Good morning. Ephesians chapter 5 and we'll be looking primarily at verses 9 and 10 here. So we're running a bit late this morning due to some complications with the weather. So it's pretty white outside there. Anyway, all right, hopefully the power won't go out in the middle of things. Let's pray and then we'll read as a refresher here a bit from Ephesians 5 and then move in for a closer look. Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. We pray that You would strengthen us now with your word, by your spirit, that we might live better to your glory. We pray that you would increase our love for you and strengthen our faith. And we pray this all in Christ's name. Amen. All right, here we are, yes, Ephesians 5, and this is a chapter on living in Christ, walking in Christ, walk in love, be imitators of God as beloved children, walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Then the negative, you might say, that is, but sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among the saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead, let there be thanksgiving. As I read these, you're probably thinking some of the same things I am, We could go back again and look at verses three and four, right? This stuff must not even be named among us, and yet what are we seeing so often in local churches today? It's like, hey, you know, we're all sinners, and nobody's perfect, and so everybody's welcome. Y'all come in. Yeah, anyway, all right, verse 5, 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. Okay, don't be deceived, that command obviously implies that There is danger of deception and many, many people are deceived today that think that they're Christians when in fact they have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. As he says, they've been deceived with empty words. 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. And then we come to our two verses here. 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. All right, well, here, as we mentioned I think last time, there's parentheses here at verse nine. because Paul is explaining what it means to walk as children of light. He's kind of showing us what the light looks like. Walk as children of light. Well, what does that light look like? Well, it evidences itself like a good tree that produces good fruit. In this case, the fruit is goodness and righteousness and truth, which we want to look at a little bit more. So let's look at verse nine here. For the fruit of light is found in all, in everything that is good and right, And true, this is the characteristic of the Christian's life. We are light now. We were darkness. That used to be our defining being. That was the essence of who we were. Darkness. The kingdom of darkness. Blindness. Deception. Wickedness. You can flip this stuff around right here. The fruit of darkness is found in all that is not good, right, evil, unrighteous, and lies, right, falsehood. That's where we used to live, but that's not who we are anymore. We're light. And so Paul is describing what a life lived in the light looks like because there is this danger of deception, right? He just said, let no one deceive you. Apparently, there was, even back then, in Paul's day, there was this deceiving false teachers and so on, who were saying, well, you know, it doesn't matter how you live, whatever. No, everything is just fine. But Paul says, that's a lie. Don't be deceived. If you have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, it means that you are light now in the Lord. In other words, you've been born again. You are a new creation. And I was thinking about that last week some more. I think I mentioned it last Sunday's sermon. What people, professing Christians, seem to think is a fundamental doctrine that, oh yeah, sure, everybody believes this, you must be born again, all right? But in practice, I'm seeing that that is being denied. People don't believe you have to be born again. They must be redefining it somehow. Because, think about it, there's nothing more radical than that. Jesus couldn't have used more radical terms. To be born again, only this time as light, not as darkness. It's to become a new creation, a brand new person. And so anyone that comes along and says, oh yeah, you can be a Christian and so forth, and still, basically what they're saying is, still be darkness, right? He says, no, no, no, no. Let no one deceive you. Those are empty words. They will vaporize. They have no reality, all right? Here's the truth. Listen to the truth. Because of these things, this darkness, the wrath of God comes upon. And he says, people who live in the darkness are sons of disobedience. And what that figure of speech means is they are birthed to disobedience. Their nature is to disobey. God. And that's what all of this stuff is. Sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, and so on. That stuff is darkness. It's the fruit seen in the life of a son of disobedience, alright? The wrath of God, condemnation of God. is upon such a person, so don't be