Articles
Walk in Light--Transcript
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
We welcome all of you that are here with us.
We're grateful to see you here.
And we definitely look forward to the next time of which we can come together, but we are blessed gratefully by this opportunity, so let's take advantage of that as much as we possibly can.
I would like to see if you would turn with me to the New Testament, to the book of Ephesians chapter 5, where we're going to look at a few verses there in that text as we began this morning, talking about the idea of what we just got through singing about, and that is about walking in the light.
As the text brings out a very clear understanding, we are to be those people that walk in the light, where he says in verse 1, be therefore, imitators of God, his beloved children, and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us an offering an odor, a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell.
But fornication all inanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you as become saints, nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting , which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
For this you know of a certainty that no fornicator, nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
Let no man deceive you with empty words, for because of these things come the wrath of God on the sons of of disob.fore, for the children. The all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is well pleasing unto the Lord and have no fellowship within unfruit for works of darkness, but rather even reprove them .
For the things which are done by them in secret are a shame even to speak of.
But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light, for everything is made manifest of that, which is manifest is light.
Wherefore, he says, await thou that sleep and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.
I would say that every one of us has this great delight to be in the light.
Now, that's a big assumption on my part, but I would say that most of us do like to be in the light.
We don't normally like the idea of walking around in the dark .
We would love to have some light illuminating our way because we know the danger of walking in the darkness.
Especially if you've never been there before.
But even though we might be very familiar with our surrounding, we still don't like to walk in the darkness.
But we fray, we may trip over something, we fall, we break our arm.
We might run into the wall .
We might find ourselves injured in some way if we find ourselves walking in the dark, even though we know that this is a place we have been before.
So therefore, we really are disturbed when the darkness comes in many respects.
Let's say, for example, and it would be dark outside.
I have to use this illustration.
Can't use it on Sunday morning because there's so much light coming in the windows.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where your electricity goes out, what do you call that?
You don't say our electricity is out.
Normally you say our lights are out.
And you're disturbed about that because you may cost some of your friends, maybe of your family members, you say, well, our lights have been out for four hours.
You don't say our electricity is out.
Our lights are out.
Our lights have been out for four hours.
You got lights?
Nope, we don't have lights.
You got lights?
No, we haven't had lights for four hours.
So we're real disturbed, and we're wondering, we're going to turn the light on?
When are we going to turn the lights on?
For that's our description of electricity.
Lights.
Even to the point that we have outside here in this parking lot, lights to illuminate the parking lot.
We don't want people walking around in the dark outside, Even though you've been in that parking lot, hundreds of times.
We still like the fact that it's illuminated in the dark .
And there are places I would imagine in your house that you put these night lights. In the hallway.
It's a light that you know needs to be illuminating, especially when you've got visitors.
You don't want them walking around the dark, so therefore you got this little night light that just kind of plugs in the wall.
And everybody can see when they get up in the middle of the night.
But I want you to think about those of us that are Christians, Christians.
We are nightlike children.
We are nightlike children in the world of darkness.
It's a world of which we'll talk about just a minute in the book of Srenes chapter 4, where Satan will love for you to lust after everything in the world.
He has a very clear image of what he wants this world to look like, and he wants it to really be dark, that you could find yourself falling.
You could find yourself injured, spiritually speaking.
He would rather you lust for the darkness that's out there.
So therefore, he doesn't like the idea that there are people out here who are illuminating and are lights in the world of which you'd rather you grope around in and find yourself depressed and uncertain and gloomy and sad.
And talk about how bad things are.
And we're never going to get any better, those kind of things..
Here's something I want you to think about with me this morning.
First of all, let's talk about the idea that light really depends upon exposure to God.
And that's what'suced in the scripture.
If you look at in the very first verse of chapter 5, he mentions it, be therefore, imitates though God is beloved children .
As a beloved children, at this point, he embarks upon in the next few verses, how it is that your exposure to him is very significant to the possibilities of illumination in your life, as well as what he does to illuminate things for you.
But first of all, let me ask you a question.
What's it like to live without a father?
And I would say there's probably some of you that know that very, very well.
There are millions of children, if what the statistics show is accurate, anywhere, give or take, a few thousand,8.3 million children are living without a father.
They are born of one.
Everyone is born of a father, but there is no one called father in their life.
They don't know where the man is.
In some cases, they've never seen the man.
And for some, it's just been one of those instances where they might see him part time, maybe once every other week, maybe once a month, sometimes even on a holiday or a birthday.
But that's about it.
There's a man that made this statement about those fatherless children and said, what it means to the end is it means that this is the engine driving many social problems in our society.
Those without a father, 63% of the suicides come as a result of the those that have no father.
Of those without a father, 90% of those that run away, those are those without a father.
Children who have behavior problems, 85% of those are ones who have no father.
Of the ones that are rapists and have anger problems, 80% of those have no father.
Of those are high school dropouts, 71% of those that drop out have no father.
Those that are in prison, that are young under age 18, 85% of them have no father.
Along with increased aggression, lower income levels, use of drugs, and alcohol, and increased relationship problems.
And all that really impliesies one specific thing is that the list, least amount of contact and relationship and association and company with the Father, it is the greatest possibility of all the increases of these things.
In other words, the increase of social problems, the increase of problems in relationship.
And even in the increase, what we would know, biblically says sin.
Notice with me the book of 1 John for a moment.
In 1 John chapter 1, John really introduces us to the exposure of light with God.
And verse 5, he says, and this is the message which we have heard from announc unto you that God is liked, and in him is no darknessness at all.
God doesn't have any connection with darkness.
God doesn't not associate with it.
He never wants to be part of it.
He doesn't have that as his of frameer reference .
He is not in the darknessness.
It's very similar to what you would see in Titus 1 chapter in verse 2, where God does not lie.
God doesn't associate himself with lying, deception, falsehood, He associates with truth as well as with light.
And as a result of that, you will see that the more exposure that an individual in this test text in the book of the Phsion chapter 5 says, the more exposure that the individual has to the light, which is God, the greater the possibility that is they become to be like God.
And they become to be illuminators to the world.
You will notice in verse one, besides that text where he says, be imitators of God as beloved children, walk in love, even as Christ loved you, and gave himself up for us an offering of a sacrifice for an odor of a sweet smell.
We learned loving.
We learned forgiveness as a result of that.
Verse 7, be not thereforeakers with him, for you once in darkness, but now light in the Lord walk as children of light.
You see, the more exposure that you have to God, the greater the chance is that you walk in light.
And so the opposite would be definitely true.
That is, you find yourself least in contact with God, than the possibilities are that you become to be more susceptible to every temptation.
You become to be the one who Satan takes and allows you to be adopted to hear His way for you.
But see, we're the ones, according to chapter 2, of this text, of this book, rather.
In the first two verses, where were the people that once walked in the darkness.
We were there .
And through our obedience in Jesus Christ, we find ourselves eliminating the sin and the darkness of the sin.
It's just that clus in chapter 1 1, verse 13 says that we have been translated out of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son .
This is where we've been moved to, this idea of illumination, this idea of light.
We're going to be right here.
This is what we're supposed to be doing.
This is our exposure.
This is where we want to go.
This is where we want to live.
This is where we're going to stay right in here, right in here, in this light.
For there's no deception there.
There is peace.
There's love, and there's unity.
And we don't have to go through all of these things that other people do.
The thing is, we know where these places are.
We know where we can be illuminated.
We know worship service is we're in the light.
We know that fellowship with brethren Christians is where that takes place.
We know study of scripture.
We know that there are places where this light and exposure to God takes place so that way we go to these places.
We know exactly where this this is supposed to be.
And we know that it should be in our homes.
It's where we also get this exposure to God.
Sadly, though, that there are people that are Christians, that are wishing they could get out of their house.
For there is no one in there, though they speak about God occasionally or none, or they may come to a worship service where there's not really much exposure to God at all.
It's just, we just do whatever comes natural.
We just do whatever comes next.
In some cases, they're so busy, they don't have the opportunity to expose anybody in that family to God.
We are people as Christians who have come out of this darkness to where we are the light for the world.
And you look at Matthew chapter 5 and you say, see this seed is sitting on a heel. And the city is set on the heel is the one that illuminates, and everybody sees that.
