"You Are Children of the Light" Sermon: Ephesians 5:1-21

“You Are Children of the Light”
[Ephesians 5:1-21]
January 18, 2009 Second Reformed Church

You are the children of the Light.

If the Lord is willing, we will spend the next six weeks looking at who we are in Christ and what that means for our relationship with one another. Who are you now that you believe in Jesus Alone for your salvation? What does that mean for how you ought to behave, especially towards other Christians.

Paul tells the Ephesian Christians and us a number of things that ought to be true of us if we have believe in Jesus Alone for our salvation – if we have received God as our Father and Christ as our Brother:

First, since we who believe are the children of God, we ought to be imitators of God. The child ought to be like the parent – in good things – and since our Heavenly Father is Only Good, we, children, ought to strive to be like our Father.

To do that, we need to know God, we need to be in a passionate and intimate relationship with Him. We ought to find ourselves hungering to know Him as well and as deeply as we can. We need to open His Word, listen to it read and preached, learn the Character of God and do likewise. We have the Bible on MP3CD free in our literature rack, both in an adult and a children’s version. Pick one up if you haven’t before. If you don’t have an MP3CD player, it will play in most DVD players. Spend time in God’s Word – every day. We have Bible reading schedules for free in Freeman Hall. If you come across a difficult passage, ask me, look it up in a reliable commentary. Don’t give up – God wants you to know Him. The Bible was written for shepherds and slaves and the illiterate, not scholars.

We must be careful, though. Being imitators of God is not as simple as some would portray it. Paul is not simply telling us to ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” Why not? Because we are not Jesus There is no other God-Man. We cannot and ought not do everything Jesus did. We are the representatives of Christ; we are not Christ.

What does it mean, then? Jesus said, “‘But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who in heaven. For he makes the sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust’” (Matthew 5:44-45, ESV). And “‘Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends’” (John 15:14, ESV). Being imitators of God primarily means walking in love with one another, even to the extent of being willing to lay down your life for a brother or sister, as a sacrifice to God.

As disturbing as that sounds, in America, we can usually just shrug and say, “Sure, I’d lay down my life for so-and-so on behalf of the Gospel.” It would be a more difficult question in China and India and Iraq and Iran where Christians are systematically being put to death. It may come to the United States. There is a bill in Congress now to make it a hate crime for a minister to preach that it is a sin to engage in homosexual acts. If that bill goes through – if it becomes a law, I could go to jail for years for preaching the Bible. Would you stand with me? Would you stand before the news cameras as I am taken away and say that the Bible does teach that – that it is not a hate crime – would you be willing to go to jail for what the Bible teaches?

If hate crimes become punishable by death, would you stand by what the Bible says? Would you stand by my preaching? Would you be willing to die for the sake of Christ for my preaching? Would you be willing to die for Marla? Artie? Dorothy? Maria? For a true believer at a church you have never met? God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us. Are we willing to die for the sake of what is clearly taught in the Bible? Are we willing to die for Christ and for those who belong to Him? To be a “fragrant offering and sacrifice to God”?

Second, Paul says that we ought to be known as a people who refrain from sin.

Paul says that we are to be known as a people who do not engage in sexual immorality. We are to be known as a people who do not commit sexual sins, who do not lust, who do not engage in anything that would tempt others to engage in sexual sins. That means we will not do certain things that God has forbidden in His Word. It means that we will watch how we dress, how we speak, the books and movies we see. And there is not a specific list here because much of this – except for those things that God has specifically forbidden – are matters of Christian liberty. We need to know ourselves and the brothers and sisters we are around and not engage in those things that lead us into sin or engage in things before others that will lead them into sin. That’s hard work. It means we need to get to know each other – and ourselves.

Paul also says that we are to be known as a people who are not greedy, covetousness, filled with prideful desire. We ought to be known as a people who are satisfied with the Providence of God. We ought not to be striving to get more and accumulate more and crying out that we are not appreciated or recognized enough. “He who dies with the most toys wins” is a lie. This life is not about us – we’ve seen that over the past few weeks. This life is about Jesus – about His Gospel – about bringing Him glory. Christianity is about showing how great Jesus is – it’s not about showing how great we are – or about making us great.

