You're a Child of the Light [Part 1]

Pastor, author and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Just be filled with the Holy Spirit and He's going to be your answer for everything.

But if you're going to be filled with the Holy Spirit, meaning you surrender more and more of yourself to God so that He may soak you and infuse you in His own life, His own spirit, then there has to be a way in which you're absolutely not afraid of God, but that you dare to approach God in the very, very closest of ways. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series called Ephesians as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It could be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org.

Or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Brothers and sisters in Christ, God isn't mad at you. It's true that he hates sin because he's good, and therefore he hates all that is evil. But what he's done in Jesus Christ is so thorough and so complete that God himself has become, instead of being angry with you, he's become at every point 100% favorable towards you. We're in Ephesians chapter five today, and we've been coming through this remarkable epistle of Paul's that's been called the divinest composition of man, that has been called the very pinnacle of New Testament writings.

It is powerful, beautiful, cosmic in its implications. Everything in chapters one, two, and three, not one single mention of anything except for just the power of the gospel, who you are in Christ, what God has done for you. Then you come to chapters four, five, and six, and you start receiving some practical implications of what all this means. So at the beginning of chapter four, it turns into a therefore, because of everything that he said in chapters one, two, and three, therefore, and he begins to urge us to live lives that are in keeping with who we are in Christ.

So this is what we've been learning. Here's who you are in Christ, and therefore this is then how we should live. So when we get to chapter five today, we come into some pointed discussion about the wrath of God against the sons of disobedience, and we're going to read a long text here that ends with an invitation to the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

So there's a whole lot here, and let's jump right in. Ephesians five, verse one. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints.

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no 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 become partners with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.

But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says, awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Well, I'm a preacher of grace. I'm a preacher of the gospel of grace, because I don't think there is another gospel except the gospel of the incredible grace of Jesus Christ. And it's the announcement. The gospel is an announcement. It's an announcement of what God has done for us much more than it is an announcement of what you're supposed to do for God. But that said, now we're here with Paul, and he is talking about all the ramifications, the implications of this powerful gospel and therefore how we should live. But because the focus of all my preaching and what appears we're privileged to be on the radio all around the nation is a message of grace.

Sometimes people misunderstand and think that by announcing grace that we're not given the complete picture of who God is. And it's just a wonderful privilege to be on the radio because you get all kinds of encouraging notes, but also you get sometimes the other. And so this week I got a couple of presents in the mail last week. And one was a beautiful leather-bound King James Bible. And it's beautiful. It's leather.

It's nice. But it also had a three-page letter in there describing why I should be using the King James Version rather than the English Standard Version that I read from, and a track, one of those nice Christian tracks. It had some fire and stuff on the front cover of the track. And the track went on to, I think it was telling me I was going to hell for not reading the King James Version.

I think it was. But anyway, but worse than that, it was leading other people. Now, if you love the King James Version, great. It's a beautiful old version of the Bible. But anyway, I'm not going to go there right now. But you're not going to hell if you don't read the King James Version.

I'm pretty sure of that too. The other present I got this week was a book on basically how it was emphasizing more of works righteousness and how you need to do more of your part in your salvation. So these gifts were meant to send me a message. I would actually say that one of the number one things that people ask me all the time when I preach about grace so much is that people will get a little bit mad at me for not talking about God being mad. And so I want to address that today.

Okay. I want to talk about that today. And also, and more importantly, I want to address the fact that so many, many Christians have a sense that, well, they know that Jesus has died for them, but just don't know what to do with the fact that they still stumble in sin. And how does God feel about that?

Doesn't he have to be mad about that? And this leaves some confusion and uncertainty about whether you can really have peace in the presence of the Lord. And the bottom line to this long text that we read today is that in the end, Paul is saying, here's your invitation. Be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Don't go for any substitutes. Just be filled with the Holy Spirit. And he is going to be your answer for everything.

