Light has amazing qualities. It attracts and transforms. Turn on a light in the darkness outside and watch what happens. Every flying critter within range will flock to it. Turn out all the lights at night in your safe, comfortable house and what happens? It becomes a treacherous obstacle course that you could injure or kill yourself in. Turn the lights back on and it’s quite inviting. Light can actually save lives on the road:
“A new study from Cochrane Review finds that reducing traffic crashes is as simple as turning on the lights. Street lighting helps reduce traffic deaths and injuries due to crashes. ‘Darkness is a risk factor – street lighting is therefore a valuable tool,’ said the lead researcher on the project.”
Melissa Haveman at sermonnews.com
Light leads to better health. Full sunlight at midday produces vitamin D which some scientists believe leads to better immunity and protection from heart disease. Studies have shown that opening the blinds during the day helps alleviate the symptoms of dementia in early stage Alzheimer’s patients. It also keeps depression at bay in folks afflicted with bi-polar disorder. Light is way more valuable than simply helping us to see a little better.
One of the big themes of the Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is the contrast between dark and light. He’s quite radical in his understanding of the terms. He says that people who are separate from Christ are not simply living in darkness, they are darkness. Christians, on the other hand, do not merely live in God’s light, they are light. When Christians illuminate darkness it doesn’t just make things visible for a while, the light transforms the darkness. The light alters darkness and makes it light too.
If you believe that your duty as a Christian is to have faith, go to church, and hang out in the light, end of story, you’re going to be challenged by what we study this morning. You’ll see that God calls us to take our light into darkness. We are to confront and convince the people of darkness so that they will be exposed to light and then transformed into light.
Christians haven’t been doing too good a job of this of late. Darkness seems to be overtaking our land. That’s why this message is quite timely.
Insights to Illuminate Your World
1. Never be defined by darkness
Among the reasons Laura and I decided to homeschool our kids was our lack of confidence in some of the public school teachers we knew. One of Drake’s elementary school teachers, who will go unnamed, was in the habit of sending notes home about student’s progress or just to convey necessary information to parents. Great idea, but we were shocked at her inability to write proper English. Her letters usually contained obvious spelling and grammatical errors. Yes, I realize that people make mistakes but this was a college educated, NC certified teacher who was instructing my kid in areas where she obviously needed help. You shouldn’t attempt to shed light on areas where you’re in the dark.
The same is true with Christians. One of the reasons darkness is winning in our nation is that too many believers are in darkness themselves. If they do bother to bring others to the light of Christ, their witness is often undermined by their dark lifestyle. That’s why Paul gives this crucial insight:
Therefore do not be partners with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Ephesians 5:7-8a
It’s like Jesus said, before you can remove the speck from another person’s eye you must remove the log from your own. If you attempt to shine your light, yet you’re living in darkness the people of darkness won’t take you seriously. If the only thing different about you is your belief system, but you’re like everyone else in every other way, they’ll see that your so-called faith really makes no practical difference in how you live. To them such an approach says your belief system is the only thing separating the two of you and we all know that it’s easy to pick and choose your belief system on personal preference and style.
Grapple with your personal dark places before attempting to shine your light. How do you do that? Prayerfully ask God to show you what they are. Spend time in His word and pay attention to the prohibitions, the “thou-shalt-nots.” Invite fellow Christians to be honest with you about your dark places. You cannot be perfect, but you can fight the personal sins that might trip you up. Clean up the dark places. Never let them define you.
2. Live with Christ while studying the world
You must go further than squashing personal dark places. To illuminate your world you must actively live out your faith which is far more than a list of dos and don’ts. Here’s Paul’s counsel on the matter:
Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. Ephesians 5:8b-12
Paul is vague in describing what it means to live as children of light. The reason for this is that he gives details throughout the rest of the letter to the Ephesians. Any place you find a practical command he’s telling you how to live as a child of light.
The first step in living as a child of light is to live with Christ. You can see this one coming a mile away because I say it regularly: consistent commitment to studying God’s word is one of the ways to live with Christ. It’s the primary way we are enabled to know the mind of the Lord. It spells out what goodness, righteousness, and truth look like. Read it daily. Study it with commentaries and in classes with other Christians as much as possible. Read topical books related to Bible themes. Meditate on it. Memorize it. Live it.
Living with Christ also means fellowship with Him. You must spend time seeking His face in prayer and in worship. Go beyond Sunday morning. How well would you know another person if you only met with them an hour once a week? Another path to fellowship with Christ is fellowship with other Christians. If He’s in our midst when two or three are gathered together in His name, we can expect to hear from him in community.
A couple of weeks ago I had coffee with two of my buddies who are both Christians. From our conversation (which contained no Bible study or sermon) God enlightened me about the role of nature in salvation. We were talking about gardening and spirituality. I discovered that our detachment from the land is keeping people from the general revelation of God. I was also convicted that from here on out I need to offer my Bible teaching and preaching for free.
When we live with Christ we become like Christ. His light shines in us ever more brightly. One of my favorite verses to this effect is Acts 4:13. Peter and John were nobodies in Jerusalem. They were plain old fishermen. But spending time with Jesus made a tangible difference to onlookers:
When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Acts 4:13
While you live with Christ, study the world. This is not a call to a monastery where you pretend the world does not exist. If you’re going to bring light to the world you’ve got to understand it. You must become a student of the culture. At the very least, read the newspaper. Understand what is going on in the world and constantly ask yourself, “What does the Bible say about this subject?” Does it have anything to say about nationwide issues such as national debt, illegal immigration, global warming, government healthcare and welfare programs? Does God’s word speak to local issues like annexation, homelessness, poverty, smoking bans in restaurants? I submit to you that at a minimum you can find a biblical principle to inform any issue. Sometimes you have to do your homework and examine how other grapple with the subjects, but there’s no excuse for ignorance.
