[Video clip of “Cat Wake Up Call” - found on YouTube]
Unfortunately, too many of us are kind of like the man in that video clip. We need a wake-up call, but unfortunately we don’t pay attention to some of the more subtle ways that God tries to wake us up, so eventually he has to hit us over the head with a baseball bat. It seems that perhaps Paul’s readers had come to that place in their walk with God. Let’s continue our journey through the book of Ephesians this morning and read our passage out loud together.
And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; 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. For this reason it says, "Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you."
Ephesians 5:11-14 (NIV)
It is always essential to view any Bible passage in its proper context, but that is going to be particularly important this morning. If we don’t keep in mind that Paul is writing here to believers, it will be far too easy to dismiss these words as merely a warning to the world around us rather than a wake up call to those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ. And without the proper context, it would be very easy to make some very erroneous applications of what Paul writes here as well.
Since verse 14 provides an important framework for the rest of the passage, let’s begin there this morning:
For this reason it says, "Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you."
While a few commentators have taken this passage as a warning to unbelievers to wake up and arise from the dead, the majority of them, correctly I believe, view this as a wake up call to believers.
When Paul uses the phrase, “it says”, he is implying that this saying is something that his readers would be familiar with. We saw Paul use those same words in Ephesians 4:8 when he quoted a passage from the Old Testament that would have been familiar to his readers.
In this case, the evidence suggests that this quote was likely a fragment from an early Christian hymn. And, if that is the case, the composition of that hymn was greatly influenced by Scripture, in much the same way that much of the music we sing today is based on Scripture. In particular, there seem to be two passages from Isaiah that either had a direct bearing on the composition of that early hymn or which Paul had in mind as he wrote:
But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.
Isaiah 26:19 (NIV)
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.
Isaiah 60:1, 2 (NIV)
Both of those passages support the idea that Paul is writing here to believers, since they were addressed to God’s chosen people, and not to the surrounding nations.
Although many commentators believe that this hymn was connected with baptism, it seems more likely that it is associated with their conversion experience. By citing these words, Paul is reminding his readers of how they had been transformed from death and darkness into life by the transforming power of the light of the world, Jesus, who had shined His light upon them. This reminder of their conversion experience was to be a wake up call for Paul’s readers. By thinking back on their conversion experience, they are reminded that just as light and darkness are mutually exclusive, there is to be no middle ground or shade of gray for those who have the light of Christ in their lives. We would do well to heed that very same wake up call in our lives as well.
In just a moment, we’ll look at two important aspects of this wake up call. But before we do that, let’s look at two other New Testament passages that also command believers to wake up and see if they help shed some light on our Ephesians passage.
And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Romans 13:11, 12 (NIV)
Again, Paul is writing here to believers. Apparently the readers of that letter were also struggling with the temptation to return to their former way of life. So Paul warns them to wake up and do two things:
• Lay aside the darkness
• Put on the light
Let’s look at one more similar passage:
To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent...
Revelation 3:1-3 (NIV)
It’s really interesting to me that the words of Jesus to the church at Sardis contain an exhortation that is so similar to what Paul is writing to the believers at Ephesus. He warns the Christ followers in Sardis to wake up and he gives them three commands: remember, obey and repent. I think that two of those three – remember and repent – mirror very closely the wake up call that Paul is giving to his readers in his letter to the Ephesians and to us as well. In fact both of these passages along with our passage in Ephesians together provide us with this common wake up call.
A WAKE UP CALL TO FOLLOWERS OF JESUS:
As we have found quite often in our journey through Ephesians, there is both a positive and a negative aspect to this wake up call. Let’s begin with the positive part of the wake up call, which we find in verse 13:
1. Remember the light:
But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.
As we’ve already seen, when Paul quoted the hymn in verse 14, his purpose was to get his readers to think back to their conversion experience and to remember the light that had shined into the darkness of their lives. In doing so, he is also encouraging them to reflect on the two functions of light that he has already written about in this section of his letter:
• It exposes
The first thing that light does is that it exposes. In particular, Paul is writing about how light exposes the fruitless deeds of darkness.
