Transcript

Leonard Sweet tells the following. Tom Wiles once served a stint as university chaplain at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. He picked me up at the airport one time in his new Ford pickup and whisked me away to keynote a conference at the university.

Since I was still mourning the trade-in of my Dodge truck, we immediately bonded, sharing truck stories and laughing at the bumper-sticker truism: “Nothing is more beautiful than a man and his truck.”

As I climbed into his new Ranger for the ride back to the airport a day later, I noticed two big scrapes by the passenger door. “What happened here?” I asked.

“My neighbor’s basketball post fell and left those dents and white scars,” Tom replied with a downcast voice. “You’re kidding! How awful,” I commiserated. “This truck is so new I can smell it.”

Tom said, “What’s even worse is my neighbor doesn’t feel responsible for the damage.”

Rising to my newfound friend’s defense, I said, “Did you contact your insurance company? How are you going to get him to pay for it?”

“This has been a real spiritual journey for me,” Tom replied.

“After a lot of soul-searching and discussions with my wife about hiring an attorney, it came down to this: I can either be in the right, or I can be in a relationship with my neighbor to reach him for Christ.

“Since my neighbor will probably be with me longer than this truck, I decided that I’d rather be in a relationship than be right. Besides, trucks are meant to be banged up, so I got mine initiated into the real world a bit earlier than I expected.”

To “walk as children of light” is to live with an awareness of our actions before unbelievers and the world. God would have Christ and His light shine through us, that we might illuminate and show the way to Him through His saving gospel of grace.

Ephesians 5:8 reads, “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.”

In the book of Ephesians, Paul makes several contrasts. In Ephesians 2, there was a contrast between death and life. He talks about what we once were and what we are now in Christ. In Ephesians 2:5, Paul wrote, “Even when we were DEAD in sins, hath QUICKENED us [made us ALIVE] together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;).”

Also, in chapter 2, Paul wrote that the Gentiles were once far off from God, but now, in God’s new program of grace and by Christ’s shed blood, they’ve been brought near to God.

Ephesians 2:13 reads, “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were FAR OFF are MADE NIGH [BROUGHT NEAR] by the blood of Christ.”

Then in chapter 4, Paul gave another contrast between the old and the new, the old man and the new man. Ephesians 4:22,24 reads, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the OLD MAN…And that ye put on the NEW MAN…”

So you find these stark contrasts of life and death, near and far, old and new, and then as you come to chapter 5, we find another contrast: light and darkness.

Paul wrote “For ye,” referring to you Gentile believers in Ephesus, who are members of the Church, the Body of Christ. And thus, being true of all members of the Church, Paul wrote, you “were sometimes [once, formerly] darkness.”

Prior to trusting Christ as Savior and being outside of Christ, Paul says we “were…darkness” or spiritual darkness. Notice that it doesn’t say we were IN darkness, or just living and abiding in it, but that we were darkness itself. We partook of the very nature of darkness, fully identified with the darkness of sin and ignorance.

Darkness describes the character of the unsaved’s life. The unbelieving are in darkness, ignorant of Divine things, void of the true knowledge of God and of Christ. They are lost and wandering aimlessly in the darkness of error, confusion, depravity, sin, and evil.

Being in their sins, an unbeliever is spiritually dead, or separated from the life of God.

Being darkness also points to that separation, because darkness, the absence of light, is due to the unbeliever’s spiritual separation from God, Who is the light.

Satan’s kingdom is a kingdom of darkness. And unbelievers are in bondage within that kingdom, enslaved to the prince of darkness.

They are of their father the devil, and the lusts of their father they will do, John 8:44 says. They are ruled and led by the power of darkness, and they represent and reveal that dominion of darkness in their own heart and by their actions.

Tragically, sinners love the darkness. As our Lord said in John 3:19-20: “… and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.”

Unbelievers love darkness because they love their sin and evil deeds, and they don’t want it reproved, and they don’t want to change.

Remaining in this state of darkness outside of Christ, if one dies in their sins, they will spend eternity in darkness in hell.