But if you're going to be filled with the Holy Spirit, meaning you surrender more and more yourself to God so that he may soak you and infuse you in his own life, his own spirit, then there has to be a way in which you're absolutely not afraid of God, but that you dare to approach God in the very, very closest of ways. And that's really what I want to talk about today. It's a very long text. There's a lot to cover here. So I probably ought to just choose out a few things to try to cover. So today, all I'm going to do, just all I want to do is I just want to talk about how to actually read your Bible rightly. And I want to talk about the nature and theology of the wrath of God. And then I want to talk about how wonderful the gospel is because I want to talk about the theological idea of propitiation. And then I just want to talk about the difference between fear and wisdom. And then I just want to talk about the infilling of the Holy Spirit. So that's all I want to do. Okay.

We're just trying to do those things. So I need you to listen real quick today. Let's talk first about when you get to a text like this, which I would say this is among the tough text, right? And what makes this text what I would say, you know, kind of tough, especially if you love grace the way I do is that you come to verses that say things like this, verse five, you may be sure of this, everyone who's sexually immoral, impure, who is covetous, that is an idolater has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. And if you're a lover of grace and you're learning to draw near to God, and then you go, wait a minute, I've had some sexual immorality or I have impure thoughts, or I've been covetous.

Does that mean I've lost my inheritance in Christ? And so you look at some verses like that. And what happens with this in my estimation is that people outside of the gospel looking in, if they just see a verse like that, they go, I don't really want to have anything to do with that. That just looks like a bunch of rules and hate and bigotry and all that judgment.

And I don't, I give up on all that. So I'll just have my own spirituality or people inside the gospel, people in the church will look at that. The lovers of grace will go, oh no, that makes me worried that maybe everything else that I believe about grace, maybe it's subject to not being true. So how to read your Bible correctly is absolutely essential. First place, it just read it accurately as to what it's actually saying. I stumbled this week across some quotes from kids about the Bible. Little children will be asked different questions about the Bible and pretty interesting.

Some of their responses onto some, some questions. This must've been a question that kid got about about Sabbath and what it is. And this child said in the first book of the Bible, God got tired of creating the world. So he took the Sabbath off. Not exactly right.

It's more than that in it. One child said, Noah's wife was called Joan of Arc. Here's this child got a couple stories confused in the old Testament and said, Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night. Oh, the one child said the Egyptians were all drowned in the desert. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Sinai to get the 10 amendments. One child said that the first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.

Well, not exactly. One child got, one child got the seventh commandment confused. He said the seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery. The one child said the greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.

Not, not what that story was. One child said Solomon, one of David's sons, Solomon, King Solomon had 300 wives and 700 porcupines. This one child, this one child said Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption. And one of them said that St. Matthew was one of the opossums. But my favorite is one, one child was talking about marriage, said a Christian should have only one spouse.

And this is called monotony. So you've got to get, you got to get, just read the Bible right in the first place, you know, understand what the text is actually saying. So that's part of our study of scripture does understand what it's actually saying.

But the second really important thing is my point of emphasis is to read whatever it is you're reading in the Bible, read it in context. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. When you make your donation to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll not only send you the digital downloads of the entire transformational Ephesians series, but we'll also send you a printable copy of Pastor Alan's booklet highlighting the most important scriptures about your identity in Christ. Make your gift today and discover a whole new way of seeing your life.

Isn't it time to finally find out who you really are? The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. If you only read chapter five of Ephesians, if you only read Ephesians five verse five, and that's what you read, you will totally, totally misunderstand it. Because if you don't read Ephesians one, two, and three, you really don't have a right to read Ephesians five because it won't make sense to you.

