Morning, brothers and sisters.
I’d like to read a few verses before we look to the Lord.
Romans 8:14 says:
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
these are sons of God.
Then I’d like to look at 1 John 4. I could sing this one. Verse 7:
Beloved, let us love one another,
for love is of God;
and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
And if you flip back a few pages to 1 Peter 2, verse 9:
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people,
that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
And then one other verse, going way back to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 9:
God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let’s pray.
Lord, we do want to give You our thanks once again because of what You’ve done for us and Who You are. Lord, we thank You so much for our salvation. We thank You so much for Your love to us.
We thank You, Lord, that You are God. You are God Almighty, and yet it is God Almighty Who loves us and has moved on our behalf to bring us to Yourself. Oh Lord, we thank You.
We ask, Lord, that during this short time that we have together in Your Word, You, by the Holy Spirit, will open up the Word to us and encourage us to walk with You. Show us, Lord, what it is that You want, and what You have done for us. Help us to hear You calling to us and help us, Lord, most of all, to respond to You.
Lord, we ask that Your Word would go forth—not my ideas, Lord, not anything like that. Lord, Your Word would be true and real, and that would be the thing our hearts focus on this morning. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now, I give verses at the beginning because my wife told me this a few times ago—probably a year ago or so—“You need to tell them why you give those verses at the beginning.”
Okay. Well, actually, they have a point. I have a verse for each point: the one from Romans 8, and so on down the line. My wife knows good pedagogy, and I just figure that you guys know.
We’re going to continue in the ministry out of Ephesians. We’ve been talking lately about the practical part of the book of Ephesians, which starts with chapter 4 and goes to the end of the letter.
Again, the first three chapters have been about what we have in the Lord Jesus. What do we have in Him? That’s what the first three chapters are about. I’m not going to go over it because we’ve talked about it before.
Then chapters 4 through the end of the letter are talking about this: because we have these things, how then should we live? How should these things affect our lives?
We have been speaking on that for the last few weeks, especially with reference to Ephesians 4:1:
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.
So we have been talking about what it means to walk worthy. Looking at Ephesians 4 briefly, the first thing we saw about walking worthy of this calling was to keep the unity of the Spirit.
That was a big thing for the body. Now, these other things are not any less for the body, but we can address them more to the individual. Yet, as individuals in the body, they are still for us all. Never take it away and say it is not for the body. It is for the individual as well as the body.
Last time, in the matter of walking worthy, we said, “Walk not as the Gentiles walk.” Briefly, we mentioned that the Gentiles were those who had no purpose. They did not see the purpose of eternity. They did not see the purpose for their lives.
So they go around aimlessly, like ships without rudders, not knowing where they are going: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” It is kind of an existentialist view of life: there is no purpose, so it does not really matter what you do. Just live life as it is. Get what you can out of it.
I think I said there was a bumper sticker: “Whoever has the most toys wins.” But that is not how it is.
This is the thing that really brought me to the Lord. I read a book by Albert Camus, The Stranger. Here was the hero of the story—you can call him the hero—and at the end he is executed, and he is saying, “Who cares? It doesn’t matter anyway.”
That really put a shock into me. I thought, if we are here for nothing, what a cruel joke it is that God has made us to live for nothing. And that is why the Lord got hold of me.
Now, brothers and sisters, hopefully the Lord will get hold of us in the same way by saying, “I do have a purpose for you.” All of you who know Campus Crusade know, “The Lord loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” These things are true.
But the plan is not merely an individual plan. A lot of times we look at it and ask, “What is God’s plan for my life? Does He want me to be a teacher? Does He want me to be a football player? Does He want me to be a fireman?”
No, His plan goes beyond that. His plan is to conform us into the image of His Son. I know that sounds very, very spiritual, but the truth is that we might be like Him, because He is completely satisfied in the Son. He will be satisfied in us too because of what His Son has done and because of the work He is doing.
We have to have faith in that. Having faith in that, we also need to turn ourselves to Him and say, “Lord, I give myself to You. Do Your work in me.”
