Walk as Children of God Pt 2

verse 11 with me, be glad in the Lord and rejoice you righteous ones and shout for joy, all who are upright in heart and Lord, we do praise you that father, we can confess our sins to you and know and understand that you will forgive. And Lord, I thank you for being our hiding place. And so Lord, we find our rest in our refuge in you this morning. And I just ask that you would teach us by the power of your Holy spirit or to overflow me with your gift of teaching and your people with the gift of hearing in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. You may be seated. And if you would open up in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians chapter five, Ephesians chapter five, we're going to be looking at verses seven through 14. This morning, we're in part two of a series that we've been working on called walk as children of God. As always, Paul has taught us in the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians about

our position in Christ, where we sit together with him in heavenly places, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are, who we are. Who we are. And now from that basis of knowing who we are in Christ, we now operate as God would have us to in the way that we walk. And so last week we looked at walking in love as we walk as children of God. But today we talk about walking in light as we walk in as children of God. And so

as this is the theme this week, I've been doing some thinking about light and how important light is for our lives because light honestly is one of the most important things that we have. And so I thought about a handful of things that light does. And so there's four things that I thought about that are the purpose of light. The first one is going to be real earth shattering to you.

Light illuminates, right? It's like a science class that we're having up in here right now. Light illuminates. When I'm preparing my, finishing my, preparing my message on Sunday mornings, I like to sit out on my back patio and I don't like to turn a ton of light on because when you sit outside, you guys know what happens when you sit outside in Kansas and you turn a light on, bugs show up. So I try not to turn too much light on, only I'm also getting

older so I don't see as well as I used to. So I'm going. So you eventually have to turn on light because it illuminates. It allows me, it allows me to see things. It allows me to see the words on my page and what I'm writing down. So, so light has that illuminating factor. But not only does light illuminate, light also, number two, protects. Light's actually a really protective

thing because it allows us to see dangers in front of us. Let me give you a little illustration of this. So this happened some years back now. I was living in my old house and, and I was working kind of late into the evening and so it was dark. Everybody else was in bed. I finished what I was doing. It was time for me to go to bed. So I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, handle all my hygiene

and all that kind of good stuff. I get ready to walk out of the bathroom and I turn the light off and I remember I don't have my phone with me, which is my alarm clock and everything else. So I don't want to turn all the lights back on and run the risk of waking everybody up. I'm like, I'll just find my way in the dark. Well, I know that when you walk out my bathroom door,

you have to make a quick right and then a quick left to go down the hall because there's a wall right in front of you. And so I knew that. And so I made a quick right and I made a quick left. I made the quick left a little too quick. And, and I ran into the wall. Matter of fact, I ran into the corner of the wall and it split me right down the middle. That was

one of those times that, uh, Corinne asked me, Mr. Nichols, what, what happened to your head? And so light protects because had the light been on, I would have seen the barrier in front of me. But not only does light illuminate, not only does light protect, but the light exposes, right? Light exposes potential pitfalls, but light also exposes things that are wrong.

When I worked in construction, if we had really good drywallers, at the end of the job, when they were done doing all of their sanding, they would take a light and they would shine the light on the wall. And the reason why they would shine the light on the wall is not to make sure there was a wall there, but to look for any imperfections in the mud because they knew it would get inspected by my boss, who was incredibly particular. And they would look for any sort of ridge that they needed to smooth out or any of what we all called shotgun blast, which is a bunch of little holes in the, in the mud. They would hold that because it would, it would expose all of the imperfections. And so light exposed,

but number four, light is also, it's essential for life. As a matter of fact, as a young kid, I remember one of the first scientific truths that I learned was about photosynthesis, the way that light shines and uses the moisture in the ground and converts it into food for the plant, right? And so, so light is essential for life. As a matter of fact, if you were to look at a plant that sits somewhat in the shade, really close to a light source, you all know what it does. It,

it bends to get to the light because it needs that light in order, to grow. It's actually a period of time where I thought it was going to go into turf management. And so I took some classes on this. And one of the things that they teach you is that shade is actually a stress on turf because it needs light in order to grow because light is essential for life. Well, with that as a backdrop, I want to remind you about what Jesus

said in John chapter eight, Jesus gave one of his famous, I am statements. And he stood up in front of everyone. And he said, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but we'll have the light of life. And so we know that Jesus is that

light of the world. Therefore, we know that Jesus does all of those things. But it's interesting because if we also look back at Matthew chapter five and the sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us as believers, as disciples of Jesus Christ, that we were two things. Number one, we were salt, but number two, that we are light. You are the light of the world. A city sitting on a hill

can't be hidden. And whoever's light is shining doesn't put it underneath of a basket, but they hold it up for all the light of the world. And so we know that Jesus is that light of the world. All men to see, to illuminate, telling us that as disciples of Jesus Christ, we are the light, but the only light that we have comes from Jesus. But if we are the light of the world,

then we must walk in the light. And that brings us to where we are in Ephesians chapter five. I'd like to start off in verse seven. And it says this, therefore, do not be partakers with them. For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do not participate in the unfruitful

deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them for it's disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light for everything that becomes visible. And so as we look at this subject of walking in the light, there's three things he's going to tell us. Number one, he's going to tell us who you are. Number two, he's going to tell us how to walk.