As I shared with the men on Tuesday morning, when I read this verse, the first picture that popped into my mind was how the all the crime scene investigators on all the CSI shows seem to always be looking for evidence in a dark room using their flashlights. The first question I always want to ask is, “Why don’t they just turn the lights on?” I have a feeling that the creators of the show are just taking some artistic liberty here, but perhaps the focused light in the midst of darkness is helpful in locating evidence. But in either case, the point is that it takes light to expose the evidence of the deeds of darkness.
The same thing is true in a spiritual sense as well as Jesus spoke about in his conversation with Nicodemus:
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
John 3:20 (NIV)
Jesus uses the very same word for “expose” that Paul uses here in Ephesians. It is a word that means not only to bring something to light, but also to bring conviction. When light is shined in the darkness, it not only exposes the fruitless deeds of darkness, but it also brings conviction about the sinfulness of those deeds.
So part of our wake up call is to remember how God brought light into our lives while we were still darkness and how that light exposed the darkness of our lives and convicted us of our need to do something about that darkness.
Although it may not be quite as obvious in this passage, there is one more aspect of light that we need to remember.
• It transforms
The Phillips translation of verse 13, which very accurately conveys the meaning of Paul’s writing, is very helpful in seeing how Paul refers to this second function of light.
For light is capable of "showing up" everything for what it really is. It is even possible (after all, it happened to you!) for light to turn the thing it shines upon into light also.
Ephesians 5:13 (Phillips)
According to Paul, not only does light expose the deeds of darkness, the light also has the power to transform the darkness into light. That is exactly what had already happened to all of Paul’s readers and it is what has occurred in all of our lives as well if we are followers of Jesus Christ.
As we saw also last week, when God shines His light into our lives and reveals the darkness and brings conviction and we respond to that light, we don’t just become enlightened, we actually become light. Paul confirms that principle again here when he writes that “everything that becomes visible is light.”
As we might expect, Paul describes this process in a similar manner in some of his other letters:
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
Colossians 1:13 (NIV)
For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:6 (NIV)
So Paul is encouraging his readers first of all to remember the light. He is urging them to think back to the time when God brought light into the darkness of their lives and allowed them to see the nature of their dark deeds. And then God did something even more miraculous. His light actually transformed their lives so that they became light themselves.
But there is also a negative aspect of this wake up call.
2. Repent of the darkness
And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.
With these words, Paul essentially reminds us of principles that he has already written about, but the principles are so important that it certainly won’t hurt to go back and revisit them once again. There are two ways that we need to repent, to turn away from, the darkness:
• In deeds
Last week, we saw in verse 7 that Paul commanded his readers not to be joint participants with those whose lifestyles were characterized by immorality, impurity and covetousness. He reinforces that same principle here by using a different word. The word translated “participate” in verse 11 is an intensified form of the verb that we usually translate “fellowship.” So the sense here is that we are not to have intimate fellowship with the works of darkness.
Again, as we saw clearly last week, Paul is not encouraging his readers to isolate themselves from unbelievers. But he is making clear that we are not to be involved with their unfruitful deeds of darkness. In fact, Paul seems to be making a very clear distinction between the people who commit these acts and the deeds themselves. Or as we might commonly say today, he is urging us to “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”
Paul continues to make the point that it is not possible to be a follower of Jesus and still maintain the same immoral lifestyle that characterized our lives when we were still darkness. John describes the same principle in a slightly different manner:
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
1 John 1:5-7 (NIV)
If I am truly a follower of Jesus Christ and He is the Lord of my life, then my deeds should be consistent with His light that has transformed me into light.
But I must also repent of the darkness...