That is what is happening with the Ephesians. The Ephesians know all these wonderful things in the first three chapters. But still, it is saying, “Okay, now that you know these things, what are you going to do with them?”
Christianity is not a college class that you just pass for credit. It is a life. It is a life to be lived, and it is a life that will bring glory to God. It is not something that is merely, “Yeah, I took it. I passed the test. Okay, now what do I do?”
I remember, as a young man, when you got saved, you did not get a Bible; you got Good News for Modern Man. You guys remember that, with the little stick people in it? Yeah, so you guys do remember it.
I remember, after I read it the first time, I thought, “Well, now what do I do? I’ve read it.” Do we think like that as Christians? “I read the Bible, man. What do I do?”
My brothers and sisters, listen to the Lord. What does He have to say? Read it again. See if He says something to you. Don’t just get facts.
This morning, we want to go a little beyond where we talked mostly last time about putting off the old man and putting on the new man. We talked about what that was and how to go about doing it. It was very practical.
This morning, I want to touch on something that I do not feel I covered last week, and then I want to move on. We are going to read from Ephesians 4:25 through Ephesians 5:17.
Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.
Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.
Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.
And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.
And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.
But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.
Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”
I like the better translation: “And Christ will shine on you.”
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Now, I know that seems like a lot of things. But let me begin by saying this: in reading all these things from Ephesians 4:25 through Ephesians 5:12, these are the very things of the Ephesian world. This was the world in which the Ephesians lived.
It is not unlike our world, is it? We can relate to this. I think it is really amazing that here you have a letter that contains some of the highest truths in all the New Testament letters—such high truths about the church—and yet look at the people it is given to.
Paul has to warn them: “Stay away from these things. Don’t do these other things.” You think, “Couldn’t You get a better group of people?” But the thing is, they are human. They are just like you and me.
That does not keep them from getting the truth—the whole truth. Even as Paul said when he met the elders of Ephesus, “I have declared to you the whole truth, so that you know, and I am not guilty of any of your blood.”
Paul comes here and says, in effect, “I do not care who you are, or what your background is, or what things you are facing. I have news for you: even in the face of what you live through every day—and probably some of you are in parts of it—there is another way.”
Why else would he be saying, “Don’t do this,” and, “Don’t do that”? They must have been taking part in those things. People who had such a high message given to them were still in this kind of situation.
Paul is giving them a reminder of who they are. In Ephesians 4:25 through the end of the chapter, he gives a negative and a positive. Do not lie anymore; speak the truth. Do not steal anymore; work with your hands. These things were part of the society in which they lived.
What about things that are acceptable in our society? We can look at them and say, “Well, gee whiz, if it is acceptable in society, I guess it is okay for me, even though I am a Christian.”
What makes the difference? Does God say, “All right, I’ve got a 350-page rule book here. Put it up on your wall”?
I am going to expose someone here. We visited Michelle Alloway’s house with Joanna Folfe, and they took us around the house. She had Scripture verses on her walls.
So it is like God says, “Okay, I want you to put the Scripture verses up, and I want you to read them every day and make really sure that you obey them all.” But that is just another law.
God has not called us to a law. God has not called us merely to a bunch of commandments saying, “You better do this so you can be light to the world, because if you do not, I doubt your salvation.”
But the point I want to make is this: look at Ephesians 4:30:
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
Brothers and sisters, our walk is a walk that is being led by the Spirit of God. One of the most wonderful things of our salvation is that God did not leave us as orphans. He did not leave us simply to tramp it out and say, “Good luck. I hope to see you at the end.”
But He gave us His Holy Spirit. That is what the new man is. The new man is the man who is led by the Spirit.
That is the man after Christ, because our Lord Jesus Himself was led by the Spirit. Remember, beginning with His baptism, when He went into the water, identifying Himself with what God had to do through Him. He came up from the water, the heavens opened, and the Spirit descended upon Him. Then the Spirit led Him into the wilderness.