And Paul says we ought to be known as a people who guard our mouths. This is, perhaps, one of the most difficult things, since we tend to consider this an acceptable sin, so it flourishes in the Church. We are not to use our tongue for foolishness, for foulness, for gossip, for backbiting. Instead, we are to use our tongues for giving thanks to God. James, the brother of Jesus, tells us that this is a difficult struggle: “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire And the tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell” (James 3:3-6, ESV).

There’s a difference we must learn between concern and gossip and backbiting: for example, it is fine to come to me after seeing me have a piece of cake at coffee hour and express your concern for my health and wonder what you can do to help me better my health. It is another thing altogether, to whisper among yourselves about how much I ate and what I ate and how you know that’s wrong and I’m a horrible person, and so forth.

We all need to be more careful with our tongues. It’s not easy, but our bad habits can be broken. “That’s the way I was raised.” “I’ve done that all my life.” “That’s just the way I am.” Those are not acceptable excuses for the children of God. Paul wrote, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (I Corinthians 6:11, ESV). In Christ, we can reform our tongues. Rather than talking behind each other’s backs and making assumptions, let us go to the person who has offended us or with whom we are concerned, and express that to them. And then, leave it, unless you know that a brother or sister is persisting in unrepentant sin. Then there are Scriptural guidelines for that. And Paul tells us, that if a person is truly a child of God, when confronted with continuing in unrepentant sin, a Christian will repent and give thanks to God. If a person refuses to repent and remains in unrepentant sin, such have “no inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.”

Third, Paul says that we are to be known as a people who are not swayed – that are not deceived – by empty words – by people full of hot air.

American Christians fall so easily for people full of hot air! We are not a people who look to our Bibles to check to see what they actually say. I would be so rich if I had a dollar for every time someone told me the Bible is full of contradictions, and then I ask them if they have read it and they say “no.” Or I ask them to show me one, and they say they don’t know, but read so-and-so or watch such-and-such a program. I remember my sister, Libby, coming home when she was in elementary school, after they had begun teaching evolution, and she said, “Well, it must be true, it’s in a book.” I remember a friend of mine coming to me with a copy of The Da Vinci Code, and she told me that it proved Christianity false, and that the author even had a preface where he said that though it is a piece of fiction, all of the historical evidence is true. Well, he lied. He distorted and made up the “historical evidence” in his novel. Brothers and sisters, we must go back to the source material – especially the Bible. If someone says something strange, especially about the Bible, ask them to show you where, and if it is confusing, bring it here, or look it up in a reliable commentary.

“The Gospel of Judas proves that the Gospels are wrong and Judas is really the Savior, and it has been suppressed for centuries!” No, it was known and refuted by the early Church fathers, and it was recently mistranslated to make money.

“There are several modern atheists who have proven that God doesn’t exist and all evil is caused by Christianity!” So the news would have us believe. Have you read any of these infantile authors and their rants? They put up straw men and false teachings and claim it is truth.

Brothers and sisters, don’t be fooled by them! Don’t be swayed by them. They are full of hot air. Check the Bible. Don’t believe things just because they are in print or on the news. There is plenty of garbage in print, and the news is merely a “reality show” based on events that occurred – it’s not truth.

Paul says we are not to associate with people who propagate such nonsense. Does that mean we should not share the Gospel with them? No, what Paul means is that God gives some people over to hardness of heart. Some people desire to remain in their sin so much, that God lets them go. Paul wrote, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Romans 1:24-25, ESV). When Paul tells us not to associate with them, he means that we are not to join with them in leading others into sin.

On the contrary, fourth, Paul says that since we are children of the Light, we are to be exposing the darkness.

We are to walk as children of the Light, living and explaining to others why these teachers and ideas are wrong. We are to spend our lives illuminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Explaining, showing others that there is salvation only in Jesus. We are to show why other religions are not true, and we are to lead the world in living according to the Love and the Law of God. Keith Green has a song called, “Asleep in the Light,” in which he criticizes the Church for claiming the benefits of Christ, while refusing to follow Him and live out the Gospel before the world: “The world is sleeping in the dark that the Church just can’t fight, ‘cause it’s asleep in the Light. How can you be so dead when you’ve been so well fed, Jesus rose from the grave, and you, you can’t even get out of bed!”