partners with them. Now, think that through. If you've got people, now let me back up again. Paul's talking about liars, deceivers, and people that have bought into these deceptions. That you can live however, doesn't matter, you're still a Christian. He's addressing people, where are these deceivers to be found? Well, they're to be found in the church. That's who he's talking to, the Ephesian church here, And he says, don't listen to him. So what kind of a person would it be who comes along with these deceptions and says, well, it doesn't matter how you live. And so what kind of a person would that be? Well, it'd be a person that claims to be a Christian and has embraced this heresy, this false teaching. And Paul says, verse 7, powerful little statement, therefore, do not become partners with them. Think that through. If a person claims to be a Christian, but they're walking in darkness, they're walking in sin, then That means they're among people in the church. They're in the local church, all right? Paul says, don't let them be there. Don't become partners with them. Those kind of people. Now you understand here, we're not talking about a person who's dead in their sins, but they've come to your church, the Lord's drawing them for whatever reason, but they're coming with a genuine motive to find out more about the Lord, all right? To hear what's going on here, what is this about? Okay, that kind of a person is welcome, right? Now, And we're not talking about people who are imperfect, right? That would be us. We're not talking about people who, you know, who sinned a sin, right? But they recognize it's a sin and they repent of it. No, these are people who are living a lie. They're claiming to be Christians, But they're walking in sin. They're in the darkness. And that kind of a person, Paul says, don't become partners with them. Don't become partners. Obviously, that kind of a person is not to be allowed to continue in the church. They're not repenting. That kind of a person is not permitted to be there. It's the same thing he says to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 5. You got some so-called brother, that is somebody that claims to be a Christian, right? They claim it, but they're walking in sin, characterized by it, and they're not repenting about it. And Paul says, don't even eat with such a one. Put that kind of a person out of the church. But what we've got going now, nowadays, in so many churches is this idea, everybody's welcome. You know, just read the church sign, right? Everybody's welcome here. And you all come in and, hey, nobody's perfect. This place is a hospital for people that are sin sick. Well, yeah, but even in a hospital, they're looking for a cure. They expect a change. They expect you to get well, right? But that's not what so often we're seeing here. So, All right, so that's a powerful verse. Don't become partners with them. I should look at that just a second here. That's verse 7 5 7 here 5 7 therefore do not be of them I Was thinking it would be a little bit different word than that, but Okay, I should look that up just a second here and we will see take a little closer look at that Word it might be kind of interesting here. Let's see Ephesians 5 7 Okay. Just a second here. Well, maybe this is an opportunity to show you another little tool here that you can get here with eSword, this software here. Remember, it's free. If I were to go to the New American Standard with the plus, okay, this is a New American Standard Bible, and like the top where my little cursor is there, see it says NAS 95, version 95 of the New American Standard Bible plus. Well, the plus means that it has these numbers in it, okay? These numbers, If you went to Bible college 40 years ago, 50 years ago, whatever, you'd know what I mean when I say Strong's numbers. But there was a numbering system. This guy named Augustus Strong, he assigned a number to every word in the Bible. And it was like a numbering system so that people who didn't know Greek and Hebrew could still look up the Greek or Hebrew word behind it. And that's what these numbers help us do. Here in this case, it's a G, so it's Greek, all right. But obviously, since it's in the New Testament. But let's examine our verse seven here. Okay. So, partakers right here. Therefore, do not be partakers with them. And if I just highlight the number here, all right, get back there. There we go. See, at the top there, it tells me what the Greek word is. And then it kind of transliterates it with English letters so you can pronounce it. Summatikos. Summatikos. All right. And it means, you know, sometimes the definitions all shed a little bit of light on it, give you some synonyms and so forth. This one's not real earth shattering, but a co-participant, a partaker. OK. And then it gives you a little bit of the origins of the word so that you can look at it a little bit more. But that's just another one of the benefits that you can get from this. And you can do the same thing with Hebrew when you're looking up a verse