Then number three, he's going to give the exhortation to awake from sleep. So he starts off by telling us who we are. Do you take note of that in verse eight? In verse eight, it says, for you were formerly darkness. Now, before he tells us who we are, he reminds us of who we were. I'd like to point out the fact that he tells us that who we were was actually darkness. I want

to tell you what he did not say. He did not say that you were in the darkness. He said that you were darkness, meaning that the darkness of sin embodied who you were. That darkness, that life apart from Christ is nothing but darkness. And it meant that you weren't just participating in the deeds of darkness. It meant that it encapsulated every bit of who you are. It meant that you were

it was the cloud that hung over you. You were darkness. But there's a second thing I want to point out to you about what he says about who you were. And that's that he uses two words. He says, you were formerly darkness. Now I point that out because I think one of the biggest problems that we have as human beings is forgetting about who we were so that we can walk as who we are.

I bring this up a lot, but it's because so many people cannot let go of the past. And it's important for us to remember that that's who we were for two reasons. Number one, because people can't let go of their guilt. They used to be darkness. They used to then live in the darkness and walk in the darkness and participate in the darkness. And then you got saved. Only the problem with when you got saved is that you forgot that's who you were, not who you

are. And you still live in that guilt. You still mull it over in your head. You still remember those deeds. You go back and you say, I still can't believe I did this. I still can't believe I did that. And you still hold on to that guilt. And because of that, you can't walk in the light because you're still walking in the guilt. And you need to know something. When your sin was covered in the blood of Jesus,

as far as the east is from the west, that's how far it was taken away from you. And that is not who you are anymore. But you know, there's a second way that sometimes we still live in the who we were. And it's not just the guilt that we live in. It's the sin that we still live in. You came to Jesus and you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And you said, man,

what are you going to do? And you said, I'm going to go to the Lord and save you. And you said, but now you still live in all those exact same sins. As a matter of fact, if you were to be held up of a test to see whether or not there was any fruit of righteousness in your life, we all might have to ask a couple of questions because there's nothing about you that would seem to exemplify light in your life. And you need to remember that that's who you were. It's not who you are.

You were formerly darkness. But then he goes on to say, but you are light in the Lord. But now you are light. I want to read this to you out of a exposers Bible commentary with the idea of the, of being the light. It says the transformation is so complete that you are not just enlightened, but you are now light itself. That transformation is so complete that you are not just enlightened

by the gospel, but now you are actually light. It embodies who you are. I had the opportunity yesterday to go to an event over at the Burford. I had the opportunity to go to an event over at the Burford. It was the choose life event. And Brian had, well, choose the guitar player for corn was there giving his testimony. Now I've read some, uh, one of his books before. And, and, and I listened

to corn a little bit when I was in high school. Matter of fact, any nineties kids in here, you know what I'm talking about? So, so, uh, it was fascinating to hear his testimony because he, he goes through and talks about all the issues that he went through, all of the self-hatred that he dealt with, all of the guilt that he dealt with and all of the drugs that he found himself caught up in and the lifestyle that he lived for so long. That was so dark. And it was,

he said, I finally hit a point that I was so hooked on crystal meth. He said that when I wasn't high, I felt so much self-hatred. I hated who I was. I hated how I looked. I hated everything about myself. And so when I wasn't high, I was depressed. And when I was high, I felt like a loser. He said, I was in a no end situation and I wanted to end my life until a friend of his

invited him to church. Now I want to tell you something as a little bit of a sidebar. The entire reason this young man got saved is because a friend invited him to church. Now I know we think that in order to reach the lost, you got to go do some crazy thing and do all this kind of, you know, become this whole new person and do all this different stuff. And all

you got to do is just invite somebody to church. Sometimes, man, all you got to do is just show a little love to somebody because it really doesn't take as much as you think, because the Holy Spirit's the one doing the work. You just got to be obedient to what the Holy Spirit tells you to do. And he said, this guy invited me to church. And he said, next thing I know, I'm going forward to get saved. He

said, I had one minor relapse. He said, but after that relapse, I gave all that stuff to Jesus. And he said, there was one period of time, there was one day that I remember because on that day, when I finally just got rid of it all, he said, so much hope, so much life, so much light, so much Jesus was poured into my life. He said, I can't explain it in words. He said, but it was

the most real life. And he said, I can't explain it in words. He said, but it was the most real life. It was the most real thing that ever happened to me. And I never dealt with those depressive thoughts again. I never dealt with that self-harm again, because all I knew was the hope of Jesus had been poured into my heart. And what was at one point in time, darkness had now become,

he used the word, not me, light. Isn't that great? Because the transformation was so complete that he wasn't just enlightened. He was actually made light itself because of Jesus coming to live on the inside of him. And you're no different. Your testimony may look a little different, but you're still different. It may sound a little bit different, but you were still darkness, and now