But His whole life, from that point of His ministry, was led by the Spirit. He never said, “I am doing this on My own.” It was always, “What I see the Father doing, that is what I do.”
Brothers and sisters, it is no different for us. He does not say, “I hope you are smart enough to understand the plans that I have for you.”
Have you ever tried to build one of those bicycles or tricycles at Christmas? They give you plans. They give you instructions. But they must have been written by an engineer, because they make no sense to anyone except engineers.
They come out looking like, “Oh, I didn’t know these things had periscopes.” It just does not look like it is supposed to look. You go back and read the instructions, and you need a helper.
That is what God has given us. God has given us a Helper. He is to lead us into all truth, and He is to lead us in the way that we should go.
He is the One Who points. He is the One Who convicts of sin. We might be walking along, not knowing we are sinning, and all of a sudden we have that feeling in our conscience or in our heart: “I don’t feel right. I’m doing this thing, and I don’t feel right.”
What is the matter? What is the Holy Spirit saying? “I don’t like being part of this.”
It is not to say that just because you say, “It feels wrong to me,” everybody else has to do it. But the thing is, it is your walk with the Lord.
Just for an example, many of you know Floyd Police. I grew up with Floyd’s son and daughters, and he was very instrumental in my growing up in the Lord.
As young men, we had a Bible study at his house, and Floyd liked to bowl. Anybody Italian or Polish likes to bowl.
One day we said, “Well, let’s go bowling, Floyd,” and it happened to be Sunday. We went out and were bowling because that was something we did. But Floyd just was not comfortable.
He bowled a couple of frames, and then he said, “I’m sorry, boys. I just can’t do this. Please forgive me, but I’ve got to leave.”
All he was saying was that, in his own heart, he did not have the freedom. The Lord was saying, “No, you need to be doing something else.” We were young people. I am not saying that we were wrong and he was right. I am just saying that the Holy Spirit in him was leading him and saying, “I don’t want this for you.”
There is the same thing for us. Sometimes we are with people—old friends or even Christian friends. Some people are going on with the Lord, and some are dragging their feet and are still in the world.
You are all together, and suddenly you are getting pulled into something, and the Holy Spirit is saying, “Why don’t you just go home? Let’s go home.” You have that sense of the Holy Spirit leading you.
Brothers and sisters, that is what I am talking about. We are not given merely a list of things to do; we are given the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is to lead us in our life.
He is to lead us into all truth. It is not just theological things. He may say, “This is hurtful for you,” or, “This is good for you,” or, “Why did you say that? You need to go and apologize.” Things like that—that is the Holy Spirit working in you.
That is what I wanted to add last week. The new man, when you put on the new man, is the one who is led by the Spirit. Those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God.
Jerry has been talking about the sons of God. Those are the ones who will be responsible. That is how you begin being responsible: by yielding to the Spirit.
The Spirit can be grieved. Now, this does not mean that the Spirit goes off and pouts. He is not like us. When somebody does not go our way, we say, “I’m taking my ball and going home.” He is not like that.
He is saddened. He is sad. Sometimes you might tell your kids to do something. Now, I have a problem with this, because instead of being saddened, it turns into anger. But the first reaction is, “I’m disheartened. There was not a response.”
That is what I am after: there was not a response to what was asked. Then the anger sets in. But that is not where the Holy Spirit is.
The Holy Spirit does not force Himself on us. He does not get mad like that. But His voice can be crowded out. What you have in your life can crowd it out. “I’ve got this to do.” “What about Me?” “That’s okay. I’ll get to You later.”
He is never going to raise His voice to a holler. He is gentle like a dove. But, at the same time, if you respond to Him, He can be a refining fire. If you respond to Him, He can be a mighty wind, like these hurricanes.
But the thing is: do we respond to Him? That is what He is after. That is what God has put Him in us for. We need that. The whole new covenant is this: “I will put My Spirit in you. I will write My laws on your heart.” How does He do this? It is done by the Holy Spirit.