in the Old Testament. I can look it up in my dictionary here, just a second here. And... The real expensive Bible software that they have nowadays that you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on, you know, it has all this stuff laid out in even more detail, but we don't need to, we don't need to get into that. Sumet. We're almost there here. Sumet. Oh, there it is. Okay. Sumetikos. All right. Let's see what this says here. Having a share with another in some possession or relationship. Casting in one's lot with them, okay? So this is, like I said, this is just not a real earth-shaking light shed on the meaning of that word. Partakers kind of gets it for you then anyway, but nevertheless, Don't cast your lot in with them, right? Don't hang out with them. Don't share, don't become a sharer, a partaker in the lies, in their sin, and in the lies that they are trying to spread in the church, right? Don't do that. So, verse seven is, you know, that's a, that's like a whole sermon series on that one verse, right? Don't be partakers with them. If you are allowing people who are walking in sin habitually, that's who they are, they're unrepentant, but they claim to be Christians, okay, if you're allowing them to regularly fellowship in your church or even to become a member of the church, right, you are partaking of their sin, of their deception. You're throwing your lot in with them. And that rotten apple is going to spoil the whole bunch. See? So don't be partakers with them. Don't... Well, yeah, but you know, if we... Here's another way that that's often... That mistake is often made. Youth groups, okay? Well y'all, let's bring in all the young people that are, so many of them still just walking in sin, let's get them all together and have outings and somehow some good will come out of this. No, don't be partakers with them. So food for thought, right? Okay, well, we'll go back to our ESV here then. And don't be deceived with empty words. Don't become partakers, partners with them. A partner in evil. If you do, then their evil becomes your evil. You become culpable then with it too. Okay. For at one time you were darkness, that's not who you are anymore. Now, verse nine. For the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. Lloyd-Jones gave a good illustration of this. He said, it's like what Paul is doing here in verse nine, is he's passing the light that he's talking about through a prism so that you know how those little triangular shaped glass things, a prism, and you put light through it and out the other side it breaks it into the spectrum of the different colors. He said that's kind of like what Paul's doing. He's shining the light of righteousness through a kind of prism, and he breaks it up, and he breaks it up into three wavelengths, right? Goodness, righteousness, and truth, okay? So he's just telling us, let me show you what will be characteristic of a person who is light. In other words, of a genuine Christian. And this fruit is found. You will find it there, you see, goodness, righteousness, and truth. Now it's easy to think that, to blast on by that and say, okay, yeah, right, goodness, righteousness, and truth, without really stopping and thinking carefully about it. The fruit of light is found in all that is good, okay? What is good? What is goodness? What is good? Jesus told that one guy, remember he said, why do you call me good? Only God is good. So goodness is an attribute of God. God is good. We find that frequently in scripture. The goodness of God. Now what does that mean? Well, here's a description. Lloyd-Jones here, Darkness and Light, exposition on chapter 5 here, published by Banner of Truth. Check this out. This is good. Therefore, as he looks out upon his fellow men and women, He, that is, someone who's truly good, a Christian who therefore is light and therefore is characterized by the fruit of goodness, what does he do? Well, he's concerned, in turn, to alleviate suffering. to mitigate wrong. He's always looking for opportunities to do this, and his heart is full of what's called benevolence, okay, that little prefix. Bene, that means good, and benevolence, volence, that's from volition, your will. It's goodwill. He, Chris, has goodwill toward others. He's concerned about benefiting others. It's a complete contrast, therefore, to the unfruitful works of darkness, which are of no benefit to anybody. The sinner is no benefactor. He's a male factor, I guess you'd call it. That mal means ill. He has an ill will toward others, not a good will. He's purely selfish. He's out to satisfy and gratify his own lusts and desires. His attitude is, I want this, and because I want it, I must have it. He may cause intense suffering to others, but it doesn't count with him at all. So says the apostle, the first thing that you see as you hold up this prism to the light is that the man who is light is full of goodness. This thing that goes out to others and is concerned about helping them and improving their lot. Goodness, right? seeking even