Living in the Light

Now there you have the two key things in Christian living. Walk worthy and imitate God.

Those are kind of the heart of what he's saying. If you're going to walk worthy of your calling, you're going to have to walk in the way that God would walk. Welcome to Grace To You with John McArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. When you receive salvation, you are indeed saved from your sin, but you still have to live in a world drowning in unrighteousness, and Scripture calls you to be a light in the midst of that darkness.

The question is, how do you do that? John McArthur answers that today as he continues his current study on Grace To You, titled The Portrait of a New Life. Well, John, before the lesson today, and before our U.S. audience begins to scatter for celebrations with family and friends, this is Thanksgiving week, and what's your prayer as the Thanksgiving holiday comes our way? Well, again, I think even in the midst of the dire circumstances that have beleaguered all of us over the last couple of years in this country, we still have the ability and the command to rejoice. I've talked about that to more people I think in the last two years than prior. I know things are bad. I know things are tough.

I know it's hard on the kids. I know you're afraid of what they're learning in school. I know you're wondering what the future is going to be. The things that we thought would be stable in our world and in our nation are all crumbling around us, but you can't look at that.

You've got to lift your gaze. You've got to think on things that are heavenly. Set your affections on things above, and there's always so much to be thankful for because God is still on the throne. You know, like Isaiah in Isaiah 6, he found God still on the throne.

God is still there, and all his promises that are yes in Christ Jesus are still valid. He will supply all your needs. He will protect you. He will build his church. He will fulfill his glory. He will honor his word. This is a time, and it's going to be more challenging this Thanksgiving because so much stress, so much fear, so much anxiety gets on people's hearts that they find it harder to thank God when they should find it easier to thank God because that's the only place you can go for sanity and stability. So focus on the promises of God.

They will all be fulfilled. He'll care for you wherever you are in whatever circumstance, and you need to be thankful for that. Yes, and friend, if you're struggling to be thankful today, keep it here as John looks at the amazing blessings you have access to as God's child, blessings you should always be grateful for. And with that, here's John continuing his study on the portrait of a new life. Ephesians 5, verses 8 through 14. Let me read this text so that you'll have the setting and then let the Spirit of God speak to you as we share thoughts from it.

Ephesians 5, 8. For ye were once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord, 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 whatever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. The book of Ephesians presents to us the pattern for Christian living. The first three chapters who the Christian is, the last three how he lives, how he acts, how he functions. And Paul here in chapters 4, 5, and 6 gives us a clear, concise, and careful outline of how we are to behave as new creatures, how Christians are to live in the world.

And if we were to sum the thing up, we could probably sum it up in two great statements that are made. Chapter 4, verse 1 is the first one where he says, walk worthy. In other words, let your living balance off with your identity. If you're a new creature in Christ, then walk that way. And then in chapter 5, verse 1, he says, be followers of God or imitators of God. Now there you have the two key things in Christian living. Walk worthy and imitate God.

Those are kind of the heart of what he's saying. If you're going to walk worthy of your calling, you're going to have to walk in the way that God would walk. And of course the example is in verse 2 of chapter 5, walk in love as Christ loved us. Christ becomes our pattern. So we are to walk worthy and imitate God, which means we are to pattern our lives after Christ.

He walked worthy of who he was, and he is our pattern of God. So we are to be like Christ. It goes all the way back to that, all the way back to Romans chapter 8 where Paul says that the ultimate goal for the believer is to be conformed to the image of his Son. It goes back to 2 Corinthians 3 18, where as we gaze at the glory of the Lord, we are changed into his image. It goes back to 1 John 2 6, that he that says he abides in him ought to walk as he walked. It goes to the ultimate goal of 1 John 3 2, someday we shall be like him when we see him as he is. So we are to be Christ-like. That is the essence of walking worthy.

That is the essence of imitating God to be like Jesus Christ. If we are to imitate God, pattern our lives after Christ and walk worthy, then it says in verse 8, we must walk as children of light. We must walk as children of light. Now what does light mean?

What are we talking about? Very important. If we are to live in light, we have to know what light is. Let me tell you very simply, light is a symbol in the Bible and it is a symbol for two things, two aspects.

First of all, it is used from the intellectual side and secondly, it is used from the moral side. Intellectually, light refers to truth. Light refers to truth intellectually. Morally, light refers to holiness.

So it is the intake and the output. It is the truth and the life. Living in light then means living in truth and living in holiness, receiving the truth and living a holy life. On the contrast, darkness intellectually refers to ignorance and morally refers to evil. And you find this all throughout the Scripture. In some places, he talks about light, the writer of the Bible does, and he means intellectual knowledge, truth. In other places, he talks about light and he means moral behavior, holiness. Sometimes the Bible talks about darkness and it means their minds are darkened.