Let me give you an example. What does the Bible say about the plight of the poor? Christians who have not read it or only give it superficial consideration simply conclude that the solution is people being more generous. Generosity is a good thing, but will it solve poverty? No. Who does the Bible say we’re supposed to give to? Widows, orphans, people in immediate need such as our neighbors. We are to be personally involved with needy people. Should we give money to those who can work, but don’t? Not according to scripture. This calls our welfare state into question. In the Bible charity is need based and primarily local. In the Old Testament the solution to poverty was to allow poor people to work and glean produce from the edges of the field. There were no handouts to capable people. Bankruptcy was not an option. You became a slave and worked for a maximum of seven years to pay what you owed. It was a fantastic solution because the slave gained new skills, a new work ethic, and the faith of the family they served. Government checks are not biblical and they do not work. We’ve created a system where there’s more incentive to be unemployed than to go out and search for a job. This arose from good intentions apart from a biblical worldview.
It happens all the time nowadays. Christians have become woefully ignorant. By and large they do not study the Bible or the culture. They sit and wait to be raptured out of here while darkness overtakes the land. Author Mark Noll called this the scandal of the evangelical mind. The light has disengaged from the darkness and the world has become increasingly dim. Live with Christ while studying the world. Ignorance is a problem that we can overcome. So too is the opposite extreme in illuminating our world.
Don’t be defined by darkness. Live with Christ while studying the world. If you’ll do that you can successfully carry the light of God into darkness. You’ll be ready to expose the darkness and transform it.
Don’t misunderstand what I’m telling you to do. This is not about getting in people’s faces and smacking them down with air tight arguments. You could do more damage than good with the wrong approach.
“A Fardal, Norway, man said his attempt to rid his garage of wasps ended with the structure burning to the ground with his car inside. The elderly man said he poured lighter fluid on a rag and lit it in an attempt to smoke the wasps out of their nest, but the flames spread to the woodpile that held the nest and ignited a blaze that took down the entire garage, Aftenposten reported Thursday. ‘Maybe using lighter fluid wasn’t such a good idea, but it was an accident all the same and the wasps are gone,’ the man said.”
Matt Neace at sermonnews.com
Christians are a lot like that man. We attempt to be light, but end up burning things down. We’ve got the best argument on the planet. We can trounce he enemies of the cross with the truth, but in the end we win the argument and lose the person. We must exercise caution as we illuminate our world.
3. Let your conversations and lifestyle call people into the light
Paul gets personal in his conclusion to this section:
But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:13-14
The quotation in verse 14 is odd. First, the reference can be found nowhere in the Bible. Whatever source he’s using it’s not biblical. Second, the quote doesn’t seem to fit with the flow of his argument.
Knowing the probable origin brings it all together. It’s highly likely that Paul is quoting a piece of early church liturgy. Scholars speculate that “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” was used in Christian baptism. Church members spoke or sang it as the newly baptized Christian arose out of the water. If this is the case, all of the Christians in Ephesus would have recognized it and would have immediately remembered their own baptism. They would have reflected on the event and all the people who influenced them, all the people God used to bring them to faith and a public profession of Jesus Christ. They trusted Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for their forgiveness of sins. They had assurance of resurrection from the dead and eternal life in the kingdom of God because of faithful witnesses. Light came to them in darkness. Paul’s quote would have motivated them to go after friends, family and acquaintances to expose the darkness to light.
Paul does not advocate a nifty sermon series or slick church programming or an evangelistic movement to bring people to the cross of Jesus Christ. It’s not about setting up a soapbox and letting the sinners have it. Paul’s not advocating that we browbeat people into the kingdom with moralism. He simply wants us to go into the darkness and leave our light on. It is not grand plans by churches or denominations that expose darkness to light. It’s ordinary conversations. When you talk with people, don’t hide the light. Let it shine. Naturally talk about Jesus and the difference He’s made in your life.
The approach matters. Some Christians have these conversations and manage to turn people off. This happens most often when they see the person they’re witnessing to as a project and not a person to be loved. We must care deeply for those we’re exposing to the light or they’ll shut it out. If that person is just another notch on your evangelism gun it’ll come off as canned and insincere, like a Jehovah’s Witness at your door with all of his programmed answers. Love must be what motivates our conversations or we’re going to be more committed to winning the argument than the person.
And, of course, we have to live the life if we’re to be credible witnesses. As someone once said, “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, speak.” Speaking is vital, but lifestyle is just as important.
I’m committed to moving people to my point of view, spiritually, politically, economically. I used to think that the main way to do this was to present a well crafted argument. But I’ve realize that people committed to a perspective do not give it up even if you overwhelm them with logic and facts. Several weeks ago I started listening to “The Survival Podcast.” It’s one man’s point of view about preparing for the potential collapse of our way of life. The speaker gives practical advice about how to be more self-sufficient and how to prepare for various crises. What I love about him is that he doesn’t try to cram his ideas down people’s throats. He doesn’t try to scare people into following his pattern of life. His philosophy is that people will be convinced if he and others simply live out what they believe. In other words, the most convincing evidence is a life well-lived. Let your conversations and your lifestyle call people into the light.
Go and illuminate your world. You are children of light. You reflect the God who dwell in unapproachable light. Do your homework. Deal with your personal dark place rather than be defined by them. Live with Christ while studying the world. If you’ll do these thing your light will naturally shine as you engage the darkness with your conversation and lifestyle. As you go remember this. You are not responsible for the results. God is. Just go out there and shine. Your light has the power, through Jesus Christ, to transform.