There are a couple of things that I really want to talk about this morning. These are things that I need to know a lot in my own life, so I am not pointing fingers at anyone or at this fellowship. I am just saying, this is what the Word of the Lord says.
Remember, anytime you point at somebody, you have three other fingers pointing right back at you. I learned that from Floyd.
The next thing he really gets into, starting with Ephesians 5, is walking. There are two other references to walking here that I would like to touch on.
Ephesians 5:2 says:
Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
Let me read a couple of verses from Matthew 22, starting with verse 35:
Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying,
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like it:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
When we are talking about walking in love, you will notice that love has two feet. Love God. Love your fellow man. Two feet. You cannot walk with one foot. Have you ever tried? You cannot walk; you hop. You need two feet to walk.
This is something that we can really get condemned about, so let’s make it the way I think the Lord wants it. What is the starting point of walking in love? What do you think it is?
You are all saying, “It’s a rhetorical question. Your first love.” Well, okay, but what if you have never had a first love? There you go. Way to go, Dan.
It is not just that Jesus has loved you first. It is being assured of that love. You cannot walk in love until you know that you have been loved and that you are loved. Not just that you have been loved, but that you are loved.
That is such an important thing. I remember when I started to date my wife—and I am not going to tell any stories, Barb—but once I knew that she loved me, it was so much easier to give myself.
I was not afraid of failing anymore. I knew she loved me. It makes such a big difference.
It is the same with us walking with the Lord. Before we walk in love, we have got to know that we are loved.
Perfect love casts out fear, because fear has the idea of punishment. It is so important that we put that away and know the love of God. Once He says He loves us, there is not that punishment bit there anymore.
It is like the chair you are sitting in. You are not fretting about falling out of it because you know what is holding you. You are relaxed in it. It holds your total weight.
So is the assurance that God loves you. It is able to hold you, no matter what happens. No matter what you might do in your life that might make a man stop loving you, it will not make God stop loving you.
You have to be assured of that. You have to believe that. That is the truth. That is the love of God to you. It is eternal. It is never-ending. It is everlasting. Do you believe that?
That is the starting point of walking in love. Brothers and sisters, you are going to make mistakes. You are going to fall. But the love of God does not change. You have to grasp that.
Step one: the love of God. What is involved? First, love God. The first commandment is to love God.
Sometimes we come to the Sunday morning meeting, start looking at ways that we love God, and find out that we are bankrupt. “Oh man, how can I even say that I love God? How can I sing this song?” Then you are just quiet.
What do you do? I believe the first way of showing love is simply by giving thanks. I think this is the beginning of walking in love.
When you are giving thanks, do you know what you are doing? You are acknowledging an act. You are acknowledging that God has done something for you. That is the first part: you have to acknowledge that God has done something for you, and then thank Him.
I will go even a little step further. This is a good practice for Sunday morning: start Saturday night, or start Sunday morning, by thinking about what God has done for you. Take one thing that He has done for you and meditate on it.
Think about what He has done, what that means, and what He is showing you by doing that. That is a wonderful way to start out. The first step of walking in love is giving thanks.
How many times in Paul’s letters does he talk about giving thanks? Almost every letter. He talks about giving thanks because that is one way we show love.
Someone mentioned it this morning in prayer, something to the effect that we know how it is when someone does not say thank you after we have done something.
But when that person says thank you, you feel that you have made a connection. You have acknowledged that person. Brothers and sisters, you have to acknowledge God. You have to acknowledge Him and what He has done for you. That is the first step.
The next part goes with what we just talked about: being led by the Spirit. You walk with Him. How else are you going to fall in love with somebody? You spend time with them. You go with them, because when you are with them, you find out what they are really like.
There is a wonderful prophecy in Micah:
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justly,
to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God?
I think those are backwards. I think you have two fruits coming out of what causes the fruit. Walk humbly with your God, and then you do justice and love mercy because you have been with God. You have seen Him act toward other people.
You have been with Him. You know what He is like. You see Him touching the leper. You see Him even speaking with a Pharisee. You see all of these things with Him.
