Back in the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter five, if you have a copy of the scriptures, I invite you to turn there with me. Ephesians chapter five, we're beginning in verse eight, going down through verse 14. Again, we are continuing on in that section of Paul's epistle, when he gives practical advice and practical exhortations and imperatives on how Christians are to live. Hear now the word of God, Ephesians chapter 5, beginning in verse 8. 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. Thus far, the reading of God's word. May he bless it. As Paul continues to exhort the Christians in Ephesus, as we said a minute ago, he's in this practical section of the epistle. He's exhorting the Christians in Ephesus to walk worthy of the calling with which they were called. We saw that in chapter 4, verse 1. He now moves from its manifestation of how they are to walk worthy of this calling with which they were called, its manifestation in the church, which we saw in verses 1 through 7, to its manifestation in the world and how they relate to the world around them. God's dear children, verse 1, are to walk in love, verse 2, as Christ walked. And how did he walk? He offered himself to God on their behalf as a sacrifice to God. The result is that their lives will no longer be marked by those things which mark the lives of those who have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God, verse 5. That is, they will no longer walk as do the sons of disobedience, verse 6. Their lives are not to be marked by ignorance, not to be marked by darkness, deception, fornication, foolishness, idolatry, wrath, or covetousness. They are children of God. These things are not fitting for saints. As God's dear children, their lives should be marked by those things that are fitting for saints. Namely, the giving of thanks is fitting for saints. Their lives are lived in imitation of Christ Jesus, their Lord and Savior. Therefore, they too are to live as living sacrifices unto God. We talked about that last week, looking at Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. That is, they are to be lived in gratitude to God for His grace. We don't live as Christians in order to earn God's grace, but we live in gratitude. We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works because of the grace that God has given us. Christians, therefore, do not partake with unbelievers in their sinful lives, verse 7, but come out from them, and they live holy lives unto God through Jesus Christ. That's the meaning of saints, to be set apart, to have been brought out and set apart for a specific purpose, namely godliness and living unto God. Life as the church means life lived as God's dear children. Lives lived set apart unto God, filled with gratitude to God and love for one another. In verses 8 through 14, Paul shows how they are to live in the unbelieving world. In the church, they are God's dear children who walk in love. In the world, they are to walk as children of light, verse 8. This is because Jesus is himself the light of the world, as he says in John 8, 12. And in him, they also are light, verse 8. Living by the power of Christ's Spirit in them means that they will have the fruit of light. They will have the fruit of the Spirit, in verse 9. In contrast to the unbelievers around them, Christians are to walk in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. They're to walk, in other words, acceptably before the Lord, verses 9 and 10. the Christian's relationship to the world is one of separation from the ungodly deeds. But as children of light, their fruitful lives also expose the unfruitful works of darkness that are committed by the unbelievers around them. That's the kind of contrast that a Christian life is. It's contrasted with the life of unbelievers around them in so much that it actually exposes the sin around them. Although what unbelievers practice in darkness is too shameful to even speak about, Paul says, when the lives of Christians shine as bright lights around them, their wicked deeds are exposed. They are revealed and they are rebuked. That's the very nature of light. It exposes and it rebukes darkness, verse 13. This light not only comes as judgment, but I think it also comes as salvation through judgment. It transforms darkness into light. As the light of Christ shines through the lives of God's children, the deeds of darkness, which are practiced by unbelievers, are exposed by their good living. By it, they too will be transformed into light. For as the ESV actually renders verse 13, anything that becomes visible is light. They take this in a passive sense, which we will talk about when we get to that verse. Christians walk as children of light in the midst of darkness, in the midst of rebellion, in the midst of the rest of the Gentiles, for the Ephesians here, but even for us, we walk in the midst of ungodly people. And as the light of their good lives shines forth, as Christ shines forth in and through us, people will praise their Father who is in heaven. In other words, as verse 14, Paul says, Christ will say to them, awake you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. God's children, as children of light, are not only to expose, not only to rebuke the dark world around them, but we are actually given the commission to transform it, to teach them all that God, that Christ has taught us, to make disciples of the nations. Let's walk through this verse by verse. In verse eight, we read, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. We've seen this all throughout the epistle to the Ephesians, and we see it again. We see gospel grammar once again. Before gospel