Let The Son Shine In!!! Series

Topic: Let the Son Shine in !!

Scripture: Ephesians 5:8

Even if the temperatures don’t always reflect it, the position of the sun proves it. Spring is on its way! Yes, there may be lots of snow on the ground and the sidewalks covered with ice, but the sun keeps climbing higher and staying longer in the sky – a sure sign of spring’s approach. I’m thankful for the sunlight because it puts a spring in my dreary winter steps. Truth is, the longer I spend in the sunshine, the more cheery my outlook on life.

Even if the sun should disappear behind thick clouds so that we don’t see it for a while, the Apostle Paul tells us about another kind of Son light that shines on us and through us. That light is from God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Let’s see what difference that light makes in our lives and in the lives of others.

Exposition

Ephesus was a major, metropolitan area and trade center. As we have been studying the book of Acts in Bible Study, we learned that Paul spent a long time there. Because of his length of the stay there, many people had changed from their ways of darkness to follow in the way and light of the Lord. Because of the length of time that Paul stayed in Ephesus, we are told that a whole region heard about the message of the Savior. In the first chapters of Ephesians Paul discusses the fact that they were once children of darkness. But not all those dark things have changed.

Today’s text began by saying: 8For you were once darkness. They had lived in a city that was very dark with sin. Ephesus was a big sprawling metropolitan trade center where the people indulged themselves in every kind of sin imaginable. They gave themselves over to fulfill their fleshly desires and sexual immorality, because that was the way person lived. Now because the light of the glory of God had come to these people, their lives were changed. He says: 8For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. In other words, they had now seen the light. These believers knew the difference between what was wrong and dark and what was light and good.

Exegesis

Winter is long enough in northern climes the way it is that I can’t imagine living above the Arctic Circle and enjoying it – at least not during winter when the sun doesn’t shine at all. I suppose what makes winter-life bearable above the Arctic Circle is artificial light. Without streetlamps or indoor lighting, people in Arctic communities would have a hard time getting anything done during winter months.

It’s not a lot of fun being in the dark is it? That’s why when you come home late at night you first switch on the lights. If you don’t, you’ll run into the coffee table, or you’ll trip over toys that never got put away. That’s what the sin we inherited from our parents does to us. Sin makes us stumble through life. It blinds us so that we trip over God’s commandments. Inherited sin causes us to blindly lash out at one another, to be jealous and suspicious instead of loving and honouring. To make matters worse, we excuse our sin. We say that the person we yelled at had it coming. Such excuses only plunge us further into darkness as it causes cataracts of denial to film over our conscience.

But Paul tells us in our text this morning that we weren’t just in the dark; he says that we were darkness. In other words, we brought darkness to others through our sinful ignorance. Like the surgeon or dentist operating in the dark who botched the job because he can’t see, our sinful ignorance of God’s Word harmed family members and friends through the bad spiritual advice we gave them. For example we may have told them at one time that it was O.K. to be angry at someone who hurt them, or that overdrinking was an acceptable way to blow off steam. Such advice, however, didn't bring them closer to God, it sent them farther away from him.

No, it’s no good being in the dark for those who stay in the dark in this life will have to live in the darkness of hell forever in the next. But the Apostle Paul gives us hope. He says in our text that we are no longer in the dark because the Son, God’s Son, shines on us. How does Jesus shine on us? He does so through God’s Word. God’s Word shows us what is acceptable and unacceptable in God’s eyes. More importantly it shows us what Jesus has done to secure forgiveness for us. Like the innocent bystander who gets arrested and charged for the bank robbery, Jesus was charged by his heavenly Father for our sins. He paid for those sins willingly and completely through his death on the cross. Jesus’ blood does more than forgive us; it washes away the blindness sin causes so that now we can properly see what God’s will is for our lives.