• In words
Paul writes that it is disgraceful to even speak about these fruitless deeds of darkness that unbelievers practice in secret. It’s not enough to just avoid the deeds themselves. As followers of Jesus, we’re not even to allow them to be the subject of our conversation. Paul seems to be following up on what he wrote in verse 4 when he warned about obscenity, foolish talk and coarse joking.
In many ways, I think this is actually a much harder principle for most Christians to apply than avoiding the deeds themselves. It is so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it’s OK to share the sordid details of someone’s immorality by proclaiming that we’re doing it with the purpose of trying to prevent someone else from falling into the same sin. But what Paul does here is to convey the seriousness of sexual sins without describing the details of the depravity. We would do well to follow his example.
In the era of ubiquitous email, this principle has some very practical ramifications for all of us. Most of us are probably bombarded with forwarded emails that contain sexual innuendo and references to sexual immorality that are very clearly inappropriate for those of us who live in the light. And what amazes me is how many of those emails I receive from people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. But what is even more troublesome to me is how many of those that I have chosen to pass on to others. But this week God has really shined the light into this area of my life. He’s exposed the darkness and brought conviction and I’ve made a commitment to no longer be a part of the chain that perpetuates that kind of immorality. And if I receive those emails from those who profess to be believers, they will get a reply from me that merely quotes Ephesians 5:3, 4 and 12.
Before we wrap up this passage, let me share...
A WORD OF CAUTION:
• This passage does not give me the right to be a “Sin-buster” with unbelievers.
Unfortunately, many well-meaning Christians have taken verse 11 out of context and used it to justify trying to be “sin-busters” with unbelievers. They honestly believe that this verse gives them not only the right, but the obligation to point out and expose sin in the lives of unbelievers. But there are several problems with using this verse in that manner:
o Paul is writing here to Christians in the context of the body of Christ
As we already saw earlier in chapter 4, and as we see throughout the rest of the New Testament, including the words of Jesus Himself, we are to expose and deal with sin that occurs within the body of Christ, the church. But this is always to be done for the purpose of restoration, not for retribution or to make us feel better because we don’t engage in that particular sin.
But as we talked about in more detail last week, followers of Christ are never commanded to be “sin-busters” with those outside the body.
o It is God’s responsibility to reveal sin in the lives of unbelievers
When we try to be “sin-busters”, we are actually putting ourselves in the place of God. The Bible is clear that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to convict the unbelieving world of their sin. However, God does often choose to use his children in that process. When our lives produce the fruit of the light – goodness, righteousness and truth – God can often use our lives to help dispel the darkness in the lives of others. But that is as far as our responsibility goes in this area.
There are far too may people like Mildred in our bodies. Mildred, the church gossiper and self-appointed monitor of the church’s morals, kept sticking her nose in to other people’s business. Several members did not approve of her extra curricular activities but feared her enough to maintain their silence. She made a mistake, however, when she accused George, a new member, of being an alcoholic after she saw his old pickup parked in front of the town’s only bar one afternoon. She emphatically told George (and several others) that everyone seeing it there would know what he was doing.
George, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just turned and walked away. He didn’t explain, defend, or deny... He said nothing. Later that evening, George quietly parked his pickup in front of Mildred’s house... Walked home... And left it there all night.
You gotta love George.
When I came into this auditorium this morning, it was completely dark in here. But I didn’t get rid of the darkness by trying to switch it off. Instead, I turned on the light and the darkness disappeared. Darkness is not the problem. It has never been the problem. As we discussed last week darkness is merely the absence of light. So the problem is not darkness. It is the lack of light from those who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. Too many Christians are sound asleep.
This passage is indeed a much needed wake up call to the church. God is saying to His children, “Wake up! There is death and darkness all around you and you are getting enveloped by the darkness. Remember the light that I brought into your life that exposed your sin and transformed you from darkness to light. Repent of any fruitless deeds of darkness and don’t even any talk about them. Live as children of light so that others might see that light and give glory to your Father in heaven. Wake up!”
