Outshining the Opposition - Ephesians 5:6-14

Read an article a couple years ago about weight loss, and they had studied all of the different, several different ways that people had lost weight, the Atkins diet, and weight watchers, and all these different approaches to weight loss. And what it was looking for in the article were common denominators among people who had lost a great deal of weight. Like, not looking at the science, the nutrition of the different plans, and what one's going to work better from a nutritional standpoint, but what was the psychology behind each one, or what did all these people that had lost a lot of weight share in common? One of the factors really surprised me. One of the things, according to this article, that a lot of people had in common, lost a lot of weight, is they didn't tell anyone they were trying to lose weight. They just kind of kept it to themselves and just went about their plan to lose weight, and they tended to lose more weight when they didn't tell other people they were trying to lose weight. Now, that surprised me, because I thought, if you tell people what your goal is, it would help you, because like accountability and encouragement, if I put my goal out there. What the article said is what happens, even on a subconscious level, is that when you're trying to lose weight and be healthy, the unhealthy people around you, don't always like that, and they will sabotage your diet. They said, what'll happen? You're trying to eat healthy. You had that friend that, oh, come on, it won't hurt. Let's go get some ice cream. It's no big deal. It's just one scoop. They'll throw at you these temptations that will knock you off course. And they said, when people just kind of quietly went about their plan, No one knew they were trying to lose weight. No one tried to distract them from their goal of losing weight. Isn't that crazy? Life is like that, isn't it? When you set a goal to do something, there might be people around you who will encourage you and hold you accountable, but there's definitely going to be people around you who will try to knock you off core. You ever had that happen? It can happen with weight loss or any healthy. It could happen with your financial goals. Maybe you've had a time in your life. You said, we're going to get out of debt. going to live on a budget. And as soon as you decide that. That friend calls you up, but once you go on vacation with him, and you say like, oh no, we can't go this time. We're trying to, oh, come on, YOLO, you gotta go, you gotta go on the trip, come with me. You have those friends around you. The minute you set your sights on something. Here comes that friend that's going to knock you off course. You know the same thing, the same thing happened spiritually, doesn't it? When you make a commitment to commit your life to Jesus, to live for Jesus, to live your life for God's glory, they're inevitably going to be people in your life that oppose your new life in Christ. Maybe you could think of that right now. People, when you decided to follow Jesus. Some people in your life who didn't agree with that. They weren't on board with that. And maybe consciously or even just subconsciously. They tended to kind of knock you off course a little bit. You just had those people that came along when you said, I'm going to follow Jesus. Here come those people that didn't agree and are going to attempt to bring you down. We're going to talk about that today in this passage before us. The pastor before us gives us some guidance on how to deal with those who oppose our commitment to Jesus Christ. Well, we've stepped out of a world of darkness, into the light of the gospel. We're now walking as what we're going to see in the text here. He's going to call us children of light rather than a child of disobedience, what we were before. There's this change in our life. We're going to have to deal with the people around us who are still walking in the darkness. How do we outshine the opposition in our lives? In our previous passages. Just get a little context here. The last few verses, last two, 3 weeks, we've been talking about the break that happens in our life from our past when we come to Christ. If you go back to chapter 4, verse 22. It's where this idea started, the writer here, the apostle Paul said, when you begin to follow Jesus, you put off your old life and you put on your new life, kind of a metaphor. You think about coming home, maybe you have a job where you get dirty at work and you come home, you take off those dirty work clothes, you put on those nice clothes to go out to dinner with your wife. You've been working in the yard all day, and you take off those old clothes that you worked in the yard with, and you get cleanup, you put on those new clothes to go out with your family that night. It's a metaphor here. When I turn to Jesus, I take off what was part of my old life, and I put on certain things that are part of my new life. And then the last couple weeks, we've seen some specific examples. You go back a couple weeks ago, versus chapter 4 versus 25 through 32. He said, quit lying and start telling the truth. Quit