As our Lord said in Matthew 25:30, “And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer DARKNESS: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

This was our condition outside of Christ. Paul wrote that we WERE formerly darkness, but when we trust Christ as our Savior, we are darkness no more and ever again. The change is not gradual, it happens immediately at salvation.

We are darkness, but then by faith alone, when you trust the gospel of salvation, instantly the light goes on, and we are light in the Lord. And we are light in the Lord forever.

Notice how there is no in-between here. There is no gray area, no middle ground. It’s cut and dry, one or the other.

You are either light or you are darkness, you are either saved or lost, a child of God or a child of disobedience, spiritually alive or dead, bound for heaven or hell. Which are you?

Just like with darkness, that we were not just in darkness, but were darkness itself, Paul says that at conversion, we become light itself.

2 Corinthians 4:4 refers to “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,” and then verse 6 says, “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Trusting the light of the gospel of Christ, that light of the knowledge of God in Christ drives the darkness out forever, and we are light in the Lord at that moment.

We do not earn or merit this transfer from darkness to light. It is a work of God, by His grace, done in response to our faith in the gospel of grace.

Christ rescues sinners from spiritual darkness. The gospel of grace is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes. It has the power to rescue sinners from Satan’s kingdom of darkness and to transfer us into the kingdom of light.

As Colossians 1:11-12 says, “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in LIGHT: Who hath delivered us from the power of DARKNESS, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.”

We are light “in the Lord,” verse 8 tells us. Christ, our Lord, is the “Light of the world.” Being in Christ, we are joined to and in perfect union with “the Light.”

Paul’s focus in Ephesians is on who we are, “in Christ.” A radical change of identity takes place at salvation. We were once dead in our sins, but now we are alive in Christ. We were once darkness, but now we are light in the Lord.

Our spirit is transformed by the light and presence of God within. We are light because the Light is within us and we are in the Light, the Lord Jesus Christ.

This change takes place “in the Lord.” Trusting Him, that He died for us and rose again, the Lord in His grace is the one who made the decisive change.

It is through our union with Him at salvation, that we have entered a new dominion and become light.

Just like darkness refers to separation from God, light refers to fellowship and a relationship with the living God, of Whom, 1 John 1:5 says, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” Being light in the Lord, there is now no separation from God forever.

And God’s life, truth, righteousness, goodness, grace, love, and mercy is all “light.”

When the power suddenly goes out at your house, and you are left in the dark, and your children are scared, you hurry to find a source of light: a flashlight or a candle.

You stumble through the house, feeling your way around, hoping on the way that you don’t run into the sharp corner of the coffee table, step on a Lego piece on the floor, or stub your toe on the leg of the couch.

You find in those types of moments that darkness is disorienting, crippling, limiting, and can be frightening. That is the state of the unbelieving in spiritual darkness and the kind of things they experience without Christ.

But when the electric company fixes the problem and your house suddenly bursts with light again, there is gladness, and you find that light gives vision, direction, liberation, perspective, relief, and freedom from fear. And when the light comes on, it overcomes and overwhelms darkness.

That is what we experience in Christ, being light in Him. We have spiritual sight, giving us direction, freedom, a proper perspective and orientation, freedom from fear. And being in the light, we know we are on the side of victory because light drives the darkness away.

As Proverbs 4:18-19 says, “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.”

Next, Paul adds, “walk as children of light.” The term “walk” is a metaphor for practical daily living. The believer’s life is a journey, and we are to walk it, making consistent forward progress in our faith by faith.

Our new identity in Christ calls for a new lifestyle. In stark contrast to spiritual darkness and the darkness of the world, which the believer used to walk in, God would have us now walk as children of light. Our walk now, by God’s grace, should be different from the world. It should be as different as light and dark, as night and day.

The word “children” reminds us of verse 1 of this chapter, where Paul wrote that believers are “dear children” or “beloved children.” As God’s beloved children, He calls us to live as children of light in this world in our practical day-to-day living.

He desires that we walk in the light into which we have been transferred, to live what we are and Whose we are, and to faithfully walk in light of that, step by step.