opportunities to do good than for others. And with the motive of what? And we're gonna get into that in a moment here. So, well, I know lots of people, or some people anyway, who aren't Christians, but they're good people. Well, we're gonna see, hmm, not so. The goodness that Paul is talking about here is what? What's its goal? Its goal is for the glory of God. It is to love God and love others. Its motive, it doesn't expect anything in return. The moral man, the good man who's not a Christian, He is always motivated by self, alright? It always is. And getting something out of it. But that's what goodness is. And to be good to all. To reflect that characteristic of God. You know, people are taken aback by the goodness of God when it's exercised toward them through a child of God, through a Christian. You know, they are shocked, maybe, or like I said, taken aback. They can even become a little bit suspicious. I don't know if you ever had that happen to you before, but you exercise this goodness. You don't want anything out of it. You have a goodwill toward them. Goodwill toward them. And if you see a need, in someone that you can meet that need, then you go for it simply because you're light. It's your nature. And that kind of thing has far more impact than just words. The fruit of light is found in all that is good and right. Righteousness, let's talk about that. Righteousness has to do with the law, with law, right? Even in according to man's law. If I obey the law, I'm doing what is right. If I don't obey the law, I'm doing what is wrong. And so, righteousness is conforming, it is conformity to law, specifically, in this case, God's law. And so, Paul is saying that righteousness, doing what is right, ultimately in God's eyes, is characteristic of the Christian, not unrighteousness. One chief characteristic of the sinner is lawlessness. It can even be of man's law, but also ultimately of God's law. The sinner is hostile toward God's law. He can't obey God's law. He doesn't want to obey God's law. And so, he is unrighteous. That's the fruit of darkness, lawlessness, lawlessness. You know, I know, I've known people who claim to be Christians, but their life is characterized by lawlessness, right? In fact, they kind of take delight in breaking the law. And you don't have to be like a absolute criminal criminal to do that, to be guilty of this kind of a thing. This is like the kind of person who delights in in breaking the rules and getting away with it. And they delight in that. Well, that's a fruit, that is a fruit of darkness. And so this idea of lawlessness, when you see a pattern of lawlessness in a person, you can be sure that that person is not a Christian. Because lawlessness is not a fruit, then, of the light. It's the man of sin, 2 Thessalonians 2, the Antichrist. When he comes, he's also called the man of what? Lawlessness. Lawlessness is sin. And so people, I don't care. I don't care if they're church members, I don't care if they're experts on the content of the Bible and so forth. If their life is characterized by lawlessness and law-breaking, they walk in it, they're not a Christian. They are in the darkness. Here's a quote in this subject from Lloyd-Jones here. We can think of righteousness in terms of the Ten Commandments. For instance, what we're told about not coveting things that belong to our neighbor, for instance. If we're doing what is right in God's sight, we will not lust for our neighbor's possessions and so on. A Christian wants to know what's right, what's just and equitable, and what's really fair to his fellow man. In other words, he loves his neighbor as himself by doing what is right toward his neighbor. A common characteristic of the non-Christian life is lawlessness. Every man for himself. with no thought of caring about other people's rights." Okay, then just no thought of it whatsoever. I will do what I am going to do. And I've known people like that. I've known people like that, that claim to be Christians, but they delight in breaking the law. I was talking to a young man once that I'd known for some while. And anyway, I think his father taught him lawlessness. But at any rate, we were, let's see, I was talking about hunting and fishing and so forth with him. and I asked him where he usually went what spot he goes to to fish and so on around here and he was he was telling me and and then he just happened to interject this he said uh yeah you know I don't I don't I never buy a fishing license I don't I don't do that I don't you don't need that stuff I just don't I don't buy I don't buy a fishing license Well, there's a young man that's in trouble right away. He's got this attitude of lawlessness then within him. Well, the third little wavelength here in the prism, goodness, righteousness, and truth. Truth is characteristic of the light of a Christian. And so, you know, the earlier here, down in verse 12, I guess it'll be, for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret." Okay? In secret. These are the hidden things of darkness. In other