having uncontrolled anger and have self-control. Quit stealing and do honest work. Quit using harmful words and start using words that build up. Quit being bitter and start being forgiven. Last week, we talked about the turn from immorality and covetousness, to purity and gratitude. Stop walking in immorality, walk in purity. Stop coveting, be grateful. So these old sins have come off, these new virtues in Christ have come on, now that I'm following Jesus. But there's a very real danger. that we're going to be led astray. It's going to be a temptation to go back to that old life. We're gonna listen to the voices of those who are still walking in darkness. When you became a follower of Jesus, you didn't suddenly get transported out of all of your unsaved friends and now you're just surrounded by all Christians, you still have family members who are not followers of Jesus. You go to work with coworkers who are not followers of Jesus. You play on teams who teammates are not followers of Jesus. You live in a neighborhood where people aren't followers of Jesus. We're surrounded by people who have not made this commitment we've made. They're still walking in those old sins that we've turned from when we begin to follow Jesus. How do we live our new life in Christ in a world surrounded by people who are not followers of Jesus? Jesus warned us that we're going to have opposition. Jesus said it this way. The world hated me. They're going to hate you. The Bible says any, Paul wrote to Timothy, anyone who desires to live a godly life, will face persecution. It's a reality. We follow Jesus. We're going to face opposition. How do we deal with the opposition? Here's a question before us. We'll hope this text will answer for us. How does my new life in Christ, change the way I interact with those who are not followers of Christ, particularly those who might oppose my faith in Christ or may even tempt me to turn back from following Jesus. How do I deal with those who try to knock me off course? Now, as we walk this, I want you to think of those specific people. Maybe it's a real person you know, maybe it's just voices in the culture around us, but who are the people in our culture, or in your life specifically, who are going to tempt to knock us, are going to attempt to knock us off course in our commitment to Christ. How do we outshine the opposition? How do we deal with those who oppose our new life in Christ? Let's dive in here. First thing I want to see, verse 7, or verse 6, rather, is don't let them blind you to the truth. Don't let the voices around you blind you to the truth of God's word. Let's jump in verse 6, chapter 5, verse 6. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. lets break that down. Let no one deceive you with empty words. It likely refers to those who were trying to excuse the sinful acts that belong to their former life. Because you look at the text again. deceive you with empty words, for because of these things, these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. What are these things? I think that these things are all the sins we've been talking about from the end of chapter 4 through the 1st part of chapter 5, the line that was part of your old life, the harmful words that were part of your old life, the immorality that was part of your old life, the covetousness that was part of your old life. Your anger is part of your old life. All of those things that you put off, the wrath of God, it comes on the sons of disobedience because of these sins. Don't let them convince you with their empty words that those things are now okay. He said, there's a transformation that takes place in our lives. If you come to Christ, you will not continue in an unrepentant, habitual lifestyle of sin. Now, do we sin? Of course, we still sin as followers of Jesus. What's changed us our heart towards sin. Before I could walk in this sinful life, and it didn't bother me. Now I'm following Jesus, my sin brings conviction into my heart. My sin brings remorse into my life. When I sin against God, I feel bad that I'm sinning against God, and I go to God for forgiveness, and I ask God to help me, not fall back into that sin again, my whole attitude towards sin has changed. He said, don't let anyone convince you with your empty words that you can say you're following Christ and still live this life that you used to live. Don't buy into that argument. That's false teaching is what he's saying. They're making empty arguments that attempted to excuse this sin. The people doing that, he calls your sons of disobedience. What is a son of disobedience. It's simply an idiom that meant peoples whose people whose lives are characterized by disobedience. What characterized their life with disobedience. What characterizes our life as Christians is obedience. Don't listen to the empty words of the sons of disobedience. The wrath of God is coming upon that. It's a warning. Don't make an excuse for sins that invite the wrath of God. Don't be misled. Sin has consequences. Those who claim to be a Christian, a follower Jesus, cannot live an unrepentant life like these false teachers are claiming. What does it