But the most significant thing about this is it's not just so that everybody sees this glow in the sky.
The point of verse 16 is that this illumination of your exposure to the light of God is therefore so that the illumination can be seen in you to glorify God, who is in heaven.
It's not to mag magnify you and that you've got the big glow about you.
It's about the glowing and the shining of God.
In other words, it's back to the texts.
And it's in chapter 5, to prove what is well pleasing unto the Lord in verse 10.
That's what's very, very important.
But let's go further and talk about this.
In this text in Ephesians chapter 5, there is something about once this child of God becomes to be the one who decides to come out of the darkness into the light and they want to walk in the light, then there are certain expectations that are there, responsibleonsibility is very clear.
Go with me.
Here's where we're going to go to the book of 2 Crinon just a moment.
Second Crinth is chapter 6, I want you to notice.
I'm sorry, Second Critis chapter 4, from verse 4 to verse 6 In verse 4, he says, in, when the gospel is in verse 3, in whom the God in this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God should not dawn upon them.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ, Jesus is Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
Now, what's this.
Here's our expected responsibility.
Seeing it as God that said light shines out of the darkness , who shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
There's our expected responsibility.
We're the ones that are supposed to be shining the light.
Over in the book of 1 Thelonians , he again, describes it in these terms in verse, chapter 5, verse 5, He says, you are the sons of light and sons of the day.
We are not of the night. Nor of the darkness.
We're not what we used to be.
We're not back where we were before.
The tendency is that we could go back there, according to 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 20, verse 22, we could go back there, but we're not any longer walking there to go along with a song that Manny was leading us a while ago, stepping in the light, I wanted to pick out some fes to let you think about it again.
How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Sager, lead in paths of light, shaping our lives by his blessed example , Trust the arm that is strong to defend us.
Upward, still upward, we follow our guide.
This is the expected responsibility of those people that walk in the light, Walking in forgiveness thate chapter 5 talks about, walking in love, walking as saints , walking not like the rest of the people in the world.
There's a lot of things that we've just left behind, and we're not participating anymore.
All these ungodly works are no longer evident in us.
According to the texts in verse 3 , fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, not even named among those that are becoming saints, Filthiness, foolish talking, things which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
You do know certainly that no fornicator nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an idolager has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
All these things are not there anymore.
They're not evident.
Nobody sees it in us anymore.
And as a result, when you get to verse 11 , we have no fellowship without fruit for work of darkness.
We're not walking with them anymore.
We're not participating with them anymore.
We're not talking to talk that they talk.
We're not walking the walk they walk.
We're not walking in the darkness.
We're out of this.
We are reflecting .
As verse 8 says, we are are now reflecting and illuminating God.
Makes perfect sense.
That's exactly what we'll do.
Now, here's a very serious matter that is really parallel to this point.
I mentioned to you while ago about living in your home and how that there should be some means of exposure to God and various ways to everybody in that house.
And there are some places where that's not possible.
That's not the way we live.
That's not the way we do things.
There are, in many homes, not just an illumination, where there's no illumination of God there, yet by the time a child grows up, who is it that they duplicate?
Who is it that they imitate?
Who is it that they're usually following?
Who is it that becomes to be their guide of the way they live?
Who is it that is speaking to them that directs them in the way to live?
It's their parents.
There might be some problems with a TV.
There might be some problems with the phone.
There might be some problems with the computer.
There might be some problems with friends, and it might be some problems in the environment.
There could be a lot of problems in a lot of different areas, and they could be exposed to a lot of different things.
But primarily, they're exposed to their parents.
And as a result, it just makes perfect sense that to whatever degree those parents lead in goddamn, that is what they're going to illuminate, whatever that means may be.
Or it could be that they're living in artism.
So though a parent, they want to hang the life of their child child upon their exposure to their friends , exposure to their TV, exposure to their neighbors, the exposure to everything in the world.
Please value this, that whatever you're allowing them to be exposed to, that's what they're going to eliminate.
It goes back to the first point.
The exposure to God brings about the illumination, and the direction of God.
Like Matthew chapter 5 verse:1 16, says, and what the text brings about in the book of vision chapter 5 is there's fruit that's produced as a result of the exposure to God.