you're light. And it's a beautiful thing that God is able to do through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And so that's who you are. You are now light in the Lord. So now how are we to walk? Well, he tells us to walk as children of light. Well, what does that mean? Well, of course, we remember that the word walk means to habitually order your life, the way that you live your life. And the way

that you live your life is to habitually order your life. And the way that you live your life is to as if light is a part of it. You walk as children of light. Don't go back to the darkness. Keep walking in the light. Well, what does walking in the light looks like? Well, he kind of describes it here in verse 9 when he says, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness

and truth. Now, if you're reading the old King James or the new King James, it doesn't say the fruit of the light. It says the fruit of the spirit, which is interesting that they use those intelligibly in the translations because it's almost like the spirit of God gives us the light of God. It's almost like they're all just one. And so these are the fruits of what it looks like

to walk in the light. He gives us three words. Number one, he gives us the word goodness. What does it look like to walk in the, in the light? Well, it looks like to walk in goodness. What does the word goodness mean? The word goodness means moral excellence. It means moral excellence. In other words, your life is now morally excellent before the Lord, as you're walking in the light. When you were darkness, you lived in immorality. When you were

darkness, you lived in the sins of the flesh. But now that you're walking in the light, you live a life of moral excellence because that's what the Holy Spirit and the light is producing in your life. The second word that's used is the word righteousness. The word righteousness means integrity in dealings with both God and man. I found that to be a pretty fascinating

definition of that word. Integrity in the way that you deal with both God and man, especially when it comes to the fact that we read Psalm 32 this morning. Another sidebar. So the way I choose Psalms, I don't know if y'all know this or not, is I take whatever the day of the month is and I read that Psalm. And then every 30th Psalm after that, I decide A, which one seems to match the message the best and B, which one

sometimes is the shortest because nobody wants to read 74 verses in a responsive reading, right? So this morning I woke up and in my mind, I was like, I'm going to read Psalm 32 this morning. In my mind, it was October 2nd. I don't know why. I was like, oh, Psalm 2. No, I don't like that. Psalm 32. Oh yeah, I really like that. And literally as I'm reading Psalm 32 in first service, I'm like, you

idiot. Today's the first, not the second. But it goes great with the message. Meanwhile, back at the message. So in Psalm 32, what was David not doing? He was not living with integrity with both God and man because he was hiding his sin. And so what did he have to do? He had to confess his sin to the Lord. He had to get real with God and live in integrity with God. And then

he had to live in integrity with man by dealing with the effects of that sin on the nation. What does it look like to walk in the light? It looks like walking in righteousness, which looks like walking in integrity. Number three, walking in the light means walking in truth. Walking in truth. I want to define this word truth for you. Truth not only means honesty, but there was a

second part of the definition that I thought was fascinating. It's not only honesty, but it's also reality. And I appreciate that because you know what we often don't live in right now? Reality. Everything's a show. Have you noticed that? The world we live in is just a show. I hate going to touristy places when I go on vacation. I don't want to see how the touristy

people live. I want to see how the real people live. And so over the summer, we went to Colorado and we stood there and I looked at this rock. I'm like, what a beautiful rock. And it's like, that's not really a rock. It's a bunch of pieces of concrete that they piled up and they put some on the outside of it and then splattered paint all over it to make it look like a granite rock.

You see, that's not, that's not reality. But unfortunately, brothers and sisters, that is what most people live in. They put this great show on for everybody else around them. Everybody goes, oh, that looks great. And on the inside they're going, but that's not reality. That's not what it really is. Take me up on the mountain where I can see a real rock. That's what

I want to see. I want to see the real stuff. I don't want to see the painted stuff that everybody puts out there. But to walk in the light means to walk in the truth. It means to walk in the truth. Walk in honesty means to walk in reality. In other words, brothers and sisters, be who you really are and quit sugarcoating all of it and just live in reality. Be the same in

front of your Christian friends that you are in front of your non-Christian friends. Be the same all day, all week as you are on Sunday morning. Be the same when people are looking as you are when they're not looking. You see, that's walking in the light. It's interesting because he tells us another thing about walking in the light. Look at verse 10. He says, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

That verse always gives me a great deal of comfort because I picture somebody going, what exactly does God want here? It's time for me to learn a little bit, right? That word learn is kind of interesting. That word learn means to test or approve. To test or approve. To test or approve. To test or approve what is pleasing to the Lord. Let me read a couple of other definitions to you

of this. The word learn also means to recognize as genuine after examination. But let me put it even more clearly to you. And this was out of Believer's Bible Commentary. It says, the idea of testing and approving what is pleasing to the Lord is this. We put every thought, word, and action to the test and decide whether or not it's pleasing to the Lord. Brothers and sisters, that's what walking with Jesus is. It is learning what is pleasing to the

Lord. When you first got saved, God probably got rid of the big stuff, right? When you first started walking with Jesus, the stuff you thought was going to be the hardest to let go of was the easiest to let go of. You thought that that stuff would be the hardest. And now you're in the process of learning what is pleasing to God. Putting to the test and approving what is pleasing to the

Lord. Well, how do we do that? Well, with the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. You see, God starts getting a hold of other areas of our life. First of all, He probably got a hold of some of those dangerous habits that perhaps had to be gotten rid of and some of the immoral habits that everybody knew were wrong and you knew you needed to get rid of. But pretty soon, God starts

getting a hold of other things. Next thing, maybe He gets a hold of your mouth, right? And the way that you talk. Maybe for some of you, the last two studies that we did were a part of God getting a hold of your mouth because you realize that no unwholesome word should proceed out of your mouth and all the dirty jokes have to quit coming out of your mouth. And so now God's gotten a hold of that.