mean for us? It means we're going to walk in a world where sin still exists, and we're still going to be tempted. And there's going to be voices in our head that are going to want to excuse the sin of those around us and even our own sin. We're going to continue to sin, our desires have changed, our heart has changed, our responses changed, if we're genuinely converted to faith in Christ. Don't let their deceptive words, lure you back into that life from which God has saved you. So we have to be careful. There's voices all in our head, from our friends, from our coworkers, from professors, from social media influencers, from political pundits, from anywhere you get on in any sort of media, you're hearing these voices in our head all the time. And the warning here is still true today, don't let them deceive you. Those are empty words that are trying to knock you off course in your commitment to Jesus Christ. Here's what I think we have to do. Follow me on this. I've talked about this before. So I try to do it. It's so hard to constantly focus on this. It's a matter of perspective between the world around us and the word of God. And are we going to look at the world through the lens of God's word, or are we going to look at the word through the lens of the world? Let me explain what I mean by that. It's like you put the world in the background and the word of God in the foreground. And you say, I want everything I see in the world around me, the culture around me, I want to see it through the lens of God's word. Too often what we do is we flip that perspective. And we start reading the word of God through the lens of the world. You see what happens there? We look at the world, we look at the word through the lens of the world, and we say, uh-oh, something's wrong with the Bible. something's wrong with the Bible. When you switch it and you say, no, the Bible's going to be in the foreground. We say, uh-oh, something's wrong with the world. Something's wrong with the world. Have you put the world as the lens? through which you read God's word, or will you let the word of God be the lens through which you look at the world around you? That's what he's saying here. When you start looking at the listening to the voices of the world and we open up the Bible and we say, oh, something's wrong, something's wrong with the Bible. something's wrong here. So I don't know if I believe this anymore, because I let the empty words of the culture be the lens through which I'm viewing the word of God. So let the word of God be the lens through which we listen to, read everything and listen to everything and experience everything. Don't listen to the empty words of those around you. Second, He says, don't join them in the darkness. Don't join them in the darkness. Look at verse seven. Therefore, do not become partners with them. who are them, the sons of disobedience, who are still in darkness. dont be partners with him. For at one time, you were darkness. Good reminder, by the way, that everything we want to condemn today, we once participated in. And let's be careful when we look upon these sons of disobedience. Let's remember that so were we, but for the grace of God that saved us out of the darkness. We're talk more about that in a minute. For one time, you were darkness, but now your light in the Lord, walk as children of the light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. You were saved out of that. Don't let them pull you back into it. Don't become partners with those who are still in the darkness. Don't become partakers. Don't become sharers. It's always you could translate this. Don't share in the sin of the unbelievers around you. Again, you're gonna still live in a world full of people who are not following Jesus. The goal here is to strive to live as children of the light in a world full of sons of disobedience. How do I live out the light of Christ? Paul would write to the church the Corinthian believers in 2nd Corinthians 6.14? Don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawnesses, or what fellowship has light with darkness. Don't join them in their lifestyle is what he's calling them to. Why? Because in verse eight. For you were of the darkness, but now you're the light, you were light in the Lord. Walk as a child of the light. You've stepped out of the darkness when you turn to Jesus. He illuminated your path. You carried out these acts of disobedience because you were blinded to the truth. Now the light of Christ is shown upon you. You know the way God has illumined the path for you, that you're to walk now that you've turned from that to walk with Jesus. Don't let them pull you back into that life by the way they live their life. There's no stronger contrast. than light and darkness. There's 2 things that just can't exist at the same time. But people who take, usually it now, it's like oil and water. It's stronger than oil and water. It's like, you cannot be in the dark and in the light at the same time. The minute the light comes on, the darkness is gone. That's what he's saying here. When you turn to the light of Jesus, that you can't then also walk in the darkness. First John one.5 puts it this way. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light. We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus' son cleanses us from all unrighteousness, walk in the light. Now, what does it mean to walk in the light? Verse 9 spells it out for us. Look, notice the next verse. Here is the fruit. If you're walking in the light, this is what the fruit of your life will be, what is good and right and true. When you walk in the light, your life is going to be characterized by goodness, you're going to do what is good in the eyes of God, by righteousness, you're going to do what's right in the eyes of God and truthfulness. You're gonna do what's honest. You're gonna live a life of integrity. Is your life characterized by goodness and righteousness and truth? This will be the fruit of those who walk in the light. You've made a clean break from your past. Don't return and partner with those who are part of it. Now let me say this. I'm going to say it again later in the message. You can leave behind your former life, but you don't leave behind your former friends. You still have your former friends in your life, and you should, we're going to see why at .4 here in a minute, okay? But we don't participate with them. We live among them. We're in a community with them, but we don't go back to the way they live their life. You can't walk in both worlds. Be very careful about the impact that your friends have on your life. You just ask if you consider that today. Are your non-believing friends negatively impacting your growth in Jesus right now? Think about that, people around you. I would someone say one time, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. The people you hang around will begin to influence you. They'll begin to have an impact on you. I remember all the way back when I was a teenager, I learned this lesson. A youth pastor got a chair in our youth room, the youth group, and he put a big kid, an older kid, a guy up on that chair, and then he brought up this little scrawny middle school girl, and he said, I want you to try to pull her up on the chair, and I want you to try to pull him off the chair. You know who won? The skinny little middle school girl. Why? Because of gravity. We had a game of tug of war, King of the Hill here. You're going to have the advantage of gravity to pull me off of these steps because, and you know what? That happens spiritually. There is a spiritual gravity in this culture in which we live. It is way easy for someone to be pulled down than for someone to be pulled up. That's what he's saying here. It's going to be easy. You've tried, you've turned to Jesus and you said, I'm going to walk with Jesus and leave this life of darkness behind me, but the people in the darkness have a spiritual gravity leverage over you when they impact your life. That's why we need a warning so often in scripture. That's why he's saying here, don't let them deceive you with their words and don't partner with them in their actions. Don't fall victim to the spiritual gravity at work in this world. Instead, our 3rd point, pursue what pleases the Lord. So what is he saying here? Verse six, stop listening to their empty words. Verse 7? Stop engaging in their deeds of darkness from which you were saved. Instead, verse 10, commit your life to pleasing the Lord, discerning what would please God. Walk in the light means to discern and act upon what pleases the Lord, to examine, to put to test everything, to see what does God want for my life. Our goal is to walk now as someone who pleases the Lord. Notice it doesn't say, Um, Just do what's permissible or do what you can get away with. But really live to please the Lord. This is really important. Are you truly, honestly striving to please Jesus with your life? Is that the central aim of your life? And if it is, are you really committed to discerning what that's going to look like for your life? Here's what happens to me a lot as a pastor. People will come to me and say, hey, Pastor, I got a question. What does the Bible say about, and they'll fill it in with something, just something they're struggling with? And I think sometimes, probably most of the time, They know in their heart what they ought to do. I wonder if they're looking for like a loophole, right? Like, there's a thing I'm doing. I'm not sure it pleases God. I'm gonna see what the pastor thinks. Maybe it is okay, and I'm just not thinking clearly here. And a lot of times I'll say this. Well, do you do that? And they say, yeah? And I go, do you think it pleases the Lord? No, not really. All right, then quit. Like, let's do what pleases the Lord, right? Sometimes we want to get into like, what can I get away with? Where's the line here? Instead of saying, I want to please God with my life? And I said, Lord, what pleases you? How can I live my life in such a way that will please you? How do we do that? We commit our lives to discerning the will of God. Romans 122 says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what the will of God, what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect? I want my mind fixed on pleasing the Lord. How