Remember back in chapter 4 of Ephesians. Other times, he talks about darkness and he means the deeds of darkness, moral evil. So light and darkness is a contrast both of truth and behavior.

Now let me give you just a brief illustration of this. In Proverbs, and we could never touch every Scripture because so many deal with it, but in Proverbs 6 23, you'll see what I mean. For the commandment is a lamp and the law is light. Now here it is truth that he's talking about, not talking about deeds, he's talking about truth. God's truth, God's Word is light. Intellectual truth, knowledge. In Psalm 119, 105, it says, Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

And that's the same idea. There you see light as truth, light from the intellectual side. Now you see it also in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and the Apostle Paul again is talking here about light and darkness.

He says, he's talking about lost people in verse 3 and then lost being the antecedent, he goes to verse 4, in whom, that is the lost people, in whom the God of this age has blinded the minds to the light of the glorious gospel. So light is knowledge. Darkness is being blinded to knowledge, blinded to the gospel.

Verse 6 says the same thing. God commanded the light to shine out of darkness. The light has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So light is knowledge. And darkness means ignorance, ignorance, lack of knowledge, no knowledge. We saw in Ephesians 4 where Paul says that the Gentile mind or the pagan mind, the unregenerate, unsaved mind is darkened, blinded. And in Romans 1 it says the same thing. Their foolish heart was darkened. So light intellectually means knowledge, darkness intellectually means ignorance, a lack of knowledge.

Morally you have behavior. Sometimes light and darkness speak of holiness and unholiness. For example, in Isaiah chapter 5, give you one illustration, verse 20.

This is a very graphic one. Woe unto them who call evil good and good evil. Boy, is that a sermon for today. Woe unto them who call good evil and evil good, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put the bitter for the sweet and the sweet for the bitter. And the point is he compares good and evil with light and darkness and he's talking about behavior. So sometimes the concept of darkness has to do with behavior.

In Romans chapter 13 we see a New Testament illustration of this. He says, the night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us therefore, watch this line, cast off the works of darkness. Where there is intellectual darkness there will be the works of that darkness.

The next verse says, wild parties, drunkenness, immorality, shamelessness, strife, and envy. So on the one hand you have the intellectual side of darkness, not knowing God or His truth, which results in a moral darkness doing the deeds of that darkness. On the other hand, light is knowing the truth and it results in living it out. Now as Christians people we walk in the light. Now let me make it clear, if you're a Christian you walk in the light.

Let me tell you why. Look at 1st John chapter 1 verse 5. It says this, this then is the message which we have heard of Him and declare unto you, here it comes, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Now God is light and in Him is no darkness. If you are a son of God you are a son of light and if you are a son of light there is in you no darkness at all. In other words, when you were redeemed you were fully redeemed.

There is no residual darkness. I do not believe that Christians walk in the darkness. Verse 7 of 1st John says it, if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we are having fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son is cleansing us from all sin.

Put the verse in reverse. If we are the ones whom the blood of Christ is cleansing from all sin, then we are the ones having fellowship one with another, then we are the ones walking in light. In other words, the ones being forgiven are the ones in the light and that's the whole point. As long as we are God's children, God is light, like produces like, God's children are light and Matthew 5 14 says it, ye are the light of the world. We are called sons of light repeatedly in the New Testament. In 1st Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 4, ye brethren are not in darkness. Verse 5, ye are all sons of light.

If God is light, He gives birth to us, we become light. Then says Jesus, we are the light of the world. We walk in the light, we are the ones having fellowship, we are the ones being cleansed.

The point is, this is a definition of a Christian. A Christian is somebody in the light. We don't walk in darkness. We have been translated Colossians 1 says, out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son, which is a kingdom of light, because He said, I am the light of the world, whosoever follow with me shall not walk in what? Darkness.

I don't think there's any middle ground. I think when you were saved, you were taken out of darkness into light. You say, well, what about when we sin? Well, when you sin, you do the deeds of darkness, but you do them in the light and they are manifest, right?

They are manifest. We are to walk. Verse Ephesians 5, 8, we are to walk as children of light. Listen, people, if we are the children of light, if we are the sons of light, if we are the sons of the day, if God is our Father and He is light, and then we are the light of the world, we are to live that way.

Do you see what he's saying? Boy, what a great thing. What a great thing. What a tremendous truth. We are the light of the world. I don't believe a Christian could walk in darkness.

I don't believe that. I don't think you can do the deeds of the darkness, but you're going to do them in broad light and God's going to know and everything's going to be exposed. Light and darkness are absolute opposites, just like conversion is an absolute opposite.

The ultimate contrast, light and darkness. And we live in a world that's so dark and so desperately in need of the light that we give. And so Paul says, walk as children of light. And God has called us in the world to be light, to show light in a dark world. And the only way we can be effective at it is to walk as children of light, not to fiddle around doing the deeds of darkness.

We have no part with that. Second Corinthians 6 says, what fellowship has light with what? With darkness. Christ with Belial.

What concord has God with idols? See, that's, we don't have anything to do with that. We're light. Light. Walk as children of light. That's when he goes on to say in that same passage, cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh, perfecting holiness and the fear of God. In other words, we are light. Let's live like light.

You know, it's unbelievable when a Christian sins, it's a relapse and he's doing the deeds of darkness. How stupid it is. Imagine it this way. Imagine there was a man, imagine yourself lost in a cave and you keep trying to find your way out, but you get deeper and deeper and the cave is a maze and a network of tunnels and so forth. And pretty soon you're down in the belly of the earth somewhere and you haven't the slightest idea where you are. You're scared. Your heart is pounding. Your eyes are wide open, but all you can see is an oppressive blackness that looks like it's liquid. And in the midst of that darkness, you grope for days and days pass into a week and a week begins into another week. And finally you're feeling the cold dirt walls and the frenzy is mounting and the fear is escalating and then way off somewhere there's a pinpoint of light. And you move toward the light and you grope lest you fall in a deeper pit. And finally the light begins to crack open and it becomes an exit and you charge out of there with the strength that's left and you're in the daylight and the sun is beaming down on you. And you know of freedom like no freedom you ever conceived possible before such a terrible plight. And then not long after you decide that there are several things in the cave that you enjoyed, so you wind your way back foolish, foolish. But that's essentially what a Christian does when he wants to do the deeds of darkness.

Makes no sense. Now Paul's going to tell us five things we need to know if we're to walk as children of light. Five things we need to know.

Very practical. Number one, the contrast. The contrast of children of light.

And it's very simple. Beautiful contrast. Verse eight. For ye were once darkness but now are ye light in the Lord walk as children of light.

That's not something extraordinary. We aren't shocked that he asked us to walk as children of light when he just said that's what we are. He's just saying be who you are.

And I've told you this before. The Christian life is simply becoming what you are. That's what it is. Living up to your identity. Being who you are.

So he says this is the contrast. You were that. You are this. Live like what you are. Not like what you were.

Very little different than Romans 6 16. You'll yield yourself servants to obey somebody then obey him. This is your identity then live it out. This is who you are then act like that.

Now notice in verse eight for a moment. You were once darkness. This is past tense people. This is in the past. You were now you are so live what you are. That's the that in fact could be stated as the thesis of the epistles of the New Testament. You were now you were now you are live what you are.

That's all he's saying. Now let me show you something comparing these two and giving you the contrast. Four characteristics of people who are darkness can be observed. Are you ready?

I'm gonna come by real quick. You were darkness. What were the characteristics of that life? Look at your past.

What did you used to be? What are four characteristics of the darkness of your past? Number one you did the work of Satan. It is true of people in the darkness that they do the deeds of darkness.

You did the works of Satan. Verse 11 talks about the unfruitful works of darkness. A person in darkness a person who is darkness does deeds that are darkness. That is they are ignorant and they are unholy. They show no knowledge of God and they show no life of God in the heart and the soul. So first of all they do the works of Satan. And by the way if you read John 8 44 that's exactly what Jesus says.

You do what you do because your father is who your father is. You are of your father the devil. So if you're in the darkness you do the deeds of the one whom Luke 22 53 calls the power of the darkness. Satan is called the power of the darkness. So when you function in the darkness you are empowered by Satan.

You do his deeds. You know it's hard for people to see this. It's hard for the average nice guy on the block to realize that he is empowered and energized by Satan.

People say well I mean he doesn't foam at the mouth and fall over and doesn't have seven demons rolling around and all this. No but you see it's all a matter of degree. It's the same Satan controlling the system. It's just that there's different ways to do it with different individuals.

Same problem. It's only a matter of degree. The same hell will be occupied by people who were Satan energized in gray flannel suits as it will be by witch doctors from Bula Bula land. You see it's only a matter of expression and so they do the works of Satan. People who are darkness function in the deeds of darkness. The unfruitful works of darkness. The work of Satan.

Secondly and this kind of builds on that. They are ruled by Satan. They are ruled by the prince of darkness.

They are literally dominated by him. It isn't just that they do his deeds being his children and by the way that's the whole point in the text here. If you're the child of Satan you will do the deeds of Satan. If you're a child of God you will do the deeds of God. They'd only do the things he wants but they literally are ruled and dominated by Satan. It's hard for people to realize that but you remember that in Colossians 1 it says that you were taken out of the kingdom of darkness. It's a kingdom. It has a hierarchy and it has a ruler and it's Satan and he's the one.

Call him the shots. People say oh you know I don't want to become a Christian. I'll give up my freedom. I'll give up my freedom. The freedom of running around in a cave in pitch blackness trying to find a way out. That's the only freedom and that's no freedom at all. That's no freedom at all.

You don't give up freedom to become a Christian. You're victimized by the rule of Satan. Without Jesus Christ Satan calls the shots in your life.

The kingdom of darkness is ruled by the king of darkness and he rules the life of those who are the darkness. Now let's look at it from God's side for the last two things. You do the works of Satan under the rule of Satan. Thirdly which means you come under the penalty of God. The penalty of wrath.

That's the third characteristic of one who is darkness. God's penalty of wrath comes upon him. In Romans chapter 1 the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. In other words the wrath of God is going to come on sin and it talks about verse 21 the people it's going to fall on are those whose foolish heart was darkened. Those who are the fools you see. Those who exchanged the truth for a lie. Those who didn't want to retain God and their knowledge and went over to ignorance and who did all kinds of evil things.

Those are the ones. In John chapter 12 verse 35 our Lord had just presented himself as the light and he said you better respond to the light while you have the light because a little while you won't have the light and darkness will come upon you and you won't know where to go. While you have the light he says in verse 36 of John 12 believe in the light that you may be the sons of light. He gave him a message but they didn't believe. It says in the next verse they believe not and then he said well then this is what Isaiah says he's blinded their eyes hardened their heart they should not see with their eyes or understand whether their heart be converted that I should heal them.

In other words where you say to yourself I will not believe God then says judicially you cannot believe. You come under divine judgment which finally leads to the fact that people who do the deeds of Satan under the dominion of Satan come under the wrath of God which forth and finally leads to an eternal place of darkness. That's the fourth characteristic of these people the ultimate end is darkness. Matthew 8 12 says they will be cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Well that's the story of the darkness they do the deeds of darkness under the dominion of the prince of darkness it results in coming under God's judgment on darkness which is an eternal hell which is outer darkness. You want darkness you can have it forever and we were once that we were once that but look at verse eight now we're light you see now this is the point he's making this tremendous contrast and by the way this is germane to his whole thought here he is trying to show you the absolute contrast that's why he picks light and darkness they are the absolute opposites we were that but now we're light and there's a big difference we don't do the works of Satan we do the works of God right we are his workmanship created by Christ Jesus unto good works we are not under the rule of Satan we are under the lordship of Jesus Christ we are not under God's wrath we are under the promise of being participants in the kingdom of light we will not go into a place of darkness we will go to a place of light and the Bible says there is no lamp there for the lamb is the light of it see the the history is absolutely opposite those who are darkness do the works of Satan under the power of Satan fall under the judgment of God and end up in eternal darkness those who are the light do the deeds of light under the prince of light the lord Jesus Christ and they become inheritors of the kingdom of light and finally an eternal heaven of light see the difference he's showing you how opposite these are and he's saying look if you're a Christian beloved and you're here you're here in the kingdom of light then live as a child of light you see the point what would you have to do with that whole dominion over there well that realm is gone it's passed it's over so live like children of light not children of wrath not children of disobedience not children of the devil that's John Mcarthur chancellor of the masters university and seminary continuing his current study on grace to you titled the portrait of a new life now before we go a quick reminder that we really want and need to hear from you your notes help us know that we're hitting the mark with the programs we put on the radio the teaching resources we put online really everything we do if grace to you has made a difference in your life let us know will you jot us a note when you have a moment our email address is letters at gty.org that's letters at gty.org and when you write let us know the radio station you're hearing us on that's also helpful anytime you get in touch with us our email address again letters at gty.org or you can reach us by regular mail at grace to you box 4000 panorama city california 91412 and if i could make one more request if you're able to let the people at this radio station know that you tune in for grace to you that would be a big encouragement a lot of people will listen to christian radio but not everyone takes time to call or email their station to say thanks for airing bible teaching programs like grace to you so get this station's phone number or email address find their website and thank them for airing grace to you and other programs that have encouraged you now for john macarthur and the grace to you staff i'm phil johnson join us tomorrow when john looks at the desires goals and ambitions that indicate you're walking with christ don't miss the next 30 minutes of unleashing god's truth one verse at a time on grace to you