The following quote gives the goal for walking as children of light, “There are people in the world around us who never open, who never read this Book. But they are reading us. Are they able to see God in our lives? Are they able to say of us to others, ‘That man, or that woman, reminds me of Christ’?” W. H. Griffith-Thomas

Having Christ in us means we have God’s light within us, and we’re to live in that Light and live that light out. And walking as children of light is about shining out and living so others see, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27), that they may see and know Christ and the sure hope we have in Him.

To walk as light, we are being called to live as a bright testimony to God’s grace and truth, to walk in a manner that reveals God and His Son to the world, which is lost and in bondage in spiritual darkness. We do this, so they might be rescued from darkness.

We walk as children of light to enlighten others to Christ, to Who He is, and to what He has done for us by His Cross and resurrection. We walk as light to reveal to the unbelieving the way to Him.

It’s like being a lighthouse. A lighthouse has two purposes: to warn of danger and to show the way to safety.

In time past, in God’s prophetic program, Israel was the Light to show the world the way to God and His salvation. In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord told Israel, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid” (Matt. 5:14).

In God’s plans and purposes in the past, Israel was to be a light to the world, revealing and living God’s truth as God’s people so that she might be a blessing to the nations of the world, that they might come to God and be saved.

Israel, however, was temporarily set aside in unbelief. So today, under grace, the Church, the Body of Christ is the people of God and His light to the world, to enlighten people to eternal life through faith alone in the gospel of the grace of God.

Philippians 2:15 challenges the Church, “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.”

A little girl got home from Sunday school, where she had been taught Matthew 5:16: “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven.”

When she repeated the verse, she asked her mother what it meant. Her mom said, “Well, it means that when you are kind and thoughtful and obedient, you are letting Christ’s light shine in your life before all who know you.”

The next week at Sunday School, the little girl got into a fracas with another student, which caused an uproar, to such an extent that the Sunday School teacher had to go and find her mother to settle her down in the class.

When she got to the classroom, the concerned mother said, “Don’t you remember about letting your light shine for the Lord?” The girl blurted out, “Mom, I blowed myself out.”

I think we’ve all done this! Sometimes in our daily walk, we have moments of stumbling and failure, and we don’t shine brightly for Him.

But by God’s grace, He enables us to carry out this instruction in His Word. We can be a faithful light for the Lord as we yield to Ephesians 6:10: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.”

Ephesians 5:9-10: “(For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.”

Paul shows us here that just as sunlight produces fruit, so spiritual light produces spiritual fruit. The spiritual light of God within us can enable us to bear the Spirit’s fruit in our lives of goodness, righteousness, and truth.

Ephesians 5:9 could be looked at as a “prism” to the light of God which breaks it up into goodness, righteousness and truth. These are the fruits of the light.

In contrast to the walk in darkness, as described in verses 3-6, which entails such sins as fornication, all uncleanness, covetousness, filthiness, and foolish talking, the fruit of the Spirit in the life of one walking in the light is goodness, righteousness, and truth. This refers to all forms of goodness, righteousness, and truth.

Since this verse describes fruit, it shows that it takes time to develop these virtues, but over time, with spiritual growth, the Spirit can produce these things in the children of light.

All these things describe the Person and character of Jesus Christ, the Light, and they are worked out in our lives as we walk as children of light.

“Goodness” describes active goodness, virtue, moral excellence, and kindness. It is high moral character reflected in being good in both nature and action. Goodness describes a person who is concerned for the well-being of others, spiritually and in every way.

“Righteousness” is the rightness of character before God and the rightness of actions before men. Paul challenges us in Philippians 1:11: “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.”

“Truth” is doing these things in all honesty, reliability, and integrity, living out the truth of God’s Word in the power of the Spirit.
Paul says as children of light, in order to shine brightly for Him, we are to prove what is acceptable unto the Lord.

Verse 9 is a parenthesis, so verse 10 is grammatically connected with verse 8. So it should be interpreted as, “Walk as children of light…Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.”

Believers are to walk as children of light, examining and regulating their conduct with regard to what is well pleasing to the Lord (Psa. 19:14; Heb. 11:6).

We do not determine what pleases the Lord by our own feelings, thoughts, or conscience. Rather, we learn and prove what is acceptable to Him, by the Word of God.