Because Ephesians five only makes sense following what has been said in Ephesians one, two, and three. But more than that, you read the book of Ephesians in light of the whole big story of the Bible. See the Bible, most people tend to think, they think the Bible is like a rule book or a set of instructions or like the owner's manual that you keep in your glove compartment for the car. But that's not what the Bible is at all. The Bible instead miraculously by the supervision of the Holy Spirit is all different eras of time and different pens that have put down under the divine inspiration, have put down the word of God in many different centuries. And there are many different genres of literature in the Bible, and yet all together is one canon of scripture. What you have here, whether it be in poetic literature, whether it be in prophetic literature, whether it be in historical narrative, whether it be in an epistle like Ephesians, whatever it is, it's part of the big point. And the big point of the Bible is one overarching story of God who reveals himself to be the lover of all people and who had a plan wherein by the greatest sacrifice imaginable and beyond our imagination, he would send his only son to come and do a redeeming work that would be so thorough that he would absolutely save us both from the consequences of our sins and to save us from the dominion of our sins so that we could have our fellowship with God restored forever and reign with him for all eternity. It's one big story. So every single thing in the Bible is pointing to that story.

It all points in one way or another. If you're reading Leviticus, it's part of that story. It's not the whole story. It's part of the story. If you're reading the book of Genesis chapter three, it's part of the story.

It will prefigure so much of the story, but it's not the whole story. And so what you have in the Bible really is a progressive revelation of who God is. And then he comes in the full revelation of himself in the person of Jesus. So in other words, all of the Bible is pointing to Jesus.

And when Jesus was walking with the disciples on the Emmaus road after the resurrection, and he began to explain the scriptures to them, it says he explained all the scriptures and how they concerned himself. See what a real Bible study is, is discovering, oh, this is where this story, this is where this exhortation, this is where this ethical implication, this is where this fits in to the whole big story. So when you read Ephesians five verse five or any of this stuff and you go, man, that sounds kind of tough.

Oh no, I might not have an inheritance. You have to look at it in the context of Ephesians itself and everything that Paul's been saying. And what he's been saying is that who you are in Christ, that this means that because of what Christ has done for you in chapter one, he just starts and said, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. And then he contrasts in chapter two, he contrasts the sons of disobedience who are those that walk in darkness. He says, you used to be like that, but he's saying, you're not like that anymore.

That's not who you are now. And what he's saying here again in Ephesians five is he's saying, you're not children of darkness. Those are in Christ, you're children of light. So when he is speaking of those who have no inheritance, he's referring here as he was in chapter two to the sons of disobedience, which are those that are apart from Christ. But you understand Ephesians itself in light of the whole big story of the redemption of God.

Let me see if I illustrate it this way. Imagine you're just reading a story like Cinderella, how silly it would be to choose out one part of the story and say, I'm going to study this part. And then you're going to decide what the story's about based on that. Like if you would read Cinderella and all you did was just read and study the part where Cinderella is dressed in rags and scrubbing the floors and she is persecuted by her stepsisters and stepmother. And if you were to say, well, what's Cinderella all about? If that's the story you read, that's the only part you saw, you say, well, this is a story about how rough life is, about how unfair treatment people receive.

And she had a good attitude and remained a hard worker even during such difficult times of persecution. And the motto therefore, or the moral of the story must be that you too should just keep a good attitude even when people are being cruel to you. That you would say that's what Cinderella is about. Well, that's not what Cinderella is about. That would be a huge mistake if you said that's what the story of Cinderella is about. Or you could just read towards the end of the story. You could read where the clock strikes midnight and she has to flee from the royal ball and her beautiful gown turns back to rags and the beautiful carriage chariot turns back to a pumpkin and you'd say, oh, what this story is about is you better watch out because the clock will strike and at some point it's all going to be taken away from you.

And so you better be ready because that day is coming. And that's not what the story is about. You'd miss the whole story if you only focused on that. If you say, well, what's Cinderella about? Well, Cinderella is a romance. Cinderella is a love story. Cinderella is about a prince who loves a woman. And it is about destiny. And it's about happily ever after that therefore makes sense of all the other adversities, right? It's that kind of story. It's a redemption story.

