Living in the Light

Ephesians 5:1-14

What does it mean for us to live in the light?

First, we follow God’s example in all we do, which is the example of Christ. We imitate Christ by living a life filled with love for others, forgiving others.

God knows our sins better than anyone, even better than we know them ourselves. He sees the very worst in us. And yet, he still loves us enough to die for us in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. That’s what love looks like. Loving others means seeing the very worst in others, their pettiness, their anger, their selfishness, their foolishness, and loving them anyway. We love others by serving them, sacrificing for them, and forgiving them, just as God in Christ did for us. We must imitate God’s love. That is the sacrifice pleasing to God.

Second, we love God by obeying him in holy living. Scripture makes it clear that the sacrifice God truly desires of us is to obey him, and Jesus tells us we show our love for him by our obedience.

I find it interesting that the prescribed lectionary text for today only begins at verse 8 of chapter 5, after all the specific sins that Paul mentions. I suppose that’s a sign of the times. We will talk about sin in very general terms, but we don’t like to talk about sin in specifics. That might offend someone, most of all, it might offend me!

Paul doesn’t pull his punches here. He gets right into the specifics: “Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you!” The sins of today were no less prevalent in the first century world. Ephesus was part of the Greek world, and in Greek culture, there was a pretty lax attitude toward sexual behavior.

In large part, this was due to the influence of a philosophical system called Gnosticism. Gnosticism’s basic teaching is that everything spiritual is good, but everything physical is bad. The body, being physical, is bad, irredeemably bad. There is nothing good in it, at all. This contrasts with Jewish thought, where the body is a creation of God, a gift of God, so there is goodness in it, and God can redeem it. But in Gnostic thought, the body is altogether bad, and since it’s irredeemable, it doesn’t matter what you do with it. So Gnostic thought lent itself to a very lax attitude toward things like sex, drinking, gluttony, and so on.

As a result, fornication, that is sex outside of marriage, adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, and even pedophilia were all very common in first century Greek culture. They were just as common in first century Roman culture, as well. Dirty jokes and pornography were very common as well. When archeologists dig up Greek or Roman ruins of this time, period, it’s common to find graffiti, and the graffiti is just like it is today: Depictions of sex acts and things like, “For a good time, call Junia,” are pretty typical of it. Remember, the world really doesn’t change that much. The details might be a little different, but “there is nothing new under the sun.”

Greed was also just as common then as now. It makes the world go around, after all. Paul doesn’t pull punches here either. He calls greed idolatry, the worship of created things rather than the Creator.

“You can be sure that no greedy, immoral, or impure person will inherit the Kingdom of God and Christ.” That’s pretty direct. It’s not that God can’t forgive these sins. He certainly can forgive any and every sin. But if we continue unabated in our sins, it shows that there is no real repentance in our lives. God can’t forgive our sins if we cling stubbornly to them because then we don’t want them to be forgiven. We just want them to be excused, overlooked, ignored.

“Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins.” We are all very good at excusing sin, and most especially our own sins. I’m something of an expert at it myself. “Yes, it was wrong, but you know, I had a good reason….”

“The wrath of God comes on those who disobey him.” There are circles in the Church today where you just won’t hear the word wrath. It’s not a popular piece of theology anymore. What is wrath? Wrath is the righteous anger of God against all sin, evil, and darkness. Why is it important? Because a God without wrath is not a holy God. And a holy God is not worthy of our worship. Read those stories from the Greek and Roman mythologies. Their gods were no different than you and me. They were just as petty, selfish, greedy, and driven by lust as we are. Such gods are not worthy of worship. The true God is holy and pure, there is no stain of sin or evil in him. Only such a God is worthy of worship. Wrath might be an unpopular subject, but it’s a necessary subject.

“Do not participate in the ways of the world. Your behavior should show that you belong to the light. And light produces goodness, righteousness, and truth. Do what is pleasing to God. Rebuke and expose the deeds of darkness.”

There are some people in the world whose favorite verse of Scripture, maybe the only one they ever quote is, “Judge not, lest ye be judged!” There are wrong ways to judge. We are not judges of people. We can’t see into the heart, so we are unfit judges of people. Only God can do that.

But we are absolutely called to be judges of good and evil, light and darkness, righteousness and sin. And we are to call them as such. If we are silent about sin and evil, then that is likely to be interpreted as tacit approval, and woe to us if we approve of sin! Jesus warned us that it would be better to have a millstone tied around our necks and be thrown into the sea than to lead someone into sin and ruin. And giving “tacit approval” to sin seems an awful lot like leading someone into it.

Now, we absolutely need to be humble judges. We are no less guilty of sin than anyone else. The same sin is at work in our lives. But we must also be committed to sanctification, living into the light of God.

The Holy Spirit breaks the power, the dominion of sin over us, when we come to Christ. But the presence and influence of sin continue in our lives. It requires effort on our part to bring the darkness in our lives into the light. Unless we are committed to driving out the darkness of sin, it will hang around in our lives. Prayer, discipleship, and devotion are necessary to driving out the darkness. We can’t do it on our own, we need God’s Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit won’t do it if we aren’t willing.

Paul closes out this section with verse 14, which seems to be a part of one of those early Christian hymns. It appears to be based on several Old Testament passages, Isaiah 60:1 and Malachi 4:2 especially. “Wake up, O sleeper, and rise from the dead. Christ will give you light.” Light comes into our lives when we are awake, spiritually aware, and seeking God wholeheartedly.