do I do that? Very simple. You heard me say this a 1000 times. It's daily time in his word. is the 1st thing. And second, is time and community with other believers. If you'll commit yourself to be in God's word and incommute other believers, God starts transforming your mind and you begin to see clearly and think clearly and discern what is pleasing the Lord. This, this, I've said this before him, he said, it's important. People say all the time, I want to know God's will. I want to know God's will. Read the Bible. They said, I just wanna hear from the Lord. I want to get like a word from the Lord. Read the Bible. No, pastor, you don't get it. I want to hear like the Lord speak to me out loud. Read the Bible out loud. Is how you do it. God's going to speak through his word. when you get in his word. Now, I know what you're saying. You want to know a specific thing. You want a verse to say, marry this girl or take this job or buy this house. It's not going to be that verse, but here's what I have learned. If you're in God's word daily, those specific answers come more clearly. If you just commit your life daily, I'm going to open up the Bible every day, I'm going to be in the word every day. I'm going to look for that passage that day, that verse, that day that God's going to speak to me, encourage me, challenge me today. If you're doing that every day, your mind is transformed. You're more focused on the will of God. So get in God's word daily. Our mind will be transformed. will live a life pleasing to the Lord. Second, getting community with other people. Getting community with other Christians. We need the encouragement of other Christians in our life. We need the accountability. We need to sit in circles or across from others at coffee shops and let other believers speak into our lives. Let me take a little break for commercial announcement, okay? Let me tell you how to do that Northland. This is the best day for this. Okay? We kicked off life groups today. Some of them are going right now or throughout this building, they'll happen all week in this building and in homes around the neighborhood. Join a life group. Commit yourself to. get in a circle with other believers and look at the word of God every week and pray together every week and allow other people to speak into my life and help me as I struggle. Get involved in ministries of our church. A forges kicking off in September. Abide is going to kick off in September. men's ministry and women's ministry. Make a commitment. I'm going to be up here for those. I need the community of other Christians in my life to help me. Young adults, come to the young adults. If there's still room, the young adult retreat, we open up more spots on the guy's side of that. Get the bulletin, to scan that QR and get registered. I want community with other believers that can help me to discern the will of God for my life so I might live a life that's pleasing to Lord. Are you committed to that? Commit your life to this. We commit our lives to so many things. We want to get good at something. We'll commit hours of our life to getting better at that thing. I talked to a friend. We're talking about social media the other day. And he said, you know, I spent all my time on YouTube just watching disc golf videos. He said, I'm trying to get good at disc golf. And I just every day I get up and I watch disc golf. He's committed his life to that. I have a friend who makes 1000s of dollars a year streaming video games. I said, why do people do that? How are people watching you play so many hours of video games that you're making $1000? He said, he said, you guys, as a young guy. He said, Matt, you got old men in your church who are watching golf to try get better at golf. He said, that's the exact same thing. He said, just like when a dude turns on the masters to improve his golf swing. I got teenagers watching me play video games. We commit hours of our lifetime. I'm trying to learn Spanish. I'm watching I'm on Duolingo every day and I'm watching YouTube videos. I got subtitles on the screen of Netflix. Everything that's on TV has got Spanish subtitles. I'm trying to find drive for Uber, as a little hobby, and I get so excited when someone gets in the back and they speak Spanish. I can practice them Spanish. The other day I was at a coffee shop and I was sure this girl spoke Spanish. She had dark skin, dark hair, little accent. I'm like, I'm gonna use my Spanish. She looked at me real strange. She goes, I speak Portuguese. And I said, oh, racially profiled, this poor barista. And my desire to like learn Spanish. I'm committing my life to this. Like, I want to get better this. Let's commit our life to discerning the will of God, to discerning the will of God. the spending time in God's word, in community. I want to learn this so I might live a life pleasing him. Finally, let your light shine in the darkness. Let your light shine in the darkness. So those in the darkness may step into the light. Let's look at this verse. See what we're supposed to do here. I think we make a mistake. There's 2 extremes that we take as Christians to the darkness around us, and this, these last verses here are going to help us with this. Verse 11, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful, even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Now here's the key. It all ends in verse 14. Therefore, it says, awake, O sleeper, arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. What does all this mean? He says, he's been saying, don't don't participate in their dark deeds. Don't listen to their deceptive words. Now he says expose them. Let your light shine in that darkness. Don't let the darkness overpower you. Let your light overpower the darkness. Expose the darkness with the light of Christ. He said up to this point, don't indulge in their sinful ways. Now he says, expose the unfruitfulness of their sinful ways, bring it to light. Our Christian responsibility doesn't just end with our rejection of evil. We're to shine the light of Christ into the darkness of the world in which we live. And then it ends this beautiful quote, verse 14, what is this? Awake, O sleeper, arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Micah, many scholars believe this is a line from a 1st century hymn, that they would sing this in their service. I read one guy this week said, it might have been a baptismal hymn when they would baptize people. They would sing of their baptism, awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead. And Christ will shine on you. It's calling the dead to life. It's calling the sleeper to wake up. It's calling the one in darkness to step into the light. Just as the light of Christ shone on you and you became a child of the light, but we want the light of Christ to shine on our friends around us. Remember, I said before, we leave behind our former life. We don't leave behind our former friends. We confront the darkness with a desire for the lost to be saved. What's the goal of the light? The goal of the light is to reveal the sinfulness. Why? So we can condemn the sin? No, so we can invite the center, the sinner into the light of Jesus Christ. I'm going to go to the dentist tomorrow for my checkup twice a year, however often. I just go when they tell me to go, and I put it in my calendar, and I go, and they're going to shine that bright light in my face. I'm going to take my sunglasses in with me. Those dentist sunglasses are not cool enough for me. So I take my own into the appointment and put those on. She shines the light into my mouth to examine my teeth, not to shame me for my lack of flossing or my consumption of too much candy, but to fix what's wrong with my teeth. If you go to a dentist who just shines a light in your face and says, you're bad at flossing, get out of here. You got the wrong dentist. You want a dentist that says there's a problem, let's fix it. That's why the light of Christ shines in the darkness. We don't shine the light in the darkness, to judge and condemn the darkness around us, but to show them their need for Jesus, to reveal sin so that sin might be met with the grace of Jesus. See, the 2 extremes are, we would ignore the darkness around us. Excuse the darkness around us. We think the loving thing is just let people live however they want to live and don't say anything about it. That's not what God has called us to do. He's not also has not called us to just stand in self-righteous, unloving judgment of the culture around us. We come to a world of darkness and we say, you have sinned. We say you have sinned because there's good news, Jesus can fix that. And so we don't participate in the darkness. We instead shine light into the darkness so that those in darkness can see the hope that's found in Jesus Christ. If you read Mark chapter 2, there's a story there of a man named Levi's other name he went by is Matthew's, the writer of the 1st book of the New Testament. It's a story of the day he became a follower of Jesus. He was a tax collector, would have been a peak class of people looked down on in that day. And Matthew or Levi begins to follow Jesus. And that night he throws a big party, and he invites all of his tax collecting friends to the party. Why? He was going to turn from his old life and he wanted people to meet the man who changed his life. He invited all his lost friends to a party so they could meet Jesus. See, he was leaving his former life but not his former friends. And the religious people got kind of upset about that. Jesus, why are you hanging out with these lost people? Listen what Jesus said. It's not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. Because I came here for the sick, not for the well. He said, I've come to call the sinner, not the righteous person. That's what it means to shine the light in the darkness to say, this is sin. These are sons of disobedience who need the light of Christ to shine on them that they might wake up as verse 14 cause them to and allow the light of Christ to live in their life as they walk with him. So what do I do with this? Four quick questions to consider. Number one, how have I allowed the deceitful words of others to blind me to the truth? How have I let the deceitful words of those around me to blind me? Has my heart become hardened? Has