. In Jesus name,
let's pray. Thank you so much, Father. Our
great God of Highest Heaven. The holy, holy, holy Lord God
Almighty, who was and is and is to come. God, you have sent into this
world the light of Jesus, who is the light to give life to
men. And men love the darkness rather than the light. God, we
once were there, lovers of the darkness without even knowing
that we were in darkness and that we were darkness. Thank You for saving us out of
darkness, snatching us out of death into the life of the light
of Christ. Save all those who hear this
message, Father. That is our cry. Save all those
who hear the Gospel. Father, Your will be done. In Your name be praised. In Jesus,
we pray to Your holy ears through filthy mouths that have been
made perfect by Your Son. In Jesus' name, Amen.