imperatives, here's what you must do, first comes gospel indicatives. Here's what Christ has done. Christians were not only once surrounded by darkness, that's true, and it's true of us now at this stage, And by darkness, we can define it as all that is consistent with unregenerate, ungodliness, uncleanness, unrighteousness, all that's opposed to the light, which is all of God's righteousness and goodness and truth. So, Christians were not only once surrounded by darkness, as we even are now, they not only walked in darkness, as Paul said in chapter two, he actually says here that they were darkness. That's the depth that we were at at one point as Christians. Darkness was in the Ephesians and they were in it. They were opposed to all that accords with godliness. As we read in chapter two, verses one through three, they walked according to the course of this world, according to the prints of the power of the air. As sons of disobedience, they conducted themselves, they lived in the lusts of their flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the others. The apostles set the standard for our preaching, for our teaching, and for our thinking as Christians. That means that we should never grow tired of contemplating the wonderful work of God's grace, what he has done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. But this also, it must include considering the awful state that we were once in by nature, in Adam, in our sin, in the old man, we were dead. Now, this should never be morbid and introspective. It should never be done in that fashion, contemplating what we once were apart from Christ. Rather, it should be doxological, as Paul makes it in chapter 2, verses 4 through 6. After saying that they all once walked, and he too once walked, according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the Power of the Air, he says, But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So biblical preaching, Christian preaching and teaching and thinking should have an emphasis on our sinful state apart from Christ, who we once were. But it always must be going towards doxology, seeing Christ and the great work that has been done for us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Yes, it's true, Christians were once darkness, Paul says, but now, just like that but God in chapter 2 verse 4, but now they are made light in the Lord. We are made light in the Lord. And I think Lord here certainly refers to Jesus Christ himself. Union with Christ is union with light. It's union with godliness, being in Christ. We are in Christ, and therefore we are in the light. We are light in Jesus. They were once darkness outside of Jesus, but now, in Jesus, they are light. That's the contrast. That's what we've been brought out of, that darkness, into God's marvelous light. The Apostle Paul had been given a divine commission by the risen Christ, sent to the unbelieving Gentiles in Acts 26, verse 18. He summits that commission that the Lord gave him to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God. That's the commission of the Apostle Paul that he has given. It's a commission of the church of Jesus Christ today. Being darkness means being sons of disobedience. It means being followers or captives to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. This is who the Ephesian Christians were, and Paul wants to remind them of that. But it's who they were, past tense, just like it's who we once were as Christians, past tense. But now, by grace, through faith, by union with Jesus Christ, he says that they are light in the Lord. As Peter says in 1 Peter 2, 9, Christians are called out of darkness into Christ's marvelous light. So therefore, as inhabitants of the light, as those who are called out of bondage to the old ways, to the old man, the life of the old man, the life of sin and death and darkness into Christ, we are to put on the new man who is created after the image of God and true righteousness and holiness. We are to put on Jesus Christ. He is our identity. He is who we are to be in and are brought into by grace through faith. Christians, as we said last week, have entered into an entirely different identity, an entirely different life, a new life and a new identity in Christ. At one time, they were like all those who are unrighteous, all those who are ungodly. They were as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners. But the key part here to understand is that this is who they were. But, as he continues, they were washed, but they were sanctified, but they were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6, 9-11. Now the Ephesian believers are light in the Lord. Now we too are light in the Lord. Regardless of who we once were, this is now our identity. Light is all that remains as far as identity goes. Christ is all that remains as far as identity goes. Yes, there are still many struggles, there are still many outbreaks of sin, there are still many temptations of the flesh which remain in us and must be put to death by the Spirit, but this is not who they are, this is not who we are as God's dear children. As such, as God's dear children, we are children of light. And that means that we must therefore walk in accordance with this new identity. That's what Paul's doing here. He's calling them to walk in accordance with their new identity, with this new reality. There can be no fellowship. There can be no communion between light and darkness, 2 Corinthians 6.14. As we said last week, and I think it's important to stress again, and a helpful way of thinking about sin, when Christians sin, when they walk in darkness, when they give themselves over to uncleanness, they are living a contradiction