my vision become blurry? At this Bible at home, that it was a study Bible, had like notes at the bottom, and I would use it a lot when I was studying to preach. I had different commentaries, study Bibles I would use. For some reason, I quit using that Bible for a few years. I just was grabbing other Bibles off the shelf. And one day, I was in my early 40s. I grabbed that Bible, I said, I'm going to see what the notes in that Bible, I have to say about this question, pulled it out, opened it up, and I couldn't read it. It was completely blurry. I thought, what in the world has happened? It was all boring. Well, I just got old. I didn't need glasses. anybody here not need glasses when you were a kid? You got all the way to adult. Okay. I was like four, I went to the eye doctor. The lady said, 42 is the average age. If you can make it your whole life, 42 you need, but that's when you start holding things way out here. Some of you young people see your dad doing this. He's probably 42. And he needs glasses. And what happened? I hadn't looked at it in a while and I realized, I can't see this anymore. My eyes got like weaker and weaker and weaker. And one day I said, my vision is gone. I need to do something about it. You know that happens spiritually? You listen to the voices of your friends, the voices of culture, the voices of social media, the voices of what you watch and read and listen to. And slowly and slowly, our vision gets blurry. Here's a call to block out the deceitful words of culture, to see through the perspective of the word of God, so we might see the truth that God has for our lives. Second, in what ways am I tempted to return to the darkness? Have you been a partner with those deeds of darkness lately? Don't join them in the darkness. You've left that life behind you. Repent of that today. Confess that to the Lord. I've been drawn back to something from what you have saved me. In repentance, commit your life to turning from that. Third, is there an area of my life? that's not pleasing to the Lord. It's a simple question. You know the answer to it. I just don't think you need like a big Bible study here. I think you know in your heart something in your life right now doesn't please the Lord. Children of the light, commit themselves to discerning God's will so they might live a life that pleases him. And then finally, who do I need to invite into the light? Who are the people in your life, the ones you love that you interact with regularly, but they're spiritually asleep. They're spiritually dead. In verse 14. We can say to them, awake, 0 sleeper. Arise from the dead, and let the light of Jesus shine on you. Someone asked me this week, a teenager in our church said, um, How would you share the gospel with someone who's a criminal? And I said, what do you mean by it? Someone's committed a crime. How would you share the gospel? I said, here's the beautiful thing about the gospel. I'd share the gospel the same way with a criminal that I'd share the gospel with an eight-year-old in our church. It's the same message of the gospel. We've all sinned against God, and we can all be saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. It's not a person in your life beyond the reach of God's love, God's mercy, God's grace. It extends to everyone. Have you received that? Grace that God offers to you. Have you stepped out of the darkness? Maybe today, as you hear this preached, you realize you're walking in darkness, you've never had the light of Jesus shine on you, what's the response here? You say, I know that I'm not living the way God wants me to live. I know I can't do anything about it, you discover today my hope is Jesus. And the Bible calls us to repent. Turn from our sin, trust Jesus as our savior because of his death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead. He is our only hope for salvation. We turn from darkness to his light to follow him. You want to talk more about that? Just reach out to me. You can check on your connect card that you want to talk to a pastor. You can go back to the prayer corner at the end of this, as we sing, and pray with our team that's back at the prayer corner. Or you can pray right now. Jesus, I want your light to shine on me. Let's pray together. Father, I pray for the one here who is still asleep, who's still dead, and their sin, that their heart would be open to the truth of the gospel, they would turn from their darkness, to trust in you. I pray for the believer. All of us in this room who are followers of you, Jesus. Would you help us to be discerning of what is truth and what are empty words? Help us to be cautious about the darkness around us that tempts us to turn back? Help us to be committed to discerning what pleases you. that we might live a life that honors you as children of the light. And then God, open our eyes, to see those around us who are still asleep. to not listen to the deceitful words of darkness, to return to partnership in the ways of darkness, but help us instead to shine the light of Jesus into the darkness. to call the sick, and the sinner, to find life in Jesus. Help us in this, we pray. Jesus' name. Amen.