No, we must walk according to the wisdom of God. We must pray to understand, seek to understand more and better that we can be shining lights to all those who are still in the darkness. We need to turn away from sin – from the “unfruitful works of darkness” – and turn to “the fruit of the light...all that is good and right and true,...try[ing] to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.”

“‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’” If you are a Christian, you have been raised from the dead, you have been awakened from your sleep, the Light of Christ has shone on you, and you are now a child of the Light – get up! Stop hiding. Stop pulling the blankets over your head. Stop putting your “light under a bushel.”

Paul tells us to walk carefully, to search after the wisdom of God in His Word, to let others know, because the days are evil – that is, the time is short, and we each only have a short time on this earth. We need to spend our time and our efforts, our gifts and blessings, on those things that will last, on those things that are meaningful, on those things that shine the Light of Christ on Him and His Gospel. Don’t waste your life. Don’t be a fool. There is nothing more valuable that learning at the feet of Christ – read His Word, learn from those who preach it and teach it biblically.

There are those who have accepted a fatalistic view of the world and say, “Eat, drink, for tomorrow we die.” And there is a sense in which they are right – we don’t know how long we have to live on this earth, which is why we dare not waste our lives. Paul tells us not to spend our time being drunk on wine – we ought not spend our time in “debauchery.” Literally, Paul says that we are not “to abandon ourselves to recklessly immoral behavior” (Bible Windows Analytical Lexicon). We are not to do anything that throws our lives away in sin.

Rather, Paul says, we are to be filled with the Spirit – and God the Holy Spirit indwells all those who believe, and He helps us to grow and mature and to understand God’s Word. And then, rather than addressing our brothers and sisters in sin or insincerity, let us come together, joining in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Let us join together, bound together in knowing and understanding the Scripture together. Let us literally sing together and let us spiritually be united in perfect harmony in Christ. Let us put aside our criticism of imperfect notes and hear the perfect melody of Christ that flows through each believer.

And then let us be thankful. One of the great criticisms in the Bible is that God’s people are not thankful. Seek and find reasons to be thankful every day and give thanks to God for them. The more time we look for reasons to be thankful, the more things we will find to be thankful for – even in our bloated and unthankful country. And as we spend more time giving thanks, it will change our attitude and life. Christians ought not to be a people who look like they have been sucking on lemons their whole lives – the most melancholy Christian has reason to give thanks, and that will show. If you are a thankful person, it will show. It will change you and it will change those around you. Especially as we give thanks “always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Understand, I have said before, we are not be told that we should enjoy suffering. God is not telling us to be thankful for suffering itself. For example, if you get a flat tire, we are not being told to thank God for the flat tire. What we are being told, is to give thanks for the tire not blowing up, for not getting into an accident, for having the ability to get the tire fixed, and so forth. There is always reason to give thanks. We have real disappointments, real frustrations, real sufferings that we live through and ought to call on God for help with, yet, we always have reason to give thanks.

One of the ways we show our thanks is by “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” In other words, in thanks for what Christ has done for me, I’m willing to do this for you and that for you when you ask me. In thanks for what Christ has done for me, I am willing to submit to the government of the Reformed Church in America – our denomination – while I serve as a minister in her. Etc. That does not mean that we should be a doormat or use others as a doormat; it does not mean that you always have to do anything and everything another Christian asks you to do. What it means is if you are able, you should submit to the request of a brother or sister, and this is reciprocal, there ought to be thanks shown to each other as we submit to each other in Christ.

This is some of what it means to live as children of the Light. Let us find ourselves striving to be known as children of the Light by the world and living out that call in love and service to each other.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for choosing us to be children of the Light and for giving us brothers and sisters with our Brother, Jesus. Lead us away from sin and cause us to be ever more desirous in knowing You and loving each other for Your Sake. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.