to who they truly are in Christ Jesus. It doesn't mean that they have no sin. 1 John tells us that if we say we have no sin, we make God a liar. We must confess our sin. Our sin is there. We do struggle. But it's not who we are. We're walking in contradiction to our new identity in Christ when we sin. The light which is in Christians is not their own. That's the important part as well. It's not something we foster or try to light. It's Christ's light in us. And slowly but surely, his light is pushing out and incinerating all that is darkness until the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father, Jesus says in Matthew 13, 43. So this is the truth of the Christian life. We are saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved. We are sanctified, we have been sanctified in Christ, we're being sanctified, and we shall be sanctified fully and totally on the last day. Therefore we must walk, not in the ways of the flesh and of the darkness, but in the ways of light and life and truth in Christ. Christians are children of light because they have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit of God. They've been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son, as Paul says in Colossians 1.13. We've been translated from the kingdom, the power of darkness, into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Sons in the Son. God's children in God's child, Jesus. Although sin remains in us, it's still true, as 1 John says, the darkness is past and the true light now shines. 1 John 2.8. This is who we are as Christians. Paul calls us to walk accordingly. So when we have temptations of the flesh, when we have sinful thoughts, when we have temptations that come against us from Satan, and the world. We must remember this is not who I am as a Christian. I'm to walk in the light because I am a child of light. All that is old has been put away, has been removed. I've put off the old man. I've put on the new man. Let's look at verse 9, a kind of parentheses, and some of your translations might actually have it in parentheses. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, walking as children of light. What does that mean? It means bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit, or some translations have fruit of light here. Having been set free from bondage to sin and Satan, we are not left neutral, but we are left fruitful instead. It's not that we just have our sins removed and we're left neutral. No. He calls us on to bear fruit. And if the Spirit of God is truly in us, then that Spirit will bear fruit within us. Darkness brings forth unfruitful works, but light brings forth good fruit, fruit that is in accordance with godliness, fruit that looks like Jesus Christ. It's born by the spirit of Christ within us. We were created in Christ Jesus for good works, we saw in chapter 2, verse 10. And his spirit is the one who brings forth all that is good, all that is righteous, and all that is true within us. That's the fruit of the spirit. This is how we are to know that we are walking as children of light. To walk according to our true identity is to walk in the light, is to walk in the Spirit, as Paul says in Galatians 5.25. And to walk in the Spirit, we must live in the Spirit, Galatians 2.25. This means living in submission to the Spirit. living in submission to the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the body, not by our own power, as we looked at in John Owen's mortification of sin last summer, not by our own power, but by the Spirit of God, Romans 8.13, by the means that He has given us, not by our own invented means, not by the power of the flesh, but by the power of the Spirit. The Spirit of God not only mortifies, that is, puts to death all that is contrary to Him in us, but also He vivifies us. That's an old English word meaning brings us to life. He brings to life and brings forth fruit, His own fruit of godliness in us. As in Galatians 5, 22, 23, which is a verse you should think of, maybe some of your Bibles even cross-reference this, when we see this fruit of the Spirit or fruit of light, depending on your translation, you immediately think of Galatians 5, 22, and 23, that famous list of the fruit of the Spirit. Well, the fruit here, again, is singular, just like it is in Galatians 5, 22. This is because all of it comes from one source. This whole list comes from one source. It comes from the Holy Spirit. It's the fruit that He brings forth. His fruit, the Spirit's fruit, is all goodness, all righteousness, and all truth. Or in the more expanded list that we find in Galatians 5, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is the fruit of the Spirit that is brought forth within us. Apart from being raised up by the Spirit from death and sin to life in Christ, we can have no goodness. We can have no righteousness. We can have no truth. This is a gracious work and the gracious work of God in and for and through us. It's not our fruit. It's fruit that is born in us by the Spirit. It's by the fruit. It is the Spirit's fruit. God's children are marked by his fruit in them. This is what indicates vital living attachment to Christ, namely the presence of fruit. As Jesus says in John 15, verse five, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. Now, there are always, of course, some that claim the name of Christ, or have Christ's name put upon them in baptism, who are members of His body, who are members of the Church, but who do not bear fruit. Jesus says that they'll be taken away. They'll be cut off. They'll be cast out. They'll wither. And then they'll be gathered up, and they'll be burned, He says. And this is why Paul calls Christians to