So you have to walk with Him. In walking with Him, you will find that you are being led into a holy life. You are being separated for Him.
I have said this before, but I will say it again: you find yourself giving things up to maintain a relationship. I say this in jest, but you can use it. I do not call other women on the phone anymore since I am married to Barb.
Not that I did before then anyway. But why? Because I am in a relationship with her that I value.
Because of that, little things change. I remember the first time I thought I was in love, back in high school. In high school, I never combed my hair. Never did—until I got a girlfriend. Then I started combing my hair.
Why? Because she liked me with combed hair.
Brothers and sisters, it is the same thing. You walk with the Lord. You want to please Him. You want to be the one that He loves. So you find out, “Oh, He likes this. That is what I am going to do. Oh, He likes this. I am going to do that.”
I remember with one girl, for example, I smoked. But I never smoked around her. I was a secret smoker—but never around her—because she did not like it.
Brothers and sisters, what happens is that we sometimes sit on the fence. We try to say, “Well, with God’s people I will do this, and when I am with my other friends, I will do this.” But we have the Holy Spirit in us.
Led by the Spirit, grieving the Spirit—the Spirit is saying, “You cannot do both. Which one?” The Spirit moves and the Spirit leads. He does those things for us.
I am not going to give you a list of dos and don’ts: “This is what you do to love God.” No, you walk with Him. You spend time with Him. You find out Who He is.
Sometimes we look in the Bible for theology. We look for messages, and we miss what it is all about. It is a revelation of God to us: the way He is, the way He thinks, what His heart is like. This is what it is all about.
That should evoke love from us. Love is not a feeling. Love is an action.
Some songs we sing talk about how much we desire the Lord. Well, you can desire a lot of things and never do anything about your desire.
Before we were married, I could have told Barb every day, “I really want you as a partner and everything.” But it had no meaning until I said, “Will you marry me?” I took some action.
Desire can sometimes just be words. Love is action.
Now, love your fellow man. You cannot separate love for God and love for man. When you love God, you are going to love those whom He loves.
It says in 1 John 4:20-21 that you cannot say you love God and hate your brother. You are a liar. You cannot do that. You are going to love those whom He loves.
I love my in-laws. Part of it is because my wife loves them, but I have come to know them too. My acceptance of her parents began when we started going together and got married. Out of that came something more. That is how it began, because I did not know them at all.
It is the same here. We begin to love because He loves, and we start seeing whom He loves.
How do we show love? A lot of times love is all this mushy stuff. I am just going to give one word for love. How do we love our brothers? You care for them. That is it in a nutshell.
You do not merely tell them you love them; you care for them. How do you care for them? I will give you one really wonderful example, and it comes out of one of my failings.
On the West Coast, we have a conference in Santa Barbara. I happened to be one of the people administering that conference. When Barb and I had babies, she was occupied with the babies and everything, and I was running around doing all these things. I did not see her much at all.
Jerry Leniver—bless him—became my best friend. He took care of Barb. He made sure she had help because he gave it to her.
He did those things that I could have been doing, maybe should have been doing, or maybe was not able to do—however you want to look at it. But the thing was, a brother stepped up and cared.
His caring was shown in that he made himself available and did things that needed to be done. That is loving your brother.
Loving your brother can be caring enough to say, “I see you, but I never get a chance to talk with you. I want to know you.” It can mean having them over for a meal.
It can be caring for them by saying, “I haven’t seen you for a while. I just wanted to call.” Not calling because they were not at the meeting, but calling because that is the only time you noticed them around, and you are wondering, “Is there something wrong?”
Please care for people beyond merely noticing that they are not at a meeting. Care for them because God cares for them.
Just like Stu was talking about: people coming over, praying with them, and being with them. That is a wonderful thing—visiting people.
That is why the Lord said, when He was talking about separating the goats and the sheep, “You visited Me, and you did all these other things.” They said, “When did we do that?” He said, “When you did it to any of the least of My brethren, you did it to Me.”
