We'll turn back with me to Ephesians
chapter five. The message this morning is about
followers of God. Based on everything that he'd
said in the first four chapters of the book of Ephesians, Paul
said, therefore, On this basis, be ye followers
of God as dear children. Paul told, and let me say this
at the outset, believers are followers of God. That's what
they do, they follow. They follow. He told the Thessalonians
that he knew their election of God, the apostle Paul did, He
said, our gospel came not in word only, but also in power
and the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. What's the next thing he told
them? And you become followers of us and the Lord. Followers. Believers are followers. John chapter 10, verse 26, he
said to the Jews, they said, if thou be the Christ, tell us
plainly. He said, I told you. But you believe not, because
you're not of my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice, and I know them. What's the next thing he said?
And they follow me. They follow me. Believers are
followers. He said in Philippians 3.12,
not as though I'd already attained, either were already perfect,
but I follow after. I follow after, if that I may
apprehend that for which I am apprehended. Believers are followers. They know something of their
wicked, depraved nature. Something about their ignorance
and inability of themselves. And they know something about
God's way. God's way is the way of mercy
and grace. And they know something of God's
means. It pleased God through the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. Except you be born again of the
Spirit. How? Born again of the Spirit. So preacher, what is a follower
of God? Well, let me give you four things
this morning. Four things that the Holy Ghost
tells us in this passage about followers of God. First of all,
this man is one who has received the spirit of adoption. Be ye
followers of God, now listen, as dear children. Not strangers. but fellow citizens and of the
household of God. We're children, children of God. We're plainly told here, be ye
followers of God as dear children. Flip over a few pages to Ephesians
chapter one. Let's look at some passages that
talk about our adoption. In Ephesians 1.4, having stated
our eternal election in Christ, He goes on to tell us in verse
5, Ephesians chapter 1, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good
pleasure of his will. He goes on to tell us the means
involved, the life and death of Christ, giving to us the light
of the mystery of God, making known these hidden things to
us. He tells us something about the stewardship of Christ being
steward over all things, but especially over time. Time is
something God uses to accomplish his purpose. God's not a creature
of time. God's eternal. He has no beginning,
he has no end. And we're eternal. in the sense
that God breathed unto us the breath of life. Our souls are
eternal souls. They're souls that came from
God. And there's an eternal gathering
of all things in Christ. He's the steward of time. And
during this time, He's gathering to himself, gathering things.
Everything that God gave him to do, he's gathering to himself.
Everything that God gave him to save, he saved. In whom also, verse 11, Ephesians
1, we have obtained an inheritance
being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own Well, how do we get
to be children? God predestinated us to be children. And men and women find their
link to God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He predestinated us unto the
adoption of children. Now listen to that verse again,
I think it's verse five. unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself. He comes through Christ. And
we find our link to God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
this according to God's eternal purpose of grace. He tells us
in verse 12 of Ephesians 1 that we should be to the praise of
his glory who first trusted in Christ. Who's that? That's God
the Father. He trusted all things into the
hands of His Son. And as His Son redeems these
things, and calls these things, and gathers these things, and
justifies these things, and makes good things in heaven, makes
good things in earth, accomplishes the eternal will of God, then
God is glorified. He's glorified that we should
be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ.
Now listen, verse 13, in whom you also trusted after that you
heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in
whom also after that you believed you were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased
possession under the praise of his glory. What is this earnest
that he's talking about? It's the Holy Spirit of promise. God shuts His children up. This
is God's purpose through the preaching of the Gospel. He calls
you out of darkness into His light. And He shuts you up to
Christ. Not like this world that looks
to everything. They look to feelings. They look
to this. They look to that. They try to go back 40 years
to that day they walked down the aisle or that Some churches
have a mourner's bench and they call them up front and after
singing 20 or 30 verses of Just As I Am and they get them up
front and then they gather around and pray and then they tell them
they're saved. And men go back to that and start looking at
that. That's not how God saves his people. God shuts you up
to Christ. You don't have anything else.
It's not like you sit around and say, well, I've got 8 or
10 options. I think I'll do this. No. He
shuts you up to Christ. There are no options. He shuts
you up to Christ. He shuts your mouth. You don't
have any more excuses. You can't go to the law. You
can't talk about your worthiness. You can't do anything. You're
the sinner. All you can do is sin. And then
he shows you the Savior. What's he do? He saves. He shuts
you up to Christ. And you lay hold on Christ. And
I don't ever leave. I don't ever leave. He seals
you with the Holy Spirit of promise. And you keep right on believing.
I don't care what comes along. You keep right on believing.
You persevere in that faith. The Holy Spirit of promise is
that hope of Christ in you set forth in the gospel of Christ.
And we believe it and we cling to him and rest in him. And we
have nothing apart from him and nothing beyond him. He's all. Romans 8, 14 said, for as many
as are led by the Spirit of God. Where does the Spirit of God
lead a man? Huh? Holy Spirit of God, you
know I used to take my kids by hand and I'd lead them in. Most time they was pulling. Where does the Holy Spirit lead
us? He leads you to Christ. Isn't that what he does? Yeah, but after that what he
does? He leads you to Christ. Yeah,
but after that what happens? He leads you to Christ. As many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they are the sons of God. For you not receive the
spirit of bondage again to fear, but you receive the spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. We're sons. We're sons of God. We're daughters
of God. And the spirit of adoption shows
us our union with Christ. We're one with Him, and if we're
one with Him, we're one with the Father. He shows us our union with Christ
by a loving Father, and that obedience and redemption accomplished
by the Son, and so our adoption, revealed by the Spirit of God,
reveals that union. He shuts us up to Christ. We
lay hold on Him. He's my hope. He's my hope. Paul said this to the Galatians,
somebody coming there preaching to them this old thing of experiencing
works and keeping the law. Well, you might not have to keep
the Ten Commandments, but you have to be circumcised. No, no
you don't. And then he said, when the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, Galatians 4, 5, to redeem them that were
under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons,
and because you're sons, God has sent forth his spirit into
your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. We see Christ not going against
the Father's will, but fulfilling the Father's will. In John 6,
verse 37, he said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to
me. And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out, for
I came not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent
me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that
of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but raise
it up again at the last day. He didn't come contrary to the
Father's will. He came to accomplish the Father's
will. In the volume of the book, he
said in Hebrews chapter 10, it's written of me, I come to do thy
will, O God. Be ye followers of God as dear
children. Secondly, what is a follower
of God? Look at this. Be ye followers
of God as dear children. Walk in love. Walk in love. Does that mean I gotta get all
gaga over everybody I meet? No. No, that's not what this
love is talking about. Ephesians 5 verse 2. Walk in love as Christ also hath
loved us. What did his, how did he demonstrate
his love? Huh? Herein is love, not that
we love God, but that he loved us and gave us his only begotten
son. He's the propitiation for our
sin. God manifested his love to us
in that he died for us on the cross. Husbands, love your wives
as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. You wanna
love your wife? You want her to know that you
love her? Give yourself for her. Do what you do for her. That's
what this love's talking about. Walk in love. Give yourself. Give yourself in love as a child
of God. Well, I can't do that. I'll soon
be broke. I said, where did you get what
you had from the Lord? You going to out give him? I
doubt it. I doubt it. Walk in love. Love is one giving himself to
another. It's self-sacrifice. And we give
ourselves. How do we give ourselves to the
children of God? We give ourselves in prayer.
Do I care for them? Then why don't I pray for them?
Do I love them? Why don't I pray for them? We
give ourselves in prayer. We give ourselves though most
are ignorant of it, to the support of this place so that our friends
and neighbors and children can have a place to hear the gospel
and without which faith will never come. Give ourselves. He said, how shall they believe
in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear
without a preacher? To walk in love as a dear child
is to walk having an interest in God's family. I went down
to Ball, Louisiana years ago, pastored a little church down
there, and one of the men that I really liked, Carol Robertson,
had a son whose name was Rance. And Rance ran a huge sweet potato
farm. And he carried me out there in
his truck one Sunday afternoon. He said, I want you to meet my
son. And so we went out there, One of the farm hands came to
him and he said there's somebody's been calling you all morning
It's really urgent you need to go and he said I'm gonna run
in here real quick and do this phone call Said I'll come back
out and I want you to meet my son. He's working here with the
other hands So I sat in the truck and I was watching these men
load the sweet potato truck loading it up bags of sweet potatoes
And Rance came back out after a few minutes. He says, come
on. He said, I want you to meet my son. I said, I know which
one's your son. He said, which one? I said, that
one right there. He said, did he come over here and introduce
himself? I said, no. He said, how did you know he
was my son? I said, he's carrying two bags and everybody else is
carrying one. He got an interest in the farm. He's an heir. He's an heir. To walk in love as dear children
is to walk having an interest. Having an interest. I'm an heir.
I'm a fellow heir. I'm an heir of God. Fellow heir
with the Lord Jesus Christ. We walk in love as dear children.
Precious souls, bought by the blood of the Son of God. and
heirs of God. They were quibbling about whose
ministry they sat under when they saved and arguing around
about it, who baptized them, all this kind of stuff. And Paul
said, all things are yours, don't you know that? Everything that is is yours. All things are yours. Christ died for heirs. Apostles, prophets, how come
they benefit you? Because you're an heir. You're
an heir. It was meant to benefit you.
It's the children's bread. That's what the Lord said about
his work. It's the children's bread. His providence is ordered for
his heirs. He arranges his providence. I
know people laugh when I say that, but it's true. He arranges
his providence for his heirs. He sends a man there to preach. And by whatever means, he gets
this one over here, and in his providence, he brings them over
here to here. Huh? Isn't that what he did for you?
Isn't that what he did for you? See what I'm saying? These aren't
just random acts happening out here. This is God's arranged
providence. Well, the economy's going south.
So what? It was south before it went north,
wasn't it? This got nothing to do with our salvation out here.
God's going to preserve this whole thing and preserve us in
it to accomplish his purpose. And Providence is not being run
for the economy of the United States of America. Providence
is being arranged for his heirs. or his heirs. It may be the best
thing. I was talking to Ryan this week,
telling him a little bit about this message, and I said, think
about old Blind Bartimates. Boy, he had to be led out there,
Larry. He didn't know where he was going.
Led him out there on the outskirts of Jericho and sat him down on
an old dirty blanket, and he sat out there and begged all
day long, and they'd come back in the evening and get him and
take him back home. Well, you say, he wasn't blessed.
Oh, yes, he was. God put him in the very place,
in the very place. Well, he was hindered, all right.
He was blind, so were we. But he put that man in the very
place where the Son of God was going to pass by and go speak
to him and give him eyes to see. He does that for every one of
his heirs. He put you in that spot. He may bring you down,
he may shut your business down. Who knows what he's gonna do?
But he's gonna bring you to Christ. And he said, whether Paul or
Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present
or things to come, all are yours. And ye are Christ, and Christ
is God's. Huh? We're aired. What do loving fathers do? They
supply everything their children need, and then some. Then some. They only withhold what they
know is not good for you. Walk in love. You know the word
love. When he gets on the subject,
he doesn't use that word love. He uses the word charity. Charity
suffereth long. It's kind. Charity, it never
faileth. What is charity? Why would he
use that instead of the term love? Because charity is active
love. It's love in action. It suffereth
long. It is kind. And it is the one thing that
the scriptures tells us will not fail. I love what Brother
Mahan told Gabe Steinecker when he left
to go down and pastor the church in Kingsport. He said, love them
to Christ. Love never fails. It never fails. Followers of God walk in love.
And then thirdly, followers of God walk as children of light. He said in verse eight, Ephesians
five, you were sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the
Lord. Walk as children of light. Let's look at some passages concerning
our being light. And the word are ye, in that verse I just quoted to you,
is in italics. The translators put it in there
to make it read smoother. What it says in the original
is, but now you were darkness, but now light in the Lord. You were sometimes darkness,
but now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, And
the light we have is like the light of the moon. It's a reflected
light. It's a light that the moon doesn't
have any light. It's dark. But you see the moon, don't you?
Why? Because the sun's shining on
it. The sun's shining on it. That's why people see light in
you, Russell. The sun's shining on you. The sun's shining on
you. But you've got a dark side. Just
like the moon, you got a dark side. It's a reflective light. And
all my light is his light. If his light be extinguished,
my light goes out. And to walk as children of light,
I must at all times have the light of Christ. Peter said this. He said he called us out of darkness
into his marvelous light. In Colossians 1.12, Paul gives
thanks to the Father. He said, which hath made us meet
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, or enlightened
saints. And he hath delivered us from
the power of darkness and translated us or transferred us into the
kingdom of his dear son. And as ignorant sinners and rebels
of God, we draw our darkness from this present evil world
and this fallen, depraved flesh and satanic, anti-Christ religion. That's where our darkness feeds
on that kind of stuff. We work darkness like a blinding
smoke. preventing ourselves and others
from seeing. One place he was talking to Timothy
and he said, these in darkness, he said, they're attempting to
be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof
they affirm. One says it, the other says amen.