words, hypocrisy. Things are hidden. Oftentimes, evil is done in the darkness, right? And not in Not in the light. But the truth, a person's life that's characterized by truth. is a life that, what's evidence in it? There's no deceit. It's the genuine article. The person is not a hypocrite. He's not wearing a mask. And it is a life that's lived according to the truth of God's word. and is not taken in by the deceptive lies, then, of the enemy. So here's another good paragraph here. Light exposes everything. And that's the effect of truth within the personality. The Christian is an open man. who has nothing to conceal or to hide. He doesn't pretend to be something that he's not. He is what he is by the grace of God. Very different from that other type of man whose whole life is lived in deceit. The non-Christian trusts nobody and nobody trusts him. You can't believe him. You never know when he's speaking the truth. So, and it'd probably be pretty shocking if we knew how many people who profess to be Christians on Sunday if they do go to church and walk in and they're wearing a mask, right? They're not walking in the truth. They're deceiving. They are deceived and they are deceiving. What they're claiming to be is a lie. That's not then who they are. I remember a friend of mine once, quite a few years ago, worked for a guy that was a member of our church. And one day I took this friend of mine fishing. We went fishing in my boat. And while we were out there fishing, he said, you know, Pastor, there are two, and he named this guy. In that guy, there's two people. And there's the guy that you see at church. But then there's the guy that I see when I work, in the workplace, completely different person, you see. Well, that's darkness. In other words, that guy that at that time, no longer, but was a member of our church, claimed to be a Christian. He's walking in darkness, and his life is a lie. He's a hypocrite, and his life, then, is a lie. Now, we mentioned earlier that someone might say, and this is a good observation, it's Well, yeah, but I know, you know, aren't there some people who are not Christians, they don't believe in Christ, they don't even pretend to be, maybe even religious, but you know, they're good, they do good for others and they, you know, They obey the law. They seem to be righteous in that sense. And they seem to be genuine, authentic, and true. I don't think they're faking it. So what's the difference? Obviously there is a difference. That's what Paul's whole point is. So what's the difference between the so-called good man, and the Christian, what is the difference? And the answer is verse 10. And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. See, there it is. There's the difference. The pagan, the unsaved man, the non-Christian, he might do these things, right, and be these things, but he's not doing it to please the Lord. Why is he doing it? Well, there's all kinds of motives, aren't there? There's all kinds of motives for doing a good thing for somebody else, or for obeying the law, or for not being a hypocrite, and so on, right? There's all kinds of motives, selfish motives. It's like, well, I want to have a good reputation. or I don't want to suffer the consequences of breaking the law. If I could get away with it, I would, but I'm going to keep the law because I don't want to go to jail, right? And I abide by things that are true. I don't buy into all this garbage in the world that we're being bombarded with and so on, yeah. And I don't lie, I speak what I'm thinking and so on, yes. But you don't do it to please the Lord. Westminster Shorter Catechism, what is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to what? Glorify God. and enjoy him forever. The good man, the good pagan, does not live his life to glorify God. He doesn't, he doesn't, he's not concerned to do what is pleasing to the Lord. He doesn't spend time, he has no use for the Bible or going to church to hear God's Word preached. He doesn't care. So in other words, he really is his own standard of goodness and righteousness and truth. He's not doing it to please the Lord. close on this here with this couple of paragraphs here from Lloyd-Jones because he lays it out really well. The great characteristic of the life and conduct of the Christian is that he sets himself to discover what it is that really pleases the Lord. That's what he wants to do. That's his grand and ultimate motive. This is all important and we must emphasize it in a very special manner For in looking at conduct and behavior, we need not only to differentiate between the Christian and the flagrant obvious sinner, but we need to differentiate also between the Christian and the so-called good moral man, the good pagan, if you like. Verse 10 supplies the ultimate acid test. When you look at the lives of the two men, you can't easily see much difference between them. They both seem to be good men, righteous men, men who are characterized by truth. And yet one of them is a Christian and the other is not. So how are