That is one way we worship. We do not worship merely by being here, singing songs, and praying. One way we worship is by loving one another.
Is it not interesting that the Lord Jesus said, “They will know you are My disciples by your love for one another”? Not by what you know about Him, not by your great sermons, but by your care for one another.
Even when the Lord Jesus spoke to Peter at the very end, He said, “Do you love Me more than these?” The next thing was, “Feed My sheep.”
I want to take this one more step. The word in Ephesians for love is agape. Agape is that love where you are not inspired by some act to give love to someone; it is simply your nature to love.
I look at myself and say, “I cannot agape.” That is a wonderful thing about that little passage in John 21:15-17, where He is talking to Peter: “Peter, do you agape Me?” “Lord, You know I phileo You.”
Jesus never once got down on him for saying phileo. He took that as a starting point. He said, “I will take that. Feed My sheep.”
Not to say, “I will be satisfied with it,” but, “If you love Me, I will bring you into the love that I have for the brethren and for My Father. I will bring you into agape. Feed My sheep.”
God is not just satisfied with love for Himself. He wants care for His brothers and sisters too.
My brothers and sisters, it does not stop with the brothers and sisters. It goes beyond. God so loved the world.
Do not neglect the brothers and sisters. It can be easy to love the world in some ways because you are not with them all the time, so you do not see all their bad parts. But your brothers and sisters—you are with them all the time.
Do not neglect to show the love of God outside the family circle. Do not be aloof toward people in the workplace because they are not Christians. Love them. When there is opportunity, love them.
The Lord will show you opportunities. Again, led by the Spirit. It is not, “Well, I have got to do something.” No. Out of the life you have in the Lord, let the Lord lead, and He will make things available for you.
So, walk in love. Now, where do we see love? It says earlier, “Be imitators.” Who do we imitate? Jesus has risen from the dead. Who do I imitate now?
Paul, while he was living, said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 11:1:
Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.
He said that again in Philippians 3:17: “Be imitators of me, and of those who are doing the same things.” We have people, brothers and sisters, to imitate here.
We imitate those whom we admire. My wife and I were talking on the way up: generally, when we find out that our children imitate us, they are imitating the bad behaviors we have—how we act in the car, or something like that.
But they imitate the good behaviors too; we just never see those. Those imitations are generally with their friends. They pick up the values that you have.
Brothers and sisters, we have to look at who God is in here. We have to look at what He is doing in here so that we can imitate Him.
I do not mean imitate Him as a veneer, as though we are little robots going around doing things. As we see Him, it washes away the veneer and gets to the inside.
Because, brothers and sisters, in here we see Him loving us. As we see Him loving us, we can love others as He has loved us, because that is the command:
Love one another, as I have loved you.
It is so personal. You know how God loves you. Some of us keep God at arm’s distance, saying, “No, I do not want You to love me. I am too bad, and I want to stay the way I am.”
Not realizing that if we simply put the hand down, His love changes us in a New York minute. It breaks down those old-man enzymes and brings in the new man.
Another thing—I know I have to close here, and I am sorry—it says, “You are light.”
Ephesians 5 says:
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
Notice that it says, “in the Lord.” You are light in the Lord. While you are in that union with Him, you are light. Once you step out of that union, that light dims.
Some of us have to be screwed in a little tighter there. Being in the Lord, we can take that as a covering, and well we should. But it is not meant merely to be a covering; it is meant to be a grafting.
If this were a branch, it means I am grafted in. I am enjoying the life that is in that other branch, and that life comes into me. In the Lord, in that vital relationship.
Notice, it is a vital relationship, just like your heartbeat and your brain waves. Those are vital signs. “Check his vital signs. Is he alive?”
What are our vital signs? You can tell whether you are in the Lord by the time you spend with the Lord. You are not going to be very alive if you are not spending time with Him.
I do not mean this as a legal thing, but let’s face it: what kind of relationship would you have with your husband or wife if you did not spend any time with them?