Well, you know what's going to happen next? He'll deal with your thought life. He'll deal with your entertainment life. And all of a sudden, all of those things start to add up and you go, oh, that's not pleasing to the Lord. So I should probably get rid of that because you tested it and approved whether or not that was pleasing to God based upon the work of the Holy Spirit in your

life and what the Word of God has to say. I love that it puts it that way. I love that Paul puts it that way because it reminds us that we are in a process. You're in the process of sanctification. You're in the process of becoming who God wants you to be. And God is so patient with us, right? As we as we learn more of what does and doesn't work, what is and is not approved by God, what will and

will not lead me closer in my relationship with Jesus Christ. He's always patient with those things. He's always patient with me. And he and he lovingly sometimes smacks me upside the head and says, that's a bad idea, right? You shouldn't do that. That won't help you in your relationship with me. But he still loves me. He still cares for me. And he's not going to throw me out just because I'm still in the process of

learning, right? So he says, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Well, now he tells us another thing that we need to pay attention to. As we walk as children of light, we are also to not participate, instead expose the darkness. Notice what it says in verse 11. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose. For it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things

become visible when they are exposed by the light for everything that becomes visible is light. The first thing he tells us is do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness. The word participate is also translated have no fellowship with. And the idea behind the word is this. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of

darkness. Become a partaker in the unfruitful deeds of darkness. Do not become a partaker in. Now I need us to pay attention to something. Becoming a partaker in carries on two different forms of ideas. First of all, we're not a partaker in that we don't actually commit the acts of darkness. We don't live in the darkness in that way. But you know, there's another way that we

can become a partaker in the darkness. We don't live in the darkness in that way. But you know, we don't live in the darkness without actually doing it. And it has to do with what we put our stamp of approval on. You know the things that we tend to put our stamp of approval on? They're usually the things that we don't say anything about. We hear the unrighteousness going on

around us. We hear the evil that's going on around us. We just keep our mouth shut. We'll talk about that in just a moment. But I think one of the biggest ways that we put our stamp of approval on the unfruitful deeds of darkness in this world is by the way we entertain ourselves. By the way we entertain ourselves. This is one that the Lord just kind of keeps working on me

about. Because the way that we entertain ourselves, you see, when we watch movies, when we listen to music, when we read books, we put our stamp of approval on that. Unless once we see something that's wrong, we immediately say, no, we really probably shouldn't be a part of that. I was listening to John Corson on this. And John Corson, the studies that I'm listening to are from about the mid-90s, at least I think. B.C. was still

president, so I'm pretty sure mid-90s are what we're looking at. And he was talking about the fact that there was a new television station that was about to come on their local area. And he said, I thought it was going to be awesome. I think it was Warner Brothers. And he said, I thought it was going to be great. I thought it was going to be like Daffy Duck and all the

different cartoons and stuff. He goes, but then I looked at the programming for Warner Brothers, and I was like, oh. There's no cartoons involved in this. And he said, I couldn't believe some of the shows that were going to be on there. And he said, but what really got me is to hear that people that I knew were believers in Jesus Christ were looking forward to it. He said, because what we don't realize is

that which we take in, we often put our stamp of approval on. We do it with the way that we entertain ourselves most. Because we may say, oh, that's so wrong. But what do we say when stuff like that comes on the TV shows that we watch? Well, it's just part of the story. Oh, you don't understand. That has to be. It's just that one scene. It's just that one thing. It's just that one time that

they use that word. And pretty soon we put our stamp of approval on it. Because we continue to watch it over and over again. We continue to listen to it over and over again. We continue to read it over and over again. He says, do not become partakers with them. And I want you to notice what he refers to these deeds as. He calls them unfruitful deeds of darkness. Unfruitful

deeds of darkness. They don't produce anything good in your life. As a matter of fact, they produce really bad things in your life. He refers to them as unfruitful deeds of darkness. He says, do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them. I'm going to spend just a little bit of time talking about this word expose. Because I think it's important for us to pay attention to.