It's an expected responsibility that these people will be people of goodness, which is a matter of relationship with other people.
The goodness of which they speak about God is what they're reflecting in everything that they say as well to what they do.
Their goodness of which God says is good is what the children of light are exposed to most often.
And they duplicate that not only in their life, but they tell others about the goodness.
And as a result, people just don't call them good , they reflect it in all that they do.
The fruit of this is righteousness, the relationship with God, because God is what makes those children of light right.
It's not what's right in the world.
It's what's right by what God's standards are, what God says is right.
And even in the fruit that you look in the text, he says, this is fruit, of truth, the relationships that you have with yourself, the relationship that you have with yourself as a matter of honesty, that you're the one that is a son of light.
You are walking in the light, and as a result of that, the fruit that's born is either righteousness, goodness, and truth.
You can escape this.
You don't just present something as a fake and a fraud, hoping that everybody will believe it, and that will be like to them.
Listen to the words in caution chapter 1, verse 9, verse 13, and this is the way he describes it.
Those people that are, we would say, walking in the light.
For this cause, we says today we heard it do not cease to pray and to make request for you that me will be filled with all the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding to what worth of the Lord and all pleasing, bearing fruit in that which is good, increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with power, according to the mind of his glory, with patience and longsuffering with joy , giving thanks to the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the in of the who deliver us out of the power of darkness and translated us in the kingdom of the Son of his love.
This is the expected responsibility that we become to be the people who will walk in this light, walk according to the light of God, primarily because this is what pleases him. Verse 10.
It's proving was well pleasing unto the Lord.
Light and dark are so, so opposite.
And I believe all of us really, really know that, really, really know that.
Light and darkness are totally opposite, so, so far apart.
There has become to be, though, a very easily adopted and accepted way of living.
It's called the gray.
It's not too much light.
It's not too much darkness, but it's the gray.
It's in the middle.
And the interesting thing about the gray is it doesn't really go one way or the other.
And not all of that, everybody seems to think we're okay.
And we begin to adopt the idea that we're good. Because we're not either one.
And the thing is, we are very smart to know exactly when to be in the light, like right here.
But then when it's out there in the world, we know when to be over there in the dark.
So we're real smart to do that.
And we're even smart enough to know that there's this gray area . That we like to stay in.
So that way we just don't really find ourselves opposing one or the other.
And even to the point that we find ourselves not really wanting to expose the darkness at all, so we're not going to shine too bright out there unless people ridicule us and criticize us because we're too bright.
And I use that biblically, not just with your mental faculty.
So therefore, we were wanting to be in the gray.
We just don't want to be too far either way.
Blair, then I want you to just listen to the text and just understand something, never be in the gray, be light.
Be the light.
Because that's he doesn't say gray, he doesn't infer gray.
He doesn't talk about shadiness.
He talks about being the light.
Never fail to walk in the light.
Which is exactly what he left as apostles, the assignment to do in the book of John 17, beginning of verse 15, he says, the world is going to be dark and the world is not going to walk you to shine into light on them.
But he says, you need to be one with me, and let's walk in the light, and you will let them see what the true illumination of life should be.
Here's something that is really, really important about the idea of the light, that there's always going to be the possibility of exposure to the darkness.
In the texts that we were looking at here and in Ephesian chapter 5, verse 11, have no fellowship with unproof for words of darkness, but rather reprove them .
For the things which are done by them in secret, it is shame even to speak of them, but all things when they are manifested or rep.
They' manifested by the for everything that manifest.
Where he said, awake, thou Christ.
One of the things that you must know about the exposure of the light to the darkness is it's intentional.
It is intended.
I mean, if the room's dark, or as I mentioned, at the beginning of the lesson, we've gone for four hours, probably we won't have to go that long with the darkness before we do what we intensely turn a light on somewhere.
It's going to be a battery, it's going to be a canle.
It's going to be something that we're going to see what we're going to do to illuminate the area.
There's its exposure to the darkness by the light.
It's intentional.
We manifest it.
We want this to take place.
And this is exactly what you see in ver Peter chapter 2, verse 9, where this elect race, royal priesthood, holy nation, are people that were without gone and according to Ephesians 2's text, were people walking in darkness.
Therefore, those elect race, those people that are roy priesthood, those people of God's own possession, they're illuminated.
They are different. In all that they do exposing the darkness at which they were in , and which they were in.
To me, one of the greatest places and opportunities for the exposure of the darkness is the soul who used to live there. The soul that used to live in the darkness.
Let me give you an example.
In the book of Acts chapter 8, excuse me, Acts chapter 9, when Saul was converted, follower, leader, teacher of the old law , After he was converted, what did he talk about?
The law, done away, bringing people to Jesus.
Now, he would make ref reference to the instances like the Book of Acts chapter 13, about the histories of the people of Israel, bringing them to Jesus Christ, that he removed himself from the practice of and connection to the Old Law.
Now connecting people to Jesus, who's the light of the world.
John 8 12.
The person that used to be an alcoholic, there's not an individual in the world that detested it any more than he does, or she does and tells you, don't touch it.
Don't drink it.
Don't get near it.
Because I know of the possibilities of it taking you to darkness that you never thought you'd ever go before.
People in drugs do the very same thing.
The person who has a mouth of filthiness, once they find themselves con converted to the Lord and they're now illuminating, they don't want to talk in those turns.
They don't want to use that preventity.
And it really hurts their ears for you to say it or anybody to say it to them.
They detest it it.
So the soul that now is illuminated, they more than anybody else, is able to expose the dirtiness because of where they live right there in the middle of it.
They, according to the text, will reprove those that are in darkness, more than anybody else.
How many times has it been?
That you've heard stories?
Where the people who used to be in these circumstances now remove themselves from it and they go teach others about the dangers of it?
That's an intentional illumination and exposure of the darkness.
And this is who we are to be.
Truth, opposite to lies.
Modesty, opposite to immodesty. Soriety, soberness, being filled with the spirit versus drunkenness.
All the opposites that you will see that mentioned in scripture, all of them are definitely exposing rather the darkness.
We're the suns of light.
We are walking in the light.
As we concludeude this lesson, I want to give you a scenario about something that helps us understand when it comes down to conversion, what the possibilities are of an individual coming to the light versus the fact that they want to stay in the darkness.
There was this little girl that was sitting on the couch in the living room, and there's about, oh, maybe a six or eight foot wall that separates where she was from all the adults in the dining room, having finished their meal.
And all of a sudden, just out of the blue, there seemed to be there's an automomatically there's a little calm in the room, in the dining room, where they heard this person says, I did wrong and nobody saw it.
Now, if you're a parent, what does that you hear this, you hear this, or what do you immediately do?
You just jump up and you run in there to the room, where this is going on?
You're thinking, are you're going to see evidence of something wrong has happened?
I know that something's broken?
Something's done something terribly wrong here.
But you see nothing.
You see absolutely nothing.
Nothing's changed except the child is on the couch saying those words.
She was not describing what she currently had done, but she was describing what she had done earlier in the day.
She did wrong, but nobody saw it.
And now all the parents are wondering, well, what did they do now?
What did she do?
What happened?
But my point with that is to say that there are people who will say I did wrong, but nobody saw it.
And just live the life of a fraud.
Believing, believing.
I'm use that word believing, believing that everything's okay.
Since nobody saw it and nobody heard it, nobody witnessed this.
But that person. Lives in the darkness and has accepted that way of life to continue living in that darkness.
Yes.
Yet really, they are isolated.
But they live in this frayed existence of anxieties and pain and guilt and shame and turmoil.
But they found a way to make every excuse for what they do.
They They place blame, they place judgment , they place some kind of approval on what it is that they do.
Yet they still want to live in the darkness, never coming to the light.
As long as they stay there, as long as they can hide it, then everything will be okay.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not.
There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.
The same came for witness that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him.
He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light.
There was the true light, even the light which lights every man coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not.
He came into his own, and they did not receive him.
But as many received him, he gave the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name.
The illumination has appeared.
Question is, has he illuminated you so that you will walk in him?
Change your way.
Confess in the name of Jesus, and be baptized in the water, to come away in newness of life.
Those of you that are children of God already and you're living in the gray, or you're floating toward to the dark, the lights come.
Let him wake you up.
Let's stand and sing.