walk as children of light. Though it's Christ's Spirit working in us that bears the fruit, we are still called to participate in it. We must still be in humble submission to the Spirit's work within us. We must walk as children of light. We must bring forth the Spirit. We must walk in the Spirit. As branches on the vine, which is Christ, this is what we are. We are children of light, and therefore we must walk like it, as the sap of Christ's life flows in and through us. Walking as children of light looks like bearing fruit. That's how you know if we are walking as children of light or not, if we have the fruit of the Spirit. This is again done by submission to the work of the Spirit within us. Jesus said His Word abides in us. If His Word abides in us, then Much fruit will be born in humble submission to Him. But how do we know what is good, what is righteous, and what is true? He tells us this is the fruit of the Spirit. Isn't all goodness and righteousness and truth? Well, how do we know? Who gets to decide what is good and righteous and true? There's many people today saying all sorts of things about what is good and calling evil good and good evil. So how do we know? Well, in verse 10, he says, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. Verse 9, as I said, is really a parenthesis, which is why many of your English translations will actually have it in actual parentheses. What is good, righteous, and true is not determined by ourselves. It's not determined by our culture. It's not determined even by our Westminster standards. It's determined by what is acceptable to the Lord. That's what it says right here. What is acceptable to the Lord. Walking as children of light means finding out what is acceptable to the Lord and then living in accordance with it. Removing the parentheses of verse nine, we can read Paul's imperative like this. Walk as children of light, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. This is the second part of the imperative that he gives the Ephesian Christians. Walk as children of light, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And finding out doesn't just mean, well, I've figured it out, I can write it down for you. It means living in accordance to it. The word translated finding out here in the New King James is a favorite theological term of Paul. He uses it many times. The King James renders it as proving, the ESV as try to discern. It's a word that's sometimes used in Greek for the testing of precious metals. What appears to be gold is tested to find out whether it really is gold or not. So too, Christians are to test their habits, their customs, their beliefs, their practices, and their actions to see if they are acceptable, or you could translate this as well-pleasing, to the Lord. Well, how do we know what is acceptable to the Lord? By what standard? We do this first and foremost by looking to the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of living a life which is acceptable to God, which is well-pleasing to God. Paul has already put Christ forward as the standard that we are to strive after and as the example that we are to imitate multiple times in this epistle. But we also do this not just by looking to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, But we also do it by the Holy Scriptures, without which we can know nothing about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. We turn, as Isaiah says, to the law and to the testimony, Isaiah 8, 20. If a belief, if an action, if a habit, if a word that we speak, as we saw at the end of chapter 4, does not align with God's law, does not align with God's testimony, then that means that there is no light in it. And thus, therefore, we are to put it off. We are to put it to death. It has no place in the Christian life. The unbelieving world around the Ephesians and around us has its understanding darkened, as we saw in chapter 4, verse 18. That means that the culture around us, the world around us, cannot be a sound guide to discerning what is acceptable to God. It just simply can't. The unbelieving, as we said earlier, call evil good, and good evil. This is not light, this is darkness. This is not acceptable to the Lord, to call that which is good evil, and that which is evil good. But in contrast, we as Christians and the Christians in Ephesus are not darkness, they are light. We have been enlightened by God's Spirit to know what is the hope of His calling. We've been empowered by that same Spirit to live in a life that is worthy, to walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called in Christ. Christians are therefore to be guided by the Word of God. We are to live lives that are in submission to God's Word. That is what a life that is acceptable to the Lord looks like. That's what walking in the light looks like. And this means that we must be people of the book. We must be people of the book. Many Christians have read multiple books on eschatology, many books on the newest book on ethics or apologetics, but have not yet read the Bible cover to cover. And in a day and age when we have the Bible in so many different formats and in audio versions and so available to us, there's really no excuse. We must be people of the book. We must love the book and know the book that God has given us. If we are to know what is acceptable to him, then we must know his word. As our confession says in chapter one, paragraph two, the Bible is our rule of faith in life. That means that it teaches us all that we are to believe about God and how he's revealed himself to us, and also how we are to live in light of this truth. As Spurgeon said, we should visit many good books, but we should live