First of all, let's say what this is not. This is not permission to put all of your conspiracy theories online. You don't understand. It's my job to expose the darkness. And I have seen all of the YouTube videos about it. And I need to share all of them that I possibly can. Because you don't know what the government's doing. And I need to expose the darkness. Dude, leave your conspiracy theories to

yourself, okay? None of the rest of us want to hear it. We all think you're crazy anyway. Okay? Just roll with that. It also does not mean that every time you see someone sin, you should make sure as many people know about it as possible. That's called gossip. No. I'm exposing deeds of darkness. No, you're not. You're gossiping. Stop. So if it doesn't mean those

two things, what does it mean to expose the deeds of darkness? Well, let's look at how else this word can be translated. This word can also be translated to reprove. I bet you've never used the word reprove before, right? So let's talk about what the word reprove means. The word reprove means to rebuke for the purpose of confession. Or conviction. Okay, now this feels more biblical. Now all of a sudden it feels like something that

we should be doing. It means to rebuke for the purpose of confession or conviction. So what do we do to expose the darkness? Well, we expose the darkness around us in two ways. The first way that we expose the darkness around us is, first of all, by the lives that we live. If you are now light and you walk in the light, then you will naturally begin to expose,

reprove, rebuke darkness that is around you. It would be like if we turned all of the lights off in this room and then blocked out those windows and it was completely black and all I had was a flashlight. I was the only one with a flashlight and I clicked my flashlight on. I would be shining my light, but it would still illuminate the darkness for everybody in here simply because I have a light.

And so, brothers and sisters, the life that you live is one of the greatest ways that you can expose, reprove, rebuke the darkness around you. That's why a lot of times people get mad at you when you live a life of godliness. And when you live a life of godliness, they say, why are you being so judgmental of me? And you're going, well, I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything. I'm

just living like I'm supposed to be living. I'm not trying to judge you for how you're living. I'm just living like the Bible tells me to. And they're like, whatever you holy. Right. And that's how they act. Why? Because you're exposing the darkness by the life that you live. So first of all, walk in the light and you'll naturally expose the darkness. But eventually there has to come a time where we do the second one. We do so by the stands

that we take. We eventually have to start making a stand for godliness. We have to start taking a stand for the things that are right and pointing out the things that are wrong to the world that is around us. And it's a scary thing to do, brothers and sisters. It's a really scary thing to take a stand. Those of you that have come here for any amount of time know that I make a lot of very

controversial statements because I just tell people what the Bible says. And that's a scary thing for me to do. I never wanted us to go online because of that. I've shared that with you before because I didn't want to deal with the criticism and I didn't want to have to deal with people being upset with me about things that I was saying just because they were true.

But God has been in the process of working on me about that, not only because we had to go online in 2020 because that's what everybody had to do, but also staying that way because I know that I have to continue to make those stands. You don't understand because by nature, I'm a non-confrontational person. By nature, I'm a sit back and just let things happen. I'm a peacemaker. I'm a you do you,

I'll do me. And as long as what you do doesn't affect me, I'm willing to let that go. My philosophy in life is I don't have drama in my life unless dramatic. I don't have drama in my life unless dramatic. People come into my life because I'm content just to let people do their own thing, right? But as a believer in Jesus Christ, I've had to learn. I can't just be content to let people do

their own thing because I can't be content to see people go to hell. I can't be content to see people live destructive lives. And so eventually I have to start making a stand. Eventually we all as a church have to start making a stand. As a matter of fact, I would tell you society is not getting worse. The church is getting weak. The reason why we're seeing some of these things take place in

society is because we're not getting worse. We're not getting better. We're not getting better. Society is not because society is getting worse because if you know anything about the culture that Paul was writing to, it was as bad, if not worse than the culture we're living in right now. The only thing that made the difference was that the church was a light. I remember when, uh, when

same-sex marriage became the law of the land back during the Obama administration, right? When that became the law of the land, all I could think was we only have ourselves to blame. I didn't blame the Obama administration. I didn't blame the senators. I didn't blame anybody else. I said we bear the blame for this because we stopped being the church. We stopped being the people that stood up and said this is right, this is wrong, and we won't

compromise. And we're not going to do this. Instead, sin crept into the church and we started calling sin okay so that we didn't lose members. And all of a sudden now you've got a country full of people who don't even know the difference between right and wrong. As a matter of fact, churches today are preaching that as long as you're a good person, you'll go to heaven. Jesus doesn't have anything

to do with it. How did that happen? We quit being the light. We quit taking a stand. And so brothers and sisters, we reprove and rebuke the darkness by taking a stand. But you see, when he says this, he's not just talking about us taking a stand with the world around us. He's talking about taking a stand with the sin within the church. See, that's the first place where reproof and

rebuke has to take place. It's when we see people who are not doing the right thing, we're not people living in sin. We have to take a stand and say, you can't do that because you can't be a witness to the world if your church looks just like it. He says, do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness. Instead, expose them. And then he reminds us of why he says,

for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. It's disgraceful even to speak of the things that are done by them in secret. I'm afraid we've lost some of that disgracefulness in the world that we live in today. I'm afraid that we've lost some of that shame that perhaps maybe should be there in some places today. And it's because those things

don't take place in secret anymore. They're taking place in the open for everybody to see. He says, don't participate. Instead, expose. For it's disgraceful to speak of those things that are done in secret. He goes on in verse 13 to say this, but all things become visible when they are exposed by the light. For everything that becomes visible is light. Again, I found the definition of this word