It's Cinderella. So each part of the story is important to it, right? So the part of the story of the gospel that is all about the law and the Old Testament is very important because the law was a good gift.

But the law was something that people never could keep. And so it's part of the story. It's a very important part of the story because what the law proved and the law still proves this is that we need a savior because nobody can keep the law. So read the Bible in context of the whole story. And that's what you want to do with Ephesians chapter five.

So you want to say, well, what is Paul referring to here? Because the whole nature of God is that God is a God who is merciful and slow to anger. And yet here he speaks of the wrath of God against the sons of disobedience.

And so you have to first start with the whole gospel is a story about the lengths that God went to in order to save people. And if you don't read that and keep that at the heart of everything that you know to be true, then you can misread other texts. So the first thing you'd want to not do is don't misread this text and say, well, God must be anger. No, God is love. In fact, the Bible says that God is slow to anger. This is who God is. He's slow to anger.

He hates all evil. He's slow to anger. You know anybody that's slow to anger? I've got a father-in-law who's slow to anger. My father-in-law, Graham Lynch, and I've been in the family over 30 years and I've only seen him get angry one time. And it was the only time I ever saw him get angry. He's out of town today is where I can tell stories like this. But the only time I ever saw him, it was like two weeks before our wedding.

And it should be such a joyful time. You know how a wedding starts getting really stressful and there was something going on. And the ladies were all talking about some nitpicking, what a flower arrangement was going to look like or something like that. And there was stress in the house. And I saw for one, it's only time in 30 years, I saw my father and I go, dad gummit, let's just get along about this or something like that.

That was it. It lasts about 10 seconds. In other words, he is slow to anger. If somebody is slow to anger, you know what that means?

You got to do something really, really bad for a long time before he gets angry. Listen, a lot of people protest and they say, well, how could God be angry about me? He's God and our sins, they seem so small. How could there be such a thing as people being separated from God for all eternity?

It seems like punishment is way too big for the smallness of our crime. Again, you must understand is in the context of the whole big story that God is perfect love and perfect holiness. And he made this world out of the overflow of his goodness.

Alan Wright and today's teaching. You're a child of the light from the series on Ephesians. Please stay with us. Alan is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word. How you see yourself determines how you live in an 11 message series. Pastor Alan Wright takes you on a thrilling journey through the letter to the Ephesians that will flood your soul with good news and empower you to discover who you are in Christ. When you make your donation to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll not only send you the digital downloads of the entire transformational Ephesians series, but we'll also send you a printable copy of Pastor Alan's booklet highlighting the most important scriptures about your identity in Christ. Make your gift today and discover a whole new way of seeing your life.

Isn't it time to finally find out who you really are? The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, we live in a world that we can clearly see there's darkness all around. There's immorality and there's a battle. We've talked about it even in this series before of good and evil, but we're a child of the light. Well, this is a tough text because Paul is not holding back here to speak about the severity of the sin of the world and how dark it is. You know, as I was chuckling in the introduction, I think we're going to cover, you know, five things in one message, how to read your Bible, the nature of the wrath of God, how wonderful God is, the difference in wisdom versus fear, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

So just like me, Daniel, I'll try to get all that in one message, but we'll have three radio days to cover it. But it is to say that you begin with this, understanding the Bible in the whole big context of a story of God's redemptive power. And we mustn't come to texts like this and read them out of their context. Because some people would lift this text out, Daniel, and say, oh, here's a list of the people that won't get into heaven. Well, that diminishes obviously the thoroughness of the cross of Jesus Christ. So there's a lot of reassurance here, but also there's no dancing around that we must understand God as a God of justice. Jesus wouldn't have come if we didn't have a God of justice because He took justice for us. So there's much reassurance here to be reminded of the God who is full of love and slow to anger. And this is not a text that leads us into thinking, oh, well, God is primarily angry at us. We're susceptible to that type of thinking. But there's richness in this text and we look forward to more in coming days. This good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.