Do you see the need for it? Some people just do not see the need. They are happy just being saved, just having the fire-insurance policy. They do not realize it goes any further.
You are light in the Lord while you are in union with Him. You are the light of the world. Is that not what the Lord said to His disciples—those who were following after Him?
Matt gave a word on following. This was the Lord’s word to His disciples: “You are the light of the world.”
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
This is what Paul is saying in juxtaposition to all these bad things in their society. He is not saying, “Come out and live over here. Get a monastery going, so you do not have to worry about all that.”
No, he did not say that. He said, “You are light. Be light where you are.”
Do not cover up the light. Do not shrink away from it. Do not go away from people who need to see the light because you think, “They just would not understand what I am like.” No, they need to see that light. You are light.
It says:
You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
Walk as children of light.
Notice, it does not say, “Walk in the light.” It is not talking about walking in the light of teaching. It is saying, “You are light. Show it. Walk as though you are light.”
Light sees. Light is able to discern. It is able to say, “This is not right. That is a stumbling block.” That is what light is: it shows things for what they are.
If you walk as light, those around you who are in darkness will see light. They will either run away from it, curse you, or be saved.
It is not up to you to convert the world. It is up to you to walk as light. Let the Spirit do His work, but you walk as light. That is what we are called to do: be light, because that is our nature in Christ.
It is nothing less than that. It is a high calling. But it is His life. It is light in us. It is out of that union with Him that light comes out—no other way.
It is not that, “Oh, if I do these things, I am light.” No. That can be a false light. That can be, as I said, a veneer—a good person. No, it is light.
His life was the light of men. The life of Christ in us.
Listen to what it also says:
For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.
Goodness is the character of God. Righteousness is right actions, right acts. Truth is reality. This is what is real. This is what we are to be.
Then it says, “Walk as light, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.” In other words, as you walk with Him, you find out what is acceptable to Him because you have the Holy Spirit.
He is the One saying, “Ah, ah, that is not it. This is the way to go.” You have Him.
Romans 12 says that you find out what is the good and acceptable will of God. Brothers and sisters, it is not just acceptable to God. As you walk in the light, you find out that it is acceptable to you because you have been freed from something else.
Sometimes worldly things are acceptable to us, and we do not want to do what we think of as religious things because they are not acceptable to our fleshly nature. We are flesh, and we have been living by the flesh.
But once we get to the place where we are letting the Spirit lead us in our life, we start to find out, “I am not enslaved to that other thing anymore. I am free.”
What is more acceptable than being free in Christ? Free. A new nature.
It is like in the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone. King Arthur—Wart—is with Merlin, and he changes into different animals. Sometimes he is a squirrel; sometimes he is a bird. Each time he tries to act like a human, and it just does not work.
When you are a squirrel and you are thinking like a human, it does not work. But then you are a squirrel—act like a squirrel. Or the bird is being chased, and he is running away. Merlin says, “You are a bird. Fly.” Oh.
Brothers and sisters, we find out that we are freed from the law of sin and death, and that we can fly. That is something to rejoice in.
I want to close with this. I know I have not been going verse by verse, but these are the things the Lord really put on my heart.
He talks about not having fellowship with these things. Well, if you are walking in the light, light has no fellowship with darkness. That is common sense. You turn on a light—what happens to darkness? It goes. It does not even compete. It is gone.
He says that light exposes, and that is what it is going to do. When you are with Christians who are walking in the light, sometimes you are exposed. Praise the Lord.
But then it says in Ephesians 5:14:
Awake, you who sleep,
arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.
In my thinking—and this is not a Greek thing or anything like that—it is as though he is saying, “O Ephesians.” That sounds very Pauline, does it not? “O Ephesians, awake, you who sleep. Arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
So this is how we end. Ephesians 4 and the beginning of Ephesians 5 say, “Walk, walk, walk. This is what I want you to do. Walk this way. Walk in love. Walk as light.”
Then he comes to the end and says, “Be conscious.” He says, “Awake.” What is he saying? Become conscious again of your calling.
