The older we get, the more we seem to reminisce about the “good old days.” The Beatles had a song called “Yesterday” where they sang of bygone days where all their troubles seemed so far away yet, the reality is, there is usually sometime in everyone’s past that was not so good, something they have worked to escape from. Unless we deal with the past, our past will come back and revisit us.
Take for instance the businessman who sent an order into his supplier for a large restock in his store. He was heavily indebted to the supplier already.
Noticing the previous bill had not been settled, the collection manager left a voice mail to the businessman stating, “We cannot ship your new order until you pay for the last one.”
The next day the collection manager received a collect phone call from the businessman who said, “Please cancel our order. We can’t wait that long for the supplies.”
Perhaps not a good thing to hear at Christmas when many people purchase the things they cannot afford to give to people who have everything. I won’t ask how many of you might still be paying for a past Christmas still, such as Christmas of 1999.
Our past, we like to dress it up and make it sound better than it is. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:8-14 takes the blinders off of believers who might want to think their past was something to brag about, exposing the reality of who they were in the past when they did not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In these 7 verses there are 3 things I want to highlight about a believers past, providing us with a contrast so we can have a greater appreciation about our present and our future. The first thing Paul states concerning the believers past is that…
I. It was Lived in darkness.
Ephesians 5:8 “ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.”
1 John 1:5-7 expands on the contrast of light and darkness saying, “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. 7 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.”
For those who have asked Christ to be Lord and Savior of their lives, there was a time prior to your confession, prior to your knowledge and acceptance of the Light of Christ, when you walks in darkness, you walks without Christ. Sinners, people who violate the truth of God, love to walk in this realm, they love the darkness because they think they can get away with anything because their sin will be hidden by the dark. We know this is not true.
Darkness is the realm of Satan, the evil one, the deceiver. In this world, there are two masters, God and Satan. Satan has been overthrown and one day will be cast into the lake of fire for all eternity. Those who do not follow after Christ, are followers of the devil, Satan, the ruler of the darkness. There comes a pivotal time in every persons life where they are faced with the choice, darkness or Light. Those who embrace the Light embrace Christ who offers eternal life in heaven, and those who choose to embrace the darkness, continuing in their sin, embrace Satan, the ruler of the darkness and will, like him, be cast eternally in the fires of hell. As hard as it is for us to imagine, when we walk down the streets of our cities, when we mingle with people in the workplace, when we sit down at family gatherings, there are people in our midst who are children of the darkness, who will spend their eternity separated from the Light of Christ unless they make a decision to change their present to avoid their past.
If you want to grow in your maturity as a believer, you must come out of the darkness and into the light. Consider fruit, if you were to take a fruit tree, cover it so no light could get in, and then at the end of the growing season, pull the tarp off the tree, you would find no growth taking place because the tree needs the illumination of the light to grow. So, too, is the life of the believer. We need the light illumination of Christ, empowering us through the Holy Spirit, to grow in our faith and love. Remember Paul states, you once lived in darkness. Now, as a believer in Christ, you are a child of the Light. Secondly, as I said of the fruit tree, as non-believer you…
2. Lived a Fruit-less life.
Ephesians 5:9-12 “ (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.”
The acts of darkness are so shameful, Paul points out we should not even mention them. The news media thrives on the details of darkness, giving out glaring details. Mainline news organizations have become more like the tabloid rags in these last days than they have been purveyors of the news. Maybe my stomach is becoming more sensitive, shows like CSI seem to have become more graphic with the details as well. Darkness thrives on darkness and all the details of it. As non-believers, we lived in that arena and our lives displayed no fruit because we did what seemed natural to us at the time.
Have you noticed after you became a believer instead of relishing in the misery of others you became compassionate to their plight? When unrighteousness abounds, you have a holy anger rise up that wants to fight against the injustice of this world. What a difference light and darkness make.
Romans 12:1, 2 informs us, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
What is the greatest fruit we can produce? More fruit, continual fruit, fruit that keeps on coming back again and again, fruit that produces seeds that insure its continuity. The fulfillment of the Great Commission, to go and spread the good news to all the world, so they can have the opportunity we have, to be fruitful with life.
Paul warns, have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness. You have been delivered from the dark and to go back will only consume you. Instead, he says, shine the light on the darkness so that it will be exposed. If you see wrong, call it out, don’t allow it to exist unchecked. Expose it for what it is because if you don’t, it will only continue to take up more and more, consuming without giving back. That is what sin does, it is like a parasite, feeding off the living until it has killed off the host.
If we allow sin to go unchecked, we could find ourselves echoing the words of that German pastor Rev. Martin Niemoller said in 1945, “First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews,and I didn’t speak up,because I wasn’t a Jew.Then they came for the Catholics,and I didn’t speak up,because I was a Protestant.Then they came for me,and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me”
When we remain silent on sin as believers, the consequences are far reaching, generation after generation paying for our silence.
Finally Paul says of the life we formerly lived as unbelievers, it was…
3. Lived Shamefully.
Ephesians 5:13-14 “But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14 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.”
As I had said earlier, light exposes darkness and when things are brought into the light, they become exposed because light has an illuminating quality.
Paul paraphrases Isaiah 60:1 which reads, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.”
This is an invitation for non-believers to come to Christ. The Messiah, Jesus Christ, the long awaited One, has come and it is time to rise up from your sleep in sin and darkness and embrace the Light.
Proverbs 4:18 says, “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.”
William Cowper penned:
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm, Deep in unfathomable mines, of never failing skill, He treasures up his bright designs, and works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds ye so much dread, are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head.”
People, remember from where you have come, and go there no more for the Light of Christ is shining out of the darkness and the storm clouds are parting and the Lord is ever present in all our needs.
altar