in the Bible. This is because we live by the Bible. We are to live by the Bible, by the word of God, to the law and to the testimony is where we are to turn to know what God would have us to do. John Flavel, the great Puritan, said, it teaches, it being the Bible, teaches us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying, end quote. Pretty much covers it all, doesn't it? Covers it all. Teaches all that we need. It's a rule of faith and life. We are to live as Christ lived, and we are to live unto Christ, and we are to live by the Word of Christ, or according to the Word of Christ. The children of light are also marked by their ability to discern what pleases God and what does not please God, and so to live accordingly. God's children, as we said last week, are to present their bodies as living sacrifices unto Him, in imitation of Christ, who offered Himself up as a sacrifice for us. We are to live in light of His Word. Our minds as Christians are not to be conformed to this dark world, this ignorant world, but they are rather to be transformed, they are to be renewed by God's Word that we might prove, and this word prove here in Romans 12, 1 and 2 is the same underlying word used here, prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5.21 to prove, again that same word, all things. Hold fast that which is good. So for Paul, Only that which is good, only that which accords with light, only that which accords with God's law can remain in our lives as Christians. That's the only thing that should be in our lives as Christians. The will of God and what is well-pleasing to Him may therefore be seen as equal. Much anxiety is had by many Christians in trying to discern what the will of God is for their lives or for this or that particular situation. But it may simply be reduced to Paul's words here, finding out or discerning, testing, proving what is acceptable to the Lord. As he says in another place in 1 Thessalonians 4.3, this is the will of God, your sanctification, our growth in holiness, our growth and closeness to Christ and conformity to His image. The will of God is that we would do what is well-pleasing to him, that we would be conformed to his word. John Calvin says this at this place, quote, whoever desires to live in a proper and safe manner, let him resolve to obey God and to take his will as the rule and undertake nothing but what he has commanded, end quote. So if God has commanded it in his law, in his word, if he's demonstrated in the person and life of Jesus Christ, then it is well-pleasing to him. This is how the children of light are to conduct themselves, in obedience to God's will. Verse 11, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. The Christian's duty is to put off the old man and to put on the new man, as we saw in verses 22 through 24 of chapter 4. This means being imitators of God as his dear children. Christians may not be partakers with the sons of disobedience in their sinful lives. The works of darkness, in contrast with the fruit of the spirit or the fruit of light, do not bring forth any fruit. The unfruitful works of darkness cannot be fruitful. They're works of darkness. They can only lead to death. They can only lead to further darkness. They're the very opposite of light. That's why we can have no fellowship with them. So not only must Christians not partake with unbelievers in their dark deeds, they must not have any fellowship. That means no association, no portion, nor no share in those deeds. They have no place in our lives at all. There must be a radical separation in our lives. This is the very essence of holiness, without which none will see the Lord. That we are in Christ, and Christ is separate from sinners. There is no sin in him whatsoever. The truth is that we have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. We don't. We are children of light. How could we have any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness? So why would we go pretend that we do have some fellowship with them? To do that is contrary to our very nature in Christ. Again, it's not enough that what is dark, what is evil, what is sinful, what is ungodly, what is unclean be put off. That's a command that we're given. Yes, those must be put off. But it's not enough to just do that. They must be replaced with what is good, with the fruit of the Spirit, all goodness, righteousness, and truth. It must be replaced with that which is acceptable to the Lord and that which is fitting for saints. Christ's kingdom is not built upon being against evil. I'll repeat that, I think it's an important point. Christ's kingdom is not built upon being against evil. It doesn't consist in being anti-sin. Rather, it's more positive. God's kingdom consists of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, Romans 14, 17. And I think this is where we go wrong, at least I've experienced this in my own life, This is where we often go wrong in sanctification. We think about all the things we need to stop doing, and it's true that we need to stop doing those things. We need to put off. We need to put to death. We need to mortify, right? But it's not enough to just do that. We need to replace it with something. We need to do that which is good, that which is acceptable. We need to start serving God. We need to walk as children of light. Too often I think Christians, and the church in general, operate as though they were political conservatives. They're only known by what they are against. Here and no further, this is where we draw the line. We won't allow this kind of behavior in our country, or in our churches. But as we have seen, this can only take us so far, because the goalposts are