we to discern the truth concerning them? I know of no better test than the one supplied in Ephesians 5.10, right? Here is something that's true only of the Christian, never of anybody else. It is the characteristic of the Christian that he's always proving, trying to discern what is acceptable to the Lord. Let me explain. Here's a man who's not concerned about and interested in goodness, righteousness, and truth in and of themselves. He's not interested in them as abstract values, nor as abstract absolutes that govern his conduct. On the other hand, that's the Christian. On the other hand, non-Christians may be interested in these things in and of themselves. I believe in goodness. I believe in righteousness and justice. I believe in truth and in truthfulness, says the good pagan. He sets them up as his code, and he lives according to it. Let's grant him everything that he claims. He may succeed very well. But all I'm saying is this. that if this is all he's able to tell me, I will tell him he is not a Christian. All this is is just excellent paganism. But the Christian is not just interested in goodness, righteousness, and truth as abstract principles. He's interested in them because he knows that they are pleasing to the Lord. Again, the Christian, unlike the good moral man or the good religious man who's not a Christian, is not living this kind of life in order to please himself or to live up to his own standard or code. There's many men that do that. It's not part of my business to criticize them, but it is very much my business to show them they're not Christians. It's one of the most subtle points we can ever encounter. There are men who say, well now, I believe in having a standard. I believe in having a code. And I'm going to do my utmost to live up to that code. I will even be unhappy unless I succeed at it. But the man is doing it to please himself. He's doing it in order to live up to his own standard. He says, a man's got to live with himself. I would lose my self-respect if I didn't do this. I would be ashamed of myself if I did not. I am not content to live just any way. I believe in living up to that mark and that standard. And yet, the whole time, his motive is to please himself and to conform to his own standard and his own code. This is very different from the Christian's ambition to prove and test always what is pleasing then to the Lord. And he goes on, you know, some people that are not Christians, you know, well, okay, they'll live up to this code they set for themselves, goodness, righteousness, and truth. because of what other people will think, and they want to have this reputation, and so forth, you see. But the Christian is not... These things are not born as fruit in the Christian's life, goodness, righteousness, and truth. Even just because, well, I see the Sermon on the Mount, and it's a standard that Jesus set. So I am going to live up then to that standard. That's the code. But no. We do it because we love the Lord, and because we're light, because we've been born again, and we desire to learn what is pleasing to the Lord, and then obey Him, because we love Him, and because He first loved us. So one final little statement here. We must be absolutely clear about this. The thing that proves whether we're Christians or not is that over and above everything else, our ultimate and final consideration is our desire to seek and to know and to discover the will of the Lord in order that we may please Him. It is this personal relationship to this personal, to this personal, to this blessed person, the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. So the Christian does this because it's who he is and it's because his desire is to always be then pleasing to the Lord. I am afraid and I'm certain there's going to be many people on the day when Christ comes, when they stand before the Lord, and they just are so confident because they've lived such a good and righteous and truthful life and so on, according to their code. And, you know, maybe they even work to obey the code that they misinterpret the Sermon on the Mount. and make it into a code that they can do themselves. At any rate, they're gonna stand before the Lord, and they'll be the kind that say, Lord, Lord, look at this. Hey, we're here, you know, all this, anything. You should be privileged. Go ahead and give us kudos here. Depart from me, I never knew you. Why? They didn't love the Lord. They weren't light. They weren't born again. They didn't do it to please the Lord. They did it to please themselves for what they would get out of it then, you see. So you see the importance of these verses and particularly here verse 10. how, what a tool it is to examine ourselves and to see whether we be in the faith. So, Father, we thank you for these truths. We pray, Father, that each one of us would, well, that your light would shine in us. And that our desire to please you would grow stronger and stronger as our love for you grows stronger. And we pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen.