STAND STRONG
STAND STRONG
8.12 - Children of Light
Join us as we continue our study of Ephesians 5, considering what it means to walk in the light and bear its fruit – that which is good, right, and true.
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Paul and Noah both preach and teach with the Cedar Park church of Christ in Cedar Park, TX. You can visit our site at: https://www.cedarparkchurchofchrist.org/
Well, welcome back to the Stand Strong podcast. We're back for another bite of Ephesians chapter five. We made it through, oh, about seven verses last episode. So let's see if we can match that this episode, Paul? Yeah, it's, it's so rich. Like we've observed before. Paul's laying out the calling in the first three, three chapters, excuse me. And then in chapters four, five, and six, really helping us see what that means for our lives, for our new life in Christ for what, what it looks like to, to live in Christ and to live in such a way that that pleases God, doesn't grieve the Holy Spirit, that shows that we are imitators of our father in heaven and are members of his household, those kinds of things. I really enjoyed last week's discussion and I'm looking forward to. This week's discussion when we pick up there again in verse right around verse seven, where Paul says, therefore do not become partners with them. He's speaking of the sons of disobedience there in verse six. But it's interesting to me that he, where he starts is don't become partners with them for, at one time you were in darkness. So Paul's acknowledging from the get go. This is a situation of don't go back. Don't go back.
Paul:Right, right. Don't go back to a point. At one point you didn't have an inheritance. And these people that are choosing this way of living and are, are living these li that are under this condemnation, under the wrath of God. They don't have an inheritance. And so don't be partakers with them. You don't, you don't want to be where they are. You don't want to have the same fate that awaits them. But remember you were once darkness. You don't want to go back there. You're right. You don't want to go back there. And so he, that's, that's just a marvelous way for Paul to move into the second walk there in verse eight, as he says, walk his children of light. It's interesting, he didn't start with walk his children of light.
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:And I hope I'm not making too much out of this. He started with the walk in love. Right. And naturally that makes sense to me because the point he was pressing was. M mimic your father.
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:Be imitators of God. The best way to be an imitator of God. Go back to listen to some of Jesus teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Be like your, the sons of your father is in heaven. To be like him and to be perfect as he is perfect. It's in that context, he's talking about love, particularly love for your enemies. There's no better way that we mimic and imitate our father. Other than loving. And he says it in the context beginning in chapter five, loving the Way Christ loved. Yeah. And that's, that's important. I, I, I think we need to start there. Mm-hmm. So that we appreciate what it means to be light in the Lord and to walk is children of line.
Noah:Right. Which Paul starts to kind of unpack here, unfold a little bit. Right off the bat. When he says Walk as children of light, he says, for the fruit of light. So if this is the, if this is where we're walking, if this is how we're walking, it's found in all that is good and right and true. He says in verse nine, and then he says. And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. So I, I mean, for anyone looking to write a sermon out there, I mean, here you go, walking in the light is what is good and right and true and pleasing to the Lord. You, well that's actually four points. So I guess that's one too many
Paul:I think to say you had, you had three, it was set up on the tee for you, Noah, you had three, but you're right, there are four there. I love that point that he makes. Verse nine for the fruit. Now the new King James has for the fruit of the spirit. That's one place where I don't prefer the new King James. I actually prefer the other translations for the fruit of light. Mm-hmm. Is found in all that is so, but I'm not making a big point out of that. But you're right. What he's pressing is there's three qualities, three things here that are clear indications of. The fact that genuinely we are light in the Lord, right? We, we are walking as children of light.
Noah:Yes. And the fact that he refers to it as fruit is, is really appropriate because what he's going to talk about here in just a moment in verse 11 is the unfruitful works of darkness. Mm-hmm. So the contrast here, I I, I don't wanna be too nitpicky about words, but the contrast that we're gonna see in this section is not just, that this is what's produced by light and this is what's produced by darkness. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What is, what's being shown is that the actions of light are, are fruitful because they produce good and right and true and pleasing to God sorts of things and the the works of darkness. They can't accomplish that. So it's less about, well here's the for instance, if we went to Galatians, the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit where it compares the, the the actual fruit in our lives, this goes one layer beyond that and says, okay, now that you've engaged in the fruit of the spirit, or in this case the fruit of the light or the, the works of darkness. What comes from that? It's like one layer deeper. What comes from that, and really what Paul essentially says is. On one hand, nothing. It's unfruitful. So again, I don't want to ni nitpick about words, but I think it's interesting that that's what he compares in this context.
Paul:Yeah. I just, that's a whole conversation in, in the context I have what is good, right, true. Or what is goodness, righteousness and truth.
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:I mean, you know, there, there's so many, you could give technical definitions. You could get very practical after you give the technical definitions. But I mean, kindness. What is useful to others? What is, I love one writer who spoke of goodness in this context as productive generosity. Mm. But the goodness there, we, we need to think about. And he, he's talked about some of these things earlier at the end of chapter four, flowing into chapter five, the first part of that, but just how courteous and kind and useful we are mm-hmm. To people. The fruit of light is. Goodness.
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:It's, I'll, I'll have to resist the temptation to talk another 20 minutes on how useful that is. Yeah. How essential that is.
Noah:Yeah. Well, I'll, I'll throw this in here and if we want to keep going on, goodness, we can. But when you, when you think of goodness as kindness, I, I remember asking a question of, of some friends of mine not too long ago if you take kindness, but remove. Honesty or if you take kindness and remove you know, sincerity if you take kindness and you remove any sense of justice or right and wrong from the, those concepts, what are you left with? Well, you're not left with kindness. Kindness is one of those difficult things to really pin down, nail down exactly a definition of kindness. We know it when we see it, right? And we also know it when we don't see it, when we see something that's close, but not quite. If somebody is acting kind, but it's not with sincerity. Well then they have ulterior motives, right? We, we can see that. We intuitively get that. So it's interesting in this context when we have this idea of good, it's also paired with, right with with which, what that which is righteous and just, and that which is true. I. Right. You, you really can't separate these three without losing something. And I think that's worth noting.
Paul:Yeah, I like that. I like that the righteousness just a, a desire to do what is right.
Noah:Mm-hmm.
Paul:And I don't, I don't want you to, to reduce that. I don't want us to reduce that again to, even in the context, there's a lot of moral things he's discussing. I don't want us to this righteousness. Because he talks about goodness and truth. I don't want us to reduce this to a moral checklist.
Noah:Mm.
Paul:Like, you know. Sex before marriage is wrong. Sex outside of God, approved marriage is wrong. And these kinds of movies and this kinds of speech and on and on. These, these, these, this is lascivious, this is uncles, this is impurity. Check, check, check, check, check. The, the fruit of light is righteousness.
Noah:Mm-hmm.
Paul:It is a desire in me because. A dwelling place of God in the Spirit. That was chapter two of Ephesians,
Noah:right?
Paul:A dwelling place of God in the Spirit. There's a relationship with the Father, son, and the Holy Spirit, and what does that relationship look like If he has me and the spirit dwells in me, then as a result of that, the fruit. That is I want to please him and I want to serve others. That's Jesus said, love the Lord your God this way. Love your neighbor this way. I think that is connected to the concept of both goodness and righteousness.
Noah:Mm. Yeah. That's. That's really well said. If anyone's listening, most podcast apps have like a forward 15 seconds or backward 15 seconds. I'd tap the backward 15 seconds, maybe three times there and, and re-listen to what Paul just said.'cause that is extremely valuable and extremely insightful. And then that brings us to, to true right to truth or the idea that the fruit of, of the light is found in all that is. True. And I think this is gonna connect well with the, what we teased last week. The idea that in the light darkness is exposed and, and evil is exposed. The fruit of light is that that which is true, is valued, and that which is false and sinful is exposed. Yes. It's brought to light.
Paul:Yeah.'cause he's al what has he already told us to do? Ex you know, e expose. In some way because you don't have a participation, he'll get back to this expose in verse 11. But I liked your connection there with the idea of truth.
Noah:Yeah,
Paul:truth. Insert this in the, in the area of truth, I. Is we will be people of integrity.
Noah:Mm-hmm.
Paul:People of integrity.
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:These are essential core values of those who have a relationship with God.
Noah:Mm-hmm.
Paul:Which,
Noah:you know, you, you talk about people of integrity. That makes me think of you know. Let your yes. Be yes and your no, no. Mm-hmm. There's this idea that what we say is what we mean and how we act in private is who we are just as who we act in public, you know, those kinds of ideas. But it casts my mind back to the Sermon on the Mount, which you've already referenced in this discussion of Ephesians chapter five. And I already was thinking about talking about bringing up, because we have this image of being. Light. Right? We're, we're walking in the light. And that in inevitably, that brings me back to Matthew chapter five,
Paul:right?
Noah:You are, you are the salt of the world. You are the light of the, of the earth, or excuse me, that's flipped. You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. But the idea here is that the, we are reflecting the light of God. We're walking in his light. And so when we are lights in the world, it is not because of our goodness or our righteousness or our inherent truthfulness or integrity. It is because we are reflecting the goodness and the righteousness and the, and the truthfulness and the integrity of our father. That goes back to the beginning of chapter five, and it also. Goes into verse 10. This is what's pleasing to the Lord. When we are lights to the world, as Jesus says we should be in Matthew chapter five, it's because we are representing God who is light.
Paul:Yeah, I was I So if you're not in the studio, you have no idea what I was doing. This is a wonderful tool for those that, so I'm gonna plug Noah's. Class it's in, so you'll have to go back and get the date. What are we today is the, so it was Sunday June 29, right? June 29 on Sunday. Go back and listen to Noah. Had a class on the hard garbage in, garbage out. Okay, I'm plugging that. It was really good. I want you to go back and look at verse 10. So, so I was in the studio, I was pulling up with my mobile device in a good way. I was using in a good way, Noah, the different translations. And it's interesting in the various translations in Ephesians five, in verse 10, so the new King James is finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. Finding out I'm a big fan of the New American standard, the 1995.
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:The, the, the good version of the some will get that some won't it. It is, it's this trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. I didn't look at the ESV. What's the ESV in verse 10? And try
Noah:to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
Paul:Okay, so connect the, the English standard in the New American 1995. You've got someone who, who is trying to find out, he wants to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Okay. I wanna speak a little bit as the old guy in the room, and I don't want it to sound like I'm going after everybody else and I'm not a part of this conversation'cause I am. Paul is wanting us to appreciate the Apostle Paul to appreciate and understand what this walk looks like in attitude.
Noah:Mm,
Paul:not just action. This walkin attitude where we want to mimic our father. We want to be imitators of God. We don't want to grieve the spirit. We didn't learn Chapter four Christ this way. He said, my people, my children in a relationship with me are the type of people that have a heart. They just want to discern. They wanna find out what will please. Their father. Yeah. Look at that relationship in a physical way, man. You know, like Cohen and Ellis and Leland, they, they just want to please their father. What a wonderful thing that does for you. Yeah, well, in the spiritual sense, we just want to please our heavenly father. Then if I have a heart that says, I just want to know his will. So I can discern not just right over wrong, but best over better. Mm-hmm. I want to discern his will and relationship to how to walk in love, how to treat others this way, how to serve others this way. How to be a true reflection of my father in heaven, in the language of Jesus to be perfect, not sinless perfection. Right? There's a growth right in this. Okay? So I'm not gonna try to see how close the sin I can give without sinning,
Noah:right?
Paul:I'm, I am not going to dismiss in a very selfish, immature way. This doesn't relate to me. I don't need to grow here. Right. They're the problem. I'm not the problem. And that's those difficult things to do.
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:And so he says, I just wanna find out, find out, does this please the, for me to make this sacrifice for me to give up this liberty for me to serve this way. Does, is that a reflection? Is it, does that please my father? And if it does, that's all. I just wanna find that out.
Noah:Yeah. Yeah. There is a very, very real temptation, at least for me, when I'm beginning to think along those lines when I, when I read verses like this one that, that challenge me to stop and say, alright. This, this decision I'm about to make, or this thing that I've been contemplating or this issue I've been debating or whatever. You know, I really need to start thinking about it in terms of I just want to please God. Right? There is a very real temptation to suddenly go, okay, well, no, if you're gonna think about it in those terms, then let's, let's show the ridiculous lengths to which you could find yourself going. You know, if you're gonna say this isn't about good versus evil, but you know, good versus better and better versus best, well then you're never gonna watch a movie ever again because you could spend that hour and 45 minutes reading your Bible, you know, you're never gonna do this again. You're never gonna engage in that again because the time could be better spent, you know, serving these people over here, feeding the homeless over here evangelizing the people over here and. Our minds will try to use that as a, a tactic for justifying further poor decisions when in reality that we need to recognize this is a process of us growing into Christ. Mm-hmm. And, and growing in trying to learn how to please him. And no, no slippery slope argument is going to change the fact that God wants us to and expects us to grow.
Paul:Yeah, I mean, look, you and I could talk about this. I. I, I think, I think this is a good use of a podcast because we just, we talk about these things. We put it out there and we let people listen and re-listen and make the application. We wanna make sure that we're, we're, we're not saying this, we're not saying this, but at the same time maybe sometimes Noah, I don't know. You're the, you're the. You're the young guy in the room. Do, do you think, I know I'm putting you on the spot. Do you think sometimes when we have these conversations from a context like Ephesians six, that has to do with purity and walking this way and thinking this way and living this way, you think sometimes our struggle of all ages is the fact that we wanna reduce conversations to, well, is this gonna keep me outta heaven? Oh yeah. Rather than is, is this, is this gonna be a better reflection of my father?
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:It's like, you know where you well, so yeah. Okay. So that, that, that this rated movie, I guess if I watched it, how many, how many, how many profane words, how many, how much of this course jesting in a movie can I take in? And God's like, oh, well, all right. Now you, you lost, you went from Save to Loss. You went from Save to loss. Look, I wish I could do a harder race on Calvinism. My, my. My point in trying to help people understand the relationship that they have and the salvation they have is not to reduce everything to a conversation of, well, is it gonna cost me to lose my soul? Yeah. I've had a better question. Is this, can this just be a better reflection of my father? Yeah. Can this be more beneficial to me and, and my growing up to be more like him? Right. I don't know why, why do you think sometimes that's, I, I've been guilty of that. Sure. Yeah,
Noah:same. Same. This is, I think, a constant struggle for, for many people. And I know that it's one I run up against and it can take different forms. It can take the form of just being apathetic. But I think, I think even in people, even in those of us who, who don't fall into apathy towards God, we still fall into wanting to, I mean, we're, we're. To use the terms of physics. There's a, there's a sense of inertia and we're at rest and we kind of wanna stay at rest. Yeah. That's not the same as being lazy or lethargic or apathetic. Not always. It's, sometimes it's just, I'm kind of happy here and I want to make sure that, you know, I, I tow the line here and I do this over here. But I, I kind of just want to, I want to do what I want to do and make sure that I'm not gonna get condemned to hell for it.
Paul:Yeah.
Noah:And really that stems that ultimately it stems from a an attitude of selfishness and, and when we can get to that root Yeah. That in the end, what we've done there is we've decided to serve self. Instead of serve the interests of God. That highlights the contrast here, that it highlights what otherwise might seem like. Two very similar decisions, right? Two very similar routes. Well, they could be similar routes, but what's the heart behind the choice? Those could be very, very distinct and very, very different. Again, like you said, we could spend a whole season probably of podcasts talking about the idea. It that we sometimes are more concerned with what's gonna keep us outta heaven than we are with what's gonna please God. And, and I think that the next couple verses, you know, as we wrap up this section of, of Ephesians five actually help with this. We may want to cover more about what it means to expose the works of darkness. We, we may want to cover more of that in a future episode, but I want us to notice that. The purpose in the context here that Paul gives for our ex exposition of of evil works is one, it's not just to say, Hey, look at those evil works over there. Aren't we glad that we're not like them? Right? The idea is to awake the sleeper. To raise the spiritually dead and to bring them into the light. We shine the light, we expose, but we, we shine the light by showing God's goodness and his righteousness and his truth, and we expose the works of darkness in an effort to awaken people. Now, if we are willing to turn that light onto ourselves, we may not be spiritually dead, but could we be dozing off?
Paul:Oh. Not dead, but dozing off and, and yes, you get valid point.
Noah:Yeah. And, and so I think that that can help us maybe get a little bit of a shot in the arm if we start to, if we find ourselves thinking along the lines of, well, okay, at what point is God gonna say you're done? And I'm gonna just kind of head that direction until I think I'm not safe anymore. If we need a shot in the arm that gets us back into the motive. I want to seek out what is pleasing to God. Then maybe we need to shine the light, mm-hmm. Of God's word on our lives and say, Hey, search us out. Find those pockets of selfishness, those pockets of apathy, those pockets of whatever it is that's making me think and act this way. Wake me up. Wake me up,
Paul:stop hitting the spiritual snooze button. Don't do it. Don't do it. Yeah, that's, that's a very good point. I mean, that's a great way to kind of bring us up to about verse 15. You had pretty good breaking point for this podcast, so if you're listening today and you're following with us, you're, you're finding out since chapter four. There's just so much here. Take the journey with us. Keep, keep reading the text about what it means to walk this way. To walk this way, because that, that conversation is gonna change. Lord willing, going into the next one, because he's just gonna tell us something more about the walk. Beginning in verse 15, we are to walk depending on the translation. Carefully. Accurately, or I still like the word circumspectly. That just sounds so preacher. Anyway, so today, thank you for those that are listening, for sharing this journey with us. Our prayer and our desire is first of all, that that God's glorified in what we're teaching, in what we're doing, and secondarily that we're able to do this together so that we can help encourage one another to just be a better reflection. Of the Lord Jesus Christ that we serve, and then together to have the stability in this world to stand strong.
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