We live in a dark and perverse world and if we aren’t careful we can easily wind up looking more like the world and less like Jesus. This is why we teach our children songs like “This Little Light of Mine” and “Father Abraham” and “I’m In The Lord’s Army”. We teach these songs at a young age because we want our children to shine like bright lights in the darkness.
Ephesians 5:7 – 14…
7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
Introduction…
The song “This Little Light Of Mine” is a children’s song that is designed to teach children to be responsible with the light of Christ in their lives. As Christians we are called to be the light of the world. We are called to be like cities on hills that glow in the darkness. We are not meant to be lamps hidden in closets or baskets. We are meant to bring glory and attention and honor to God. We are called to let our lives shine like bright lights through our words, our thoughts and our actions in the midst of a dark and perverse world. (Lk. 11:33-36; Matt. 5:14-16)
And there are many ways in which the church does shine brightly in the darkness. Compassion for the poor. Commitment to the truth of God’s Word. Standing in opposition against evil in our world. These are all good ways that Christians embody this call to be lights in the darkness. And there’s absolutely no way we could obey this call if it weren’t for Jesus coming into the world as the true and perfect light of the world. (Jn. 3:19; 8:12)
And yet, therein lies the tension. We are called to be lights in the darkness and Jesus himself is the light of the world. We are reflectors of the Son of God just like the moon is a reflector of the light of the sun. But here’s the tension, we know that people love darkness rather than the light. And according to John’s gospel the proof is visible in the activities of people’s lives. Thoughts, words and actions, all these prove what your heart is loyal to. (Jn. 3:19-21)
I’m not just talking about evil atrocities like genocide. Sin is evil because it is an act of rebellion and war against God. And according to one author, sin is still sin and evil is still evil even if we dress it up in expensive wrappers. In other words, we live in a dark reality and the temptation for Christians is to dress up our sin with the clothing and the lipstick and the language of religion without ever experiencing true transformation of the heart.
We live in a dark and perverse world and if we aren’t careful we can easily wind up looking more like the world and less like Jesus. This is why we teach our children songs like “This Little Light of Mine” and “Father Abraham” and “I’m In The Lord’s Army”. We teach these songs at a young age because we want our children to shine like bright lights in the darkness. And that brings me to the passage before us today in Ephesians 5.
The Text…
This passage isn’t child’s play. Paul’s concern in this section of our text is serious because he’s concerned about the way we walk out our lives in relation to our identity. He’s essentially been saying that not only should we walk this way but we can walk this way. He’s intricately tying together the theme of our identity dictating our walk rather than our walk dictating our identity.
He’s encouraging and challenging and warning the Ephesians to walk in a manner that is worthy of their calling, to no longer walk like unbelievers, to put on the new clothing of Christlikeness, to be renewed in their words, their thoughts and their actions and to live in sexual purity as sons and daughters of God.
It’s the sons and daughters of God piece that enables us to walk. Our identity and the call to walk in obedience isn’t meant to be a heavy weight that causes us to walk begrudgingly with bitter scowls as we long to rebel deep down inside. Our identity is meant to enable us to walk in joy-filled, transparent, relationship with God and the rest of our church family in front of a broken and dark and perverse world.
One author says, “The person who does what God says with a resentful heart and begrudging obedience does not bear the mark of the true child of light. The heart renewed by the Spirit desires to please God, is anxious to find out what he desires, and is motivated by the sense of bringing God pleasure.” This is Paul’s desire for the Ephesians. He wants them to have renewed hearts that are set on fire by the Spirit of God for the things of God.
He wants them to shine like bright lights in the midst of a dark and perverse culture. And he wants to be super practical about this. He wants to put the cookies on the lowest shelf possible so that the Ephesians can walk this out. So he says it in very simple terms. He basically says don’t link arms with disobedient people, be a human torch, live your life to please God, expose the darkness in and around you and wake up from your sleepwalking.
#1: Don’t link arms with disobedient people… (7-8)
Paul says 7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. The “them” that Paul refers to here are “the sons of disobedience” from verse 6. And the “sons of disobedience” are people who are sexually immoral. They practice impurity. They are covetous or greedy for other people’s bodies. They are given over to filthy talk and crude joking and empty, deceptive words. These are the “them” that we are not to become partners with. We are not to link arms with disobedient people.
And the reason is that our identity should dictate our behavior. Paul says that even though we were disobedient people at one time, we are no longer disobedient people. We were darkness at one time. We didn’t just walk in darkness. At one time our identity was darkness. But now that we’ve trusted in Christ (if you’ve trusted in Christ) then we have a new identity. We have a new name. We are light in the Lord. Even when we stumble in disobedience, our actions do not dictate who we are. The over riding trajectory of a true child of God is someone who desires to and does walk in obedience to the Lord.
Therefore, don’t link arms with disobedient people. Do not be intimately connected with disobedient people. We must be in the world and not be of it. Our closest friends that we are intimately connected to are to be people of the light so that we can shine brighter in the darkness. A single lamp stand is bright in the darkness but a cluster of lamp stands is brighter. So don’t link arms with people of disobedience. Be intimately connected to people of obedience and shine like a city full of lamp stands on a hilltop.
#2: Be a human torch… (8-9)
Paul says that we are to walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true). Paul uses an interesting twist on words here when he attaches fruit to light. At first glance I begin to wonder, how light could bear fruit. And I suppose the simple scientific answer is that light doesn’t really bear fruit. Plants bear fruit and tress bear fruit but I’ve never seen light bear fruit. But then, if you stop and think about it, have you ever seen a plant or a tree that has been locked in utter darkness? Ever seen the grass after a blanket was left on your lawn for an extended period time? It doesn’t bear fruit. It doesn’t grow. It withers up and dies.