visible kind of interesting. The word visible means to be manifest for what it really is. To be manifest for what? It really is. In other words, the light shines on it and you can see everything that's going on. Let me give you a little illustration here. So my wife runs a little online clothing store on this website called Poshmark. And she since over the past year or so has moved everything to the

basement, praise Jesus. But for a long time, there was a clothing rack set up in our bedroom, kind of over by the window. And then on top of the clothing rack were shoes, right? And so one night I wake up and there's just enough light to see everything that's going on. And I'm like, the light that shines in like from the moon or something that I can see like a silhouette of

something. And it totally freaks me out because the way that the clothing rack was there and the way that the boots were there, it looked like someone was standing in our room. I'm not going to lie. Hunter boots are pretty tall. So they look like a big dude, right? And I was like, they kind of freaked me out when I woke up. And so we have a ceiling fan, kind of like the ones

that are in here and they have remotes that operate them. And so the remote was by. So I reached over and I pressed the button to turn the light on. I'm like, closing Hunter boots. Never mind. I can go back to sleep, right? Because the light, suppose the light made manifest what it really was. It illuminated it for me, right? That's what the light does. The light exposes, the light illuminates, the lights make, makes visible

everything. And when things become visible, we know what they really are. Why do we expose the darkness? Because we need people to see what it really is. You know, it's true of every person that walks in darkness, whether they be an unbeliever, who are darkness themselves, or a believer who has fallen back into the darkness, they all think the same thing. It's not that big of a deal.

See, sin never feels like a big deal in the midst of it because the light hasn't really exposed how bad it is. The light hasn't really shown how bad it is. But when the light gets shined on it, everybody goes, oh man, that was bad. See, that's what we're to do as believers in Jesus. With the world around us, with the brothers and sisters that are with us, is we allow

the light to make visible, to manifest what it really is, the things that are going on in the world, the things that are going on in lives. We don't participate, instead we expose. But I want to tell you something, because as we talk about this, I got to thinking as I was studying and reading and thinking about light and exposing and reproving and rebuking and all those kinds of things. I thought, I need to make sure we all understand we have to be the right kind of light when it comes to exposing things, when it comes to reproving things.

You see, I've learned that there's two different kinds of light. There's the light that illuminates and there's the light that blinds. Jesus told us that we are the light of the world. You know, the city set on a hill, all those kinds of things. And then he follows that up with, therefore, let your light so shine before men that they see your good works and

glorify your Father who is in heaven. In other words, use your light in the right way. Let it be a light that illuminates, not a light that blinds. Now, I learned that there were two different types of light by being a runner. Now, I used to always run at night, like after the sun went down, because two reasons. Number one, because I had kids and I had to put them to bed and I would have to wait until after they

were asleep in order to go run. Number two, I just enjoy running late at night because I kind of unwind from the day and let go. Let go of all the things of the day. I don't run at night anymore, but partly because of this story that I'm about to tell you, partly because I'm old and more fearful than I used to be. But I was running one night and as I was running, I experienced these two types

of light. You see, there's these streetlights, right? Streetlights are amazing because the streetlights illuminate. They're up high and they cast light down. And that light allows me to see where I'm going. It allows me to see any potential hazards that are in front of me. And it protects me. It illuminates me. It does all of those things. And it allows me to see things, right? That's a beautiful thing. But there's a second type of light

that you see when you're a runner. They're called headlights, right? Now, headlights don't illuminate, at least not for a runner. Headlights blind. And with the lights they have out today, like sidebar, what is up with LED lights right now on cars, right? Like are they x-ray machines? What's going on here? And then I'm driving down the road one day. It has nothing to do with my story right now. Anyway, driving down the road one day and

this person with their LED lights is out. I'm like, I can't even see anything. So I thought, surely their brights are on because I think they can see anything. And I'm like, they can actually see everybody in our car and all of the facial expressions in our car. So I flashed the brights at them, right? And then they flashed their brights at me. I just started seeing two days ago from that, right? Like I was like, ah! So those are your brights.

Anyway, so I'm running down Radio Lane, right? Just past C Street. That was part of my path. And so I'm running along. Now, if you know anything about Radio Lane, road does this, right? Which is what most roads do. But on the side, there's not like curbs or anything like that. There's a ditch. But right before we get to the road, there's a ditch. Right before you get to the ditch is the edge of the asphalt. I'm not talking the edge

of the asphalt. I'm talking the edge of the asphalt, right? It's like four to six inches. I mean, it's pretty intense. And so I'm running along and this car is coming straight at me. Now, if you drive a car at night, put your phone down and watch for people. Because I can't tell you how many times I have had to jump off of the road and into the grass because

somebody comes at me driving like this. And I'm going, legit, I have time to look? They don't. And I watch them stare at their phone that entire time. So this person is driving at me and I can't see anything. I'm like, oh, headlights. And they just keep getting closer and I keep edging towards the edge. And they keep edging towards the edge. And I'm going, this isn't good. And so I can't see the road in front of me. I can't see that there's a