They're both in darkness. But he delivered us from the
power of darkness. What is the power of darkness?
When you talk about the, Hollywood portrays that as a man with spiritual
power, that antichrist. That's not what it is. The power
of darkness is deception. Deception. And Satan's a master
of it. He's a master of it. Cause you
to believe a lie and rejoice in it. Rejoice in it. Deception and the deceiver, lies
and the father of lies. We're taught to pray, deliver
us from evil. What that really says is deliver
us from the evil one, is what he's talking about. The evil one and the evil he
spawned. In 2 Corinthians 4, 6, he says,
for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has
shined in our hearts. Now watch this. To give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's the light. It's that light
of Christ. And believers walk in the light
of Christ, in the light of His glorious character, in pure harmony
with God, We love him because he first loved us. He's the first
begotten son through whom all the rest are made heirs. And
he's the light of the glory of God. My walk's not based on my emotions
or my feelings, but upon the glorious light of Christ. Walk
as children of light. John said, we saw God. in the form of a man. We saw
him. Our hands have handled. Our eyes have looked upon him.
And he said, this is it. This is the heart of what we
come to tell you. In him is light and no darkness
at all. Now he said, if you say we have
fellowship with him and you walk in darkness, you're a liar. You're
a liar. Can any part of the moon that
the sun's shining on be dark? No. No, only the part that the
sun's not shining on. And you say you have fellowship
with God, where's the light? Where's the light? He said, you're
a liar. But he said, if we walk in the
light, as he is the light, We have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all
sin. Paul wrote this to the Philippians.
If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love,
any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels of mercy, Fulfill
ye my joy, that you may be like-minded, having the same love, being of
one accord and of one mind. And let this mind be in you.
This is the mind I'm talking about. Let this mind be in you,
which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but made himself
of no reputation. Took on him the form of a servant.
Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself. and become
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. To walk in
light is to walk with the mind of Christ, and to walk in his example. He
tells us to be kind one to another, forgive one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven us. So we're to walk, As followers
of God, his dear children were to walk in love, were to walk
as children of light. And then lastly, he tells us
in verse 11, Ephesians 5, that followers of God are to have
no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but reprove
them. Turn with me to 1 John chapter
one. John tells us in 1 John 1 that
he and the other apostles had seen the Lord. And he said, this
is the message. God is light, in him no darkness. No other source of light. If
you get any light, it's gonna come from him. You're not gonna
find it in your hostile mind or in that evil image of God
that you've been worshiping. Did you know there's three sources
of light in this world? The Word of God. David said,
the Word is a lamp under my feet and a light under my path. And
there's Christ himself, the Son of God. He said, I am the light
of the world. He is the light that lighteth
every man that cometh into the world. In John 8, verse 12, he said,
I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. And then there's
the children of God. He said, ye are the light of
the world. They're the pillar and ground
of the truth. They're the children of light. Now listen to this,
1 John 1, 6. If we say we have fellowship
with him and walk in darkness, What's that say? We lie, and
we do not the truth. But if you walk in the light,
as he is the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. Had no fellowship
with the unfruitful works of darkness, false religion, rank
immorality, filthiness, foolish talking, off-color jesting, Fornication,
covetousness, he said, which is idolatry. The works of darkness
are unfruitful. Sometimes Satan twists this thing
around. He said, well, if you just go
along with them, if you just go along with them, maybe you
can show them that you're just like them and you can win them
to Christ. No, they're unfruitful works. That's what they are,
avoid them. They're unfruitful works. I didn't
say avoid the people, I said avoid what they're doing. Works of darkness are unfruitful
works. They never generate anything
good to eat. Verse 12. For it is a shame even
to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. And then let me close with this,
Ephesians 5, 14. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou
that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give
thee light. See then that you walk circumspectly,
not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are
evil. May the Lord enable us and teach
us, teach us to walk as followers of God, as dear children, and
in a proper attitude and proper conduct that's honoring to him.