constantly moved back. Remember a few years ago, no homosexual marriage. It's not real. We won't allow it in this country. OK, fine, we can have homosexual marriage, but no transgender bathrooms. The goalpost just keeps being moved farther back because it's based on what it's against and not what it's for. We must be for something as Christians, namely, what is acceptable to God, what he commands. The Christian life, as Sinclair Ferguson said, quote, is not merely a matter of darkness avoidance. It includes darkness exposure, as Paul here says. We have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, It doesn't end there, but rather expose them. Of course, we are not to have fellowship with the fruitless works of darkness. We are children of God. But avoiding such fellowship is only half the duty. We must also expose, Paul says. The Church's duty is not just to quietly exist alongside the world. Rather, she must also transform the world through her witness to Jesus Christ, and the way she lives, and the way she preaches. Yes, the Church, I think, should respond to the evils which surround her. It's her duty. She should not just be happy with the portion that she's been given. Thankful that the authorities will allow her to continue meeting. Grateful that while BLM rioters burned down the Wendy's down the street, they didn't burn down the building that she meets in. Quietly and meekly giving thanks that while the government has declared that homosexuals can be legally married, she's not forbidden the church from performing real marriages or forced her to join two men or two women in marriage. And she's going to be thankful that that's as far as it goes. No, the church is to be a prophetic witness to the world around her. She is to call all people to bring forth the fruits of faith, repentance, and true righteousness. The church is not just to live silently alongside the unfruitful works of darkness, but is to even expose them. And this word expose, Calvin notes, literally means to bring out into light, to drag something out into the light. The light of God's word must be brought to bear on the works of darkness in our own hearts, but also in the world, the unbelieving world around us. Paul says that it's too shameful, he says, to even elaborate upon what the wicked and unbelieving do in secret, in verse 12. The unbelieving practice these evil deeds in the dark to avoid exposure, to avoid conviction, to avoid rebuke, and to avoid transformation, death, and resurrection. They think that if man can't see them, then, therefore, God cannot see them. But God sees all things, doesn't he? As we read in Hebrews 4, 12 and 13, his word is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. The prophetic word must be brought to bear on the unfruitful works of darkness. It must expose them. It must bring the light to them. The unbelieving conscience, Paul says in 1 Timothy 4, 2, is seared as with a hot iron. So long as the unbelievers keep themselves in the darkness, they will feel no conviction. But as Calvin says, let the torch of God's word be brought forward and their eyes are opened. by their advices and reproofs, the saints, the church, enlighten blind unbelievers and drag forth from their concealment to the light of day those who were sunk in ignorance." All of this is true. The church must have a prophetic witness in bringing the light of God's word to bear upon the dark world around her. The church should proclaim what is acceptable to the Lord before the unbelieving world. But I don't think preaching or witness in this fashion is primarily in view here. I think all of that's true, but I don't think it's the primary thing in view here. Paul tells the Ephesians to what? Preach as children of light? No, he says walk as children of light. He tells them to bear the Spirit's fruit. As Christians walk, as children of light, they let their light so shine before men that they may see their good works and glorify their Father in heaven, as our Lord says in Matthew 5, 16. That means that the very lives of Christians, which are so contrary to the lives of the sons of disobedience, Their very lives are themselves a kind of shining of the light of Christ upon the unfruitful works of darkness and the unbelieving world around them. Christians are like leaven, in other words, and the light that they bring is like leaven working through the whole lump. Their lives full of life and light and good fruit exposes the wickedness of unbelievers. Unbelievers hide from the light, even the light of their conscience. They do these things in the dark with the doors closed. Jesus says in John 3, 19 and 20, this is the condemnation, that the light, speaking of himself, has come into the world. And men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. So they stay in the darkness. They don't come to the word of God. They suppress the truth and unrighteousness, as we talked about a few weeks ago in Romans chapter 1. This is what Paul means, I think, in verse 13. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light. The Christians in Ephesus and the Christians in Arizona are light in the Lord. And as we walk in the light, we bear the Spirit's fruit. The light shines upon believers through us, unbelievers through us, the unbelievers who are hiding in the darkness. And as that happens, their unfruitful works are exposed. So yes, I think it's true, it's by prophetic proclamation from the church and in the workplace or the street corners, whatever it may be, but it's also, and I think primarily in view here for Paul, it's by our godly lives. that the unfruitful works of darkness, which are practiced by the sons of disobedience around us, are exposed and rebuked. Yes, it's good and we are called to preach the gospel in the church and to preach to unbelievers outside the church. But also, if we start a good Christian business, a good Christian coffee shop in the community, and doesn't have to have little pictures of saints on them, or crosses put upon them, and be Christian in that sense, but is run by Christians who are faithful to the Lord, who are walking as children of light in the Lord, then what? It will become a blessing to those around. It will be a witness to those around them, and the light will shine upon those who are in darkness. The light of our lives, I think, shines more light than we sometimes think as Christians. We think it all just has to be preaching. And yes, preaching is primary and important. but it's also how we live. We walk as children of the light in the midst of a dark generation. Many of us, I think, have had this experience, have had unbelieving friends, unbelieving family, unbelieving coworkers who have avoided us, who have hated us, not for anything that we ever said to them or preached to them, but because simply we walk in the light, because we are faithful Christians and they couldn't stand to be around it. walking as children of light, exposes the sin of unbelievers. It brings them out into the light. The chief end of this exposure is not simply to bash the unbelievers. It's not just to bash unbelievers around us. Rather, I think it's to reveal the sinfulness and ignorance of their darkness to them. And this is the first step in repentance. The goal of exposing the darkness is that those who are in darkness may be made light. And this is why Paul says at the end of verse 13, for whatever makes manifest is light. Now there are two ways that we can understand this phrase, whatever makes manifest is light. as I mentioned earlier, I think, at the beginning. We can either understand the verb manifest here in the active voice, as it's translated here in the New King James, make manifest, or in the passive voice, I think the ESV goes this way, is made manifest. If we take it in the active voice, as Calvin does, as the New King James do, then the meaning is either first, that the kind of walking which manifests darkness, Dark works is light. The kind of walking that we are called to do is light walking, i.e. that kind of walking that is acceptable to the Lord, verse 10. Or secondly, that as children of light, it is our duty to manifest and to expose the evil works around us. And I think both aspects of this are certainly true. But as I was trying to figure out where I would land on this, I was reading Charles Hodge's commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, and I agree with Charles Hodge that the verb makes more sense if it's taken in the passive voice. Namely, if it was to be translated, whatever is manifested is light. The previous verb, are made manifest, is certainly passive. There's no disagreement or argument about that. And so it makes sense that this verb would be passive also. In the Greek, it's unclear whether it's active or passive. You could translate it either way. The form is the same either way. The meaning would then be, if we take it passive, as Hodge argues, and I think is the right way to take it, the meaning would then be, for whatever is manifested is light. That is, all that the light of Christ, shining through Christians, falls upon, it turns into light also. The light which we are called to walk in has a transforming effect, in other words, a transforming effect. The light falls on all unbelievers around us indiscriminately. For some, they are hardened, and they reject the light. They do not come to the light that their deeds might not be exposed. This is condemnation to them, as Jesus says. In that sense, their deeds are exposed as judgment upon them. For others, when the light falls upon them from Christ through Christians, they are transformed. They too become light. Whatever is manifested, the dark people, is light. This seems to make more sense with the overall point of the passage, I think. to live as children of light in the midst of darkness, and especially with verse 14, which we'll look at in a moment. Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. Our end goal as Christians is not simply to destroy leftist arguments. It's not even merely to reveal to unbelievers the depths of their sin and darkness. That's not our chief end. We must aim higher. we are to walk as children of light, that the sons of disobedience might also become children of light. They might also become God's dear children. The vision for a new Christendom is not one in which a few regenerate believers set up godly Christian governments under which the primarily unregenerate masses live, though that's certainly better than the alternative, which seems to be the direction our country's choosing to go. Rather, the vision of a new Christendom is Christ's commission. It's what he's given us in Matthew 28, verses 19 and 20. He says, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. The light of Christ in us must shine upon the darkness around us. not just to rebuke it, but to transform it. The sons of disobedience must be made the sons of God. That should be the goal. The unfruitful works of darkness must be replaced in them, in the unbelievers around us, with the fruit of the Spirit, with the fruit of walking in the light, as children of the light. And this is why Paul adds in verse 14, therefore, he says, awake you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. Paul uses the common formula that he often uses when quoting scripture, therefore, he says. But the verse he's quoting, if you try to go find