And the Word must be rightly divided, according to 2 Timothy 2:15, and we must do so in order to prove what is acceptable unto the Lord for our current age of grace. Israel had different instructions under the law to prove what was acceptable to the Lord at that time.

The grace instruction the Lord would have the Body of Christ live by today is revealed in the message He gave to the Apostle Paul, found in the letters of Romans thru Philemon.

As we learn, apply, and serve by this teaching for the Church, this will enable us to shine even brighter as lights as we live by God’s truth for this current dispensation.

Ephesians 5:11-14 says, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

“Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”

In order to have a bright testimony for Christ, Paul teaches here that the children of light should abstain from joining the children of disobedience in their deeds.

He teaches that believers should not now, or going forward, participate or get tangled up with the unsaved in their sinful deeds of darkness.

Paul was careful to state that we should avoid the unfruitful WORKS of darkness, not the people who are in darkness. It is the deeds of unbelievers that believers are to shun, not the unbelievers who do them.

We must have contact with those in darkness to reach people for Christ, but as children of light, we are not to join in with the unbelievers’ sins and sinful lifestyles.

Rather we are to reprove them by our consistent lives and godly testimony for Christ.

Paul says it is shameful to even speak of the things done by unbelievers in secret. And if it’s shameful just to speak of them, the committing of these things is even worse and more reprehensible, which is why they are done in darkness and secret.

In verse 13, Paul states that the light manifests and exposes evil deeds for what they truly are. Light makes manifest whatever is in the darkness. It is the means of seeing what things are. We discern their form, nature, appearance, by light.

So a believer’s walk as a child of light reveals by contrast the sinfulness of unbelievers’ lives. Just living a Christlike, faithful, devoted life, will reprove the sinfulness and iniquity that is always around us.

The light of goodness and righteousness exposes the works of darkness for what they are. Evil cannot masquerade as anything else when exposed to the light of Christ and of truth.

The character of sin, the cost, and the consequences of sin are all made clear when subjected to the light of a godly life in Christ.

The church does more for the world when the church is least like it.

By this light of a loving Christ-like example, it is for the purpose of exposing unbelievers to their need of Christ, and the destruction of darkness and sin.

This is what Paul is teaching in verse 14. This verse is the child of light speaking to those who are sleeping in darkness and lying in spiritual death.

By the unbeliever being exposed to his sinfulness by the light, this is with the hope that due to conviction, he “that sleepest” in spiritual darkness might awake, and he that is in spiritual death might “arise from the dead.”

And by faith in Christ, the Light, Christ will give them spiritual light in their salvation, and they will be delivered from the darkness.

The life of one who walks as a child of light is always preaching a sermon, and always extending the invitation of verse 14 to unbelievers. If the unbeliever answers the invitation, Christ will give them light, and they will be saved.

The command to “walk as children of light” is given because it is possible for believers under grace to not walk as children of light, and to continue walking and habitually living according to darkness and the ways of the world.

This does nothing to endanger a believer’s salvation, but it does endanger others’ salvation. We are called to walk as children of light in order to reveal the light, life, and love of God to the world, so that the world may see a testimony to Christ and a representative of God’s truth in and through us, and find the way to God.

If the believer walks in darkness, if we’re no different in our thinking, attitudes, words, and behavior, and we present no contrast between the light that we are and the darkness that we were, then our words and claims will lose power, and it will cause unbelievers to remain on that road that leads to destruction.

To obey the instruction to walk as children of light is an act of love towards the unbelieving, so that they might see the contrast between faith and unbelief, light and darkness, and find Christ and His salvation through us.

Our duty as ambassadors is as the Lord told Paul on the Damascus Road: “To open their eyes, and to turn them from DARKNESS TO LIGHT, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins…”

The story is told of a great fire in Edinburgh, Scotland, in which people hurried to exit the building through a passage that led to the street.

They were almost safe when a rush of smoke met them, blowing into the passage from the outside. Instead of running through the smoke, they entered a door into a room that seemed safe.

But soon all the oxygen was exhausted and they all suffocated. If only they had seen the light they might have lived.