That is all he is really saying. “I want you to be aware, be conscious, of what God has called you to.” You have had all these things that we said in chapters 1 through 3—the places where you sit and rest, and these things are yours. You have been called to a high calling.
Now, be aware of that. As you are aware of it, get up and walk. You have been called to these things. Get up now. Walk.
He is not mad at them. He is not yelling at them. What he is saying is this: “I see the world you are in. I know it. I was with you for three years. It is not going to get better.”
It is not going to get any better. This world is a dying thing. The government of this world has to come to an end. Do not think the world is going to get any better. It is not.
I do not care who is elected president or what happens in Iraq. These are momentary things. But we look at it, and it is all downhill. It is getting worse and worse and worse, until the culmination when Christ comes back, puts it away, and says, “It is over. No more.”
Until that time, it is going to get worse and worse and worse. So he says, “I know where you are, but get up. Get up where you are.”
It says, “Do not be fornicators.” Is there fornication? Get out of it. Get up and walk.
Is there covetousness? Covetousness just means materialism. It means you are replacing spiritual things with material things. Are you there? Okay, you are there. Get up and walk. Get up out of it and walk.
That is what he is saying. You are living in that world. Be conscious of who you are. Be conscious of your identity. Be conscious of your calling. Get up and walk in that calling, because God has grace for you. God has power for you.
In Him, in Him, He has given you His Holy Spirit. Now get up and walk.
It says, “Arise, and Christ will shine on you.” But you have to arise first. You cannot just sit there and say, “Oh, I just can’t do it. Look at me.” It says, “Arise.”
Think of the man who was paralytic. “Your sins are forgiven.” “Oh, thank You.” “Get up and walk.” “What? But I am paralyzed.” “Get up and walk.” “Why? I can’t.” “I told you, you can.”
I think one of the neatest verses in the Scriptures is in Acts 9. I want to say verse 32. It is about Aeneas. You have never heard of this guy Aeneas, and no one is ever going to hear of him again, but Peter is on his way to Joppa.
As he is going there, he meets a man who has been a paralytic for eight years. I do not know if Peter knew anything about him. He just comes up to him, looks at him, and says:
Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed.
And he did.
Brothers and sisters, that is the encouragement for today. You might be backslidden. You might be compromised. Well, brothers and sisters, repent. Get up.
Come to God like that and say, “This is the way I am.” Let Him deal with it. Know that it has been dealt with. Then get up and walk, because that is what He has called you to do.
Walk with Him through the rest of your life. Walk with Him. Walk in love. Love Him for what He has done for you and what He is doing in you. Love the brethren because He loves the brethren.
Be light, because He has made you light. Arise, and Christ will shine on you.
Let’s pray.
Lord, we do want to ask this: open our eyes to see what You call us to, and that it is You Who have called us.
Lord, You are not telling us to buck up and try harder. You have done something for us. You have done something in us. Oh Lord, I pray that You would open our eyes to that, even today.
Lord, I pray that if there are those who are in positions like I just talked about—compromised or backslidden—that the truth of what You have done in Jesus Christ will come through to them, and that they will know that You love them.
Lord, You have judged them already in the cross of Jesus Christ, that they might know and turn and see that those things are done, that they can come back to You. They can have forgiveness.
Even better than forgiveness, they can walk in newness of life. They can walk into and have all that You have for them in Jesus Christ—that calling, that high calling, to be light.
Lord, where it says, “You were darkness, but now you are light in Christ,” bring us all into that union with You where we are light, Lord, and where we can be not just a light to brothers and sisters, but light to the world.
Lord, help us to care for one another. There is so much that we can say that we need help with, but really what we are saying is, “Lord, make us aware.” Make us aware of You and what You want done.
Lead us by Your Spirit, and thank You again that You have given Your Spirit to us so that we are not orphans, so that we do not have to guess, but You can make it known to us.
Thank You for Your Word, Lord. We pray in Jesus’ name.