ditch over here. And I can't see that there's an edge of the asphalt. You know why? Because their lights are blinding my eyes. And so I step off the edge of the asphalt and I rolled into someone's front yard. I think that person may go to church here. My bad. So I roll into the front yard. I bet the person driving never saw me. Nobody's ever said anything to me about it. Dusted myself off and kept running. And at that point in

time, I realized that there's two kinds of light. The light that illuminates and the light that blinds. The light that blinds is the one that only wants to point out people's sin with no heart of restoration, with no heart of comfort, with no heart to see somebody really come to know their Savior. Just simply to point out everything that they do wrong. So that you can embarrass them. That's the light that blinds. The light that illuminates

always comes at people with the desire to see them restored. With the desire to see their relationship with their Savior restored, their relationships with other people restored. That's the light that illuminates. Brothers and sisters, which kind of light will you be? Because we don't want to be that light that blinds people. We want to be the light that illuminates people. So that they can see the pitfall.

The pitfalls around them. So that they can see the issues around them. And so that they can get back on the road and run solid with their Savior. We are to walk in light. Walking in light means to walk in the fruit. Walking in light means to expose the darkness. Walking in light means being the right kind of light. Well, he closes up here in verse 14 with his

exhortation to awake from sleep. It says in verse 14, it says, awake sleeper and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. He gives us this exhortation to awake from sleep. He starts off with this quotation. He says, for this reason it says, some of your translations say, for this reason he says. Now it doesn't appear, at least from everything that I've studied and from everybody that I've read,

that he's actually quoting an Old Testament scripture. There's probably a good indication that this was some sort of a hymn that was sung by the early church. And he simply quoting the hymn, right? And so he tells them, awake sleeper. He tells them to awake from their sleep. Now, the first thing I want you to pay attention to is that this is a call to believers. It is a call to believers who are sleepwalking through life. See, there's

two different ways I think that this is a call to believers. Number one, it's a call to believers who are asleep because you are walking in darkness. Believers who are asleep because you are walking in darkness. Sleep is a fascinating thing, is it not? It's always been kind of a fascinating thing to me that you reach this state of like altered consciousness, like your heart rate lowers.

You have no idea what's going on around you, right? I'm a very heavy sleeper, so anything in the world can happen around me while I'm asleep. And it doesn't really matter because I have no idea what's going on. I have no idea what's happening. I always think like if somebody were to come in and rob my house in the middle of the night, I would be like, I'm going to

rob my house in the middle of the night. As long as they didn't come into my bedroom, I'd be like, eh, at least I got insurance, right? Because it wouldn't affect me. I'd have no idea what's going on. Sleep's kind of a fascinating thing. But the thing about sleep is you don't know what's happening around you. You're not aware of it because you're in this altered state of consciousness. I'm going to give all my secrets away today, okay?

I tend to be someone who talks in their sleep, right? And anybody that is around me would know the secrets that I keep because I'm talking in my sleep, right? That's a little one for all of you. Matter of fact, when I was in college, my roommates wouldn't have conversations with me. They would wake me up the next morning and they would say, bro, we were talking to you last night. I'm like, what? What were we talking

about? It didn't really make a whole lot of sense, but she definitely responded to all of our questions. I had a roommate that was going through a difficult breakup with a girl and he tried to wake me up in the middle of the night to talk to me about it. I sat up, listened to everything that he had to say, agreed with some things that he said and went back to sleep.

To this day, no remembrance of the conversation. He said, thanks for talking to me last night, buddy. I'm like, bro, what are you talking about, man? He goes, well, we talked about the breakup. I'm like, we did? Oh, yeah. I really didn't get all that off my chest. I was like, I'm here for you, right? I had no idea. Why? Because I was asleep. And it's one thing when I do that physically, it's a whole other thing when I do it spiritually.

And many of us don't know what we're doing because we're asleep spiritually. And because we're asleep, we're walking in darkness. And I need you to know something. It's time to wake up. It's time to wake up if the things of immorality are what are controlling your life. It's time to wake up if the things of dishonesty are what's controlling your life. It's time to wake up if there's no integrity

in your life. It's time to wake up if the Holy Spirit has been shaking you going, it's time to wake up because you're living like God does not want you to live. You're living like you're still in the darkness. You're living like darkness still encapsulates your life. Meanwhile, God is calling you to wake up. to light. Wake up. But there's a second way that we have a tendency to be asleep. I think this is

a call to believers who are asleep because they won't expose the darkness. You're asleep because you won't expose the darkness. You find yourself going, I don't want to know what's going on in the world. I don't care what's happening in the world. I just want to be able to live my life. Listen, the days are long past for us just to be able to peacefully live our lives and pretend

like nothing's happened because the battle is at our door and it's in our house. And it's time that we awake from sleep and start to expose the darkness. There's a scripture I'd like you to write down. You don't have to turn there, but you might write 1 John 1, 6 in the margin of your Bible. I'm going to read it to you. It says, if we say that we have fellowship with him and we walk

in darkness, we lie. And don't practice the truth. If we say that we have fellowship with him and we keep walking in darkness, we're just simply liars and we don't practice the truth. The great thing is he goes on from there to say, but if you walk in the light as he is in the light and the blood of Jesus Christ continually cleanses you from all sin. And once he say what happens if we awake, he says,

awake sleeper and rise from the dead. And what will happen? Christ will shine on you. He will give more light into your life. He will approve the things that are taking place in your life. Why? Because you're awake from sleep. I don't know what's going on in the lives of anybody in here this morning, but I do have a question for you. Have you been asleep? Have you been sleepwalking spiritually

through life? Are you asleep because you're walking in darkness or asleep because you just simply don't want to take the stand that's required to take? Today's the day to wake up. Today's the day to be ready. All right, it's communion Sunday, so I'm going to invite the kids on in. I think everybody's, there's a long trail of kids. I'm assuming they're all gathered. Come on in guys.