it in your Bible, you won't find it in your Bible. This is because Paul, as was common with the prophets and the apostles and Christ himself, do not always quote scripture the way we do. Sometimes you might have experienced this as you're talking with other Christian brothers and sisters and other friends that you have, you know, maybe you've made your way into a more covenantal way of thinking and you attend a church, a Reformed Presbyterian church, And as you're trying to show them the Westminster Confession of Faith, and sometimes the scripture proofs don't seem to always match or be exactly what we would think they would be, we have to understand that our modern Christian way of quoting scripture, and give me a verse that says exactly the proposition that you just said, isn't the way that our Reformed forefathers quoted scripture or used scripture proofs, nor the way that the apostles often quoted scripture, that Jesus quoted scripture. They didn't quote scripture the same way we do at all times. Often Paul gives a summary of a passage's teaching. Or he takes a prophetic theme that is laid out in a particular book of scripture, or the scriptures themselves, and summates it. I think this is what he's doing here, because he clearly uses that formula for when he's usually quoting scripture, but then he says something that you can't find this verse anywhere in your Bible. So what's taking place here? I think he's summating a theology, a list of passages, and not just one in particular. The passages which come closest to Paul's wording are found in Isaiah, in their prophecies of Israel's resurrection from the dead and the Gentiles' incorporation into Zion at the coming of Messiah. In Isaiah 26, verse 19, we read this, Your dead shall live. Together with my dead body they shall rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust, for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. And then in Isaiah 60, verse 1, we read, Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of Yahweh has risen upon you. He's referring to the Gentiles. There are also some other passages which Beza and Calvin and others have seen as possibly being alluded to here primarily in Isaiah. The sum of them all is that the power of light, the power of the light, displayed and contained preeminently in the person in the advent of Christ and the advent of Messiah has come to bring the dead to life. The unbelievers, therefore, around the Ephesian Christians, and around us today, are dead in sin. We know that. They are darkness. But the light of Christ shall shine upon them through the church. And as it does, Christ will bring them too to life. He will make them into his dear children. He will make them who were once darkness, and are currently darkness, into light in the Lord. by our witness, by our walking in the light, the dead shall be raised. As Jesus himself says in John 5, 25, the hour is coming, and now is that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. the voice of Christ in the proclamation and in the witness of his church is what brings the dead to life. He causes sons of disobedience and darkness to become dear children of God, sons of God, sons of light, children of light who imitate him and who walk in the light as he is in the light. Unbelievers have to be brought out of darkness if they are to ever see. They have to be brought from death into life in Christ if they're ever to live. And only Christ can do this. But I think it's amazing and something to be remembered that Christ has chosen to do this through his church. What a joy and what a pleasure it is, what a privilege to be part of Christ's work, to be the means through which He is raising up his elect people, saving them, bringing them from death into life. So when things are getting bad around us, maybe this election season won't go how many of us are hoping it will, when things are getting bad around us, when it seems like there's little point in continuing on, and the best thing to do would just be to batten down the hatches and hold quiet services in our home with maybe a dozen or less believers, just then we should remember that we must walk openly as children of light. That's because God will use it. He will use our walking as children of light to shine upon the lost. And in shining upon the lost, he will save his people. The wicked, Paul says, it's the unbelieving, it's those who are in darkness who must hide in their homes to practice their acts which are too shameful to even be spoken of by the apostle here. But Christians, on the other hand, are called to live boldly. We're called to live openly. We're called to live, indeed, loudly for Christ. The church should not go away and just hide, like some people would like her to. No. She has no reason to be ashamed. The church should live in loud gratitude, full of joy and full of peace, as we will look at in verses 19 and 20 of chapter five. The church should be speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in their heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So as we let our light shine, that is, as we walk as children of the light, children of God, doing all that is acceptable to the Lord, bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit by His power, the unbelieving or dark world will not only be rebuked, it will not only be exposed and convicted, but by God's grace, working in and through His people, that dark, unbelieving world will also be converted, transformed, and renewed. The contrast between light and dark in the church and the world should be obvious. And if it's obvious, it will also be used by Christ to be an effectual means of salvation for his elect people. Amen.