The same is true for people. If we walk in darkness then the fruit we bear is not good and it’s not right and it’s not true to our design. But if we walk in the light, if we live our lives to be human torches that reflect the light of the Son of God, then wherever we go, we will produce fruit that is good and right and true. Human torches bear the fruit of Christlike goodness and the fruit of Christlike righteousness and the fruit of Christ centered truth instead of bitterness and filthiness and deception. So be a human torch that is lit up by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
#3: Live your life to please God… (10)
Paul says that we should try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. But because we are broken people we often live to please ourselves. We often live to please our own senses and our own appetites. We approach life sometimes like hungry people at a feeding frenzy who are seeking only to satisfy the momentary hunger pains in our bellies. We do this through addictions of all shapes and sizes. Some of us are addicted to porn. Some of us are addicted to food. Some of us are addicted to isolation. Some of us are addicted to knowledge. And some of us are addicted to accomplishments or money or belongings or status or hobbies. The list goes on and on and on.
But the clear instruction here is that we are not to live our lives to please ourselves through addictions of all kinds. We are called to live our lives to please God. And this kind of lifestyle doesn’t happen without some hard work. We must labor hard to discern or to understand or to test what actually pleases God. We must work hard to bring our lives into conformity with God’s Word in relation to our thoughts, our words and our actions. It’s not the labor that pleases God. It’s the broken and humble heart that pleases God. So don’t live your life to please yourself. Live your life to please God.
#4: Expose the darkness in and around you… (11-14)
Paul says 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Now again, at first glance, there is an apparent conflict in what Paul is saying. He says “don’t have any part in the unfruitful works of darkness”. In other words don’t let there be any darkness in you. And then later he says, “for it is shameful to even speak of the things they do in secret”. In other words, the darkness that they engage in around you should not permeate your conversations.
So is Paul in conflict here? I don’t think so. I think Paul is clearly concerned with whether or not our lives reflect the glory and the goodness of the Son of God who died for our sins. This is why he instructs us not to take part in the unfruitful works of darkness. And he follows that with the instruction to expose those unfruitful works of darkness.
Put that word “expose” in your head for a minute and just track with me. Because Paul moves on and he says that it’s shameful to even talk about the dark things that unbelievers do in secret. So are we to expose these things or are we not to even talk about these things? If we are to expose them then how do we expose them without talking about them? Hasn’t Paul just talked about them himself in recent verses? Look at what he says in verses 13 and 14. In these verses he explains how we are to expose those shameful things when he says “when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.”
The sense that I get from these verses (in the context of what Paul has already said in recent verses about the use of our words) is that we should not engage in locker room talk or water cooler talk or front porch talk or social media talk or back yard talk about the shameful acts of unbelievers around us. We are not to entertain or make light of or joke around about the shameful things in our culture in a way that would make us appear to be part of them. And we are certainly not to live our lives in the darkness of secret sin.
We are to instead live our lives in a way that we shine a bright light on the shameful things we see in our culture. We should be counter cultural not in a way that is combative with the culture but instead in a way that is contrary to the culture. The shameful things we see around us that are done in secret should be contrasted by the Christlike ways that we live our lives. In this way, the darkness gets exposed. So expose the darkness in and around you by walking in the light.
#5: Wake up from your sleepwalking… (14)
Paul says “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Sleepwalking can be very dangerous. I remember a time when my son, Lewis, sleepwalked right out the front door in the middle of the night and the front door locked behind him and when he woke up he was outside in the front yard. He was scared and he had trouble getting back into the house because all of us were still sleeping too.
This story is often true of the Christian experience. We can be Christians, while walking in darkness. Otherwise, why would Paul warn the Ephesians of this? We can sleepwalk through life for years upon years until we finally wake up and find ourselves in the front yard of our secret sins surrounded by others who are sleepwalking and unable to help us get back into the comfort and safety of a well lit home in the presence of Christ.
But the awesome promise of this passage is that when we hear Jesus calling us to wake up from our sleepwalking, when he calls us up out of our sin-soaked graves, Christ himself shines his light upon us and we are at home once again in his presence. So wake up from your sleepwalking and walk in the light of Christ.
Conclusion…
The song “This Little Light Of Mine” is a children’s song that is designed to teach children to be responsible with the light of Christ in their lives. As Christians we are called to be the light of the world. We are called to be like cities on hills that glow in the darkness. We are not meant to be lamps hidden in the closets or the baskets of our secret sins. We are meant to bring glory and attention and honor to God. We are called to let our lives shine like bright lights through our words, our thoughts and our actions in the midst of a dark and perverse world. (Lk. 11:33-36; Matt. 5:14-16)
If you came in here today sleepwalking through life. Caught in the darkness of your secret sin. Ostracized from the presence of God because of your foolishness. Living in the lonely stench of death because of your rebellion. Stuck in the rut of your selfish desires. Controlled by your hunger for more of what you cannot or should not have. Blinded by the darkness that you’ve been stumbling around in. Surrounded by other sleepwalkers.
If this is you today… the clear call of Christ to you is to wake up. Wake up and arise from the dead just like Lazarus. Walk out of your self-made grave like your Savior walked out of his man-made tomb by the power of the Spirit. Wake up from your sleepwalking. And Christ himself will shine upon you.
In this way and through this promise you can walk in a new way where you become this little light of mine. In this way you become a little light of Christ and he will let you shine as he shines through you.