You might keep an eye out for your kids so that they know where to go. Because I can't remember all the names anymore. I think they're on the other side. I don't know this one's name. There you go. Come on in kids. Find your parents.

Maybe I think they're up here. Hold on. One more class coming. Come on down kids.

Okay. Is that our gang? All right. Okay. Perfect. All right. So this morning's communion Sunday. So I want to spend just a couple minutes talking about communion before we partake together. It was on the last night of the feast that Jesus stood up in front of his disciples at feast of Passover and he held the, what we now call communion elements. He held the bread and

he had the cup. And so he took the bread and he broke it and he said, this is my body, which is broken for you. Take and eat. And so as we look at the elements that we have, we'll have the bread in there and that's representative of the body of Christ, the body of Christ that was broken for us and the body of Christ that took the nails for us, the body of Christ that endured the stripes for us all for our salvation. And then he took the cup and he said, this is the cup of the new covenant in my

blood, which is shed for you. And so as we have the cup with these elements, the cup of juice, we're reminded, of the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for us. And we're told that every time we partake of this meal together, we declare the death of Jesus because we declare the fact that the one place of hope that we have for our sin, the one place of hope that we have to truly live in the light is the death of Jesus Christ. But we also declare the fact that the only way that we can be one with Christ and have unity with each other is through the blood of Jesus Christ. And so this

is such an important thing that we do because, it reminds us, it brings us to remembrance. It teaches us and declares to the world around us that the one hope that we have is the blood of Jesus Christ. That on that cross, all of our sin, all of our shame, all of the harmful thoughts, all of the everything that we can have, were all laid upon Jesus at the cross. So as we partake of this, we're told to do so in a worthy manner. And if

you've come here for a long time, you know my speech on this. First of all, to partake in a worthy manner means that you need to belong to Jesus. Otherwise, this won't mean anything to you. As a matter of fact, I might encourage you not to if you have never come to Jesus as your Lord and Savior, because this meal's not for you. But I do have a word that I would like to speak

if there's anybody here this morning that doesn't know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I said, if the Lord's been pulling at your heart, if you've been thinking, man, I walk in that darkness that you're talking about, that darkness encapsulates who I am, and I need that light in my life, then today's the day to do that. Don't put it off any longer, because as the Holy Spirit convicts, you need to respond. And it's as simple as confessing that you're a sinner and asking Jesus to be your Savior. And that one small act of faith is enough to bring Jesus into your

heart. To make you brand new again. So I would encourage you that if that's you this morning, if you've never made that decision this morning, that you make that decision as the worship team sings this last song. And then the other way that we partake in a worthy manner is that we understand that there are times where we have fallen asleep spiritually. That there are areas of our life

where sometimes we allow sin to creep in. And the best thing that we can do is ask God to search our heart. And confess those sins to him. So that our hearts can be clean before the Lord. Because the same blood of Jesus Christ that saves us is the blood of Jesus Christ that continues to cleanse us. And so I'm going to invite the ushers to come down and hand out the elements. And as you receive the

elements, if you're new this morning, it's two cups. The top cup has the juice, the bottom cup has the cracker. And so as you receive your elements, if you would please stand, and then we will all partake together.

There's some loathing down made us new hands with you Lost without hope, with no place to begin Love made a way to let mercy come in Death was arrested, but my life began Life was redeemed, but my life began Wish was redeemed, but my life began Wish was redeemed, but my life began Wish was redeemed, but my life began I don't know about y'all, but that got me a little geeked up. Would you pray with me? Father, I thank you for your body that was broken for us. Lord, the beatings that you endured, the nails that you endured, Lord, the crown of thorns.

Father, all so that we could be made free. Lord, I thank you for your blood that was shed for us. For the blood that poured down your face, the blood that poured from your side, the blood that was enough to cover all of our sin, the blood that was enough to give us brand new life. Lord, I thank you for the sacrifice of the cross, and Lord, I thank you for a family.

I thank you for a family that is united with one purpose, that is united under one headship, and that's Jesus Christ. Lord, a family that has one hope, and that's the cross. So Lord, I thank you, and I praise you, in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's partake.

Would you bow with me one last time? Lord, thank you. I thank you for our time in your word. I thank you for our time together as a family. And Lord, as we go out from here, may your Holy Spirit lead and guide us. And Lord, may your word continue to sink deeply into our hearts. We praise you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed. Have a great week.