Be Imitators of God - Live a Life of Light - part 2

Well, if you would take your Bible and turn back to Ephesians chapter 5, I know that we read all of those verses, verses 1 to 14. There's quite a few, but this morning we're going to divide those last verses in this section, verses 11 to 14. Now I will ask you to turn to some scripture in 1 Corinthians. There are some passages that are very key, they're very instrumental in some things that we need to learn in the application. And I'm going to ask you to turn to 1 Corinthians 5 a little later on in 1 Corinthians 13. Sometimes I do ask you to put your eyes on verses.

It's good for you to do that, maybe even write those verses down and go back and study them in your own time. Now I think most of you know that we are moving through verses 1 to 14, and like I said earlier, we're going to finish up this section of scripture this morning. And in these verses we have seen that Paul has been giving us some positive commands and some negative commands. Verses 1 to 2, it's a positive command, and then we did see where Paul made a shift into some negative commands, verses 3 to 9. And then notice Paul went back to the positive, he went back to positive commands in verses 8 to 10.

And then we're going to see this morning that he moves back to the negative in verses 11 to 14. And it's not that Paul couldn't make up his mind, no, that is the way the Spirit of God inspired him to write these things. Now before we finish out verses 8 to 14, I want us to see one last time everything that we've been studying and striving to grasp in verses 1 to 7. In verses 1 to 2, God through Paul has been calling us to be imitators of God and Christ Jesus. That is the major command in that portion of scripture. God is our pattern and he has set before us Christ Jesus as our great example to imitate.

And then in verses 3 to 7, God calls us not to allow any sexual sins and verbal sins into our lives. But our attitudes and our speech must be infused with thanksgiving. And he even calls us to be very, very sober here. He calls us not to be deceived and not to partner with those who permit and promote such sins. Now let me show you how very important this teaching is. Let me show you why I go back and re-enterate these things. If we look across the landscape of the American church, we see that there's a big, big push to accept sexual perversions and homosexual sins as a legitimate part of Christianity.

Many are bringing those sins into the church. And as our culture becomes increasingly saturated with sexual sins, homosexual sins and unspeakable perversions and as the part of the so-called church accepts these things, there will be this bigger and bigger temptation to be deceived into accepting these sins as a part of biblical Christianity. And as your pastor, we must see that we cannot accept these sins. We cannot partner with these sins or partner with those who permit these sins and promote these sins as some type of form or alternative form of Christianity. A simple question. What do the verses say?

I'll give you an example of why I would take the time to re-enterate these things. A few months ago, there was this big story that broke a very prominent Southern Baptist leader. His son came out as a professing homosexual and practicing homosexual. And this son is involved in a church that accepts that kind of lifestyle. And his son even preached a so-called gospel message. And this very prominent and respected Southern Baptist leader recommended that folks listen to that sermon. Well, what was he doing? He was violating all of these scriptures here that he should have known.

And for us to be imitators of God as individual Christians and as a church, we simply must obey this teaching. I ask you to think about something that we were singing last week. What did we sing last Sunday morning? Trust and obey? What's the rest of the verse? Trust and obey, for there's no other way. But instead of singing trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, we must sing trust and obey, for there's no other way to be right with God here. In there, it's going to come a day.

It's coming fast that this type of teaching and this kind of Christianity is going to put us in the cross hairs of persecution and maybe even prison. But the question is, will we trust and obey here? Now last week, we started verses 8 to 14. And I took the entire message to explain and examine the positive commands, and that is our high calling, that high calling to live a daily life as children of the light. Let's go back and look at verse 8. You're going to see the high calling. Paul says, "For at one time you were darkness, and now you are light in the Lord." And here's the high calling, "walk as children of the light." It's plain to see.

Now we saw who we were before we came to faith in Christ out of the verse. We were literally darkness. Not that we simply sinned a little bit and even lived in darkness. No, that's not what the text says. We actually were by our very nature spiritual darkness. We were by our very nature spiritual darkness and the personification of darkness. And after we came to faith in Christ, we learned that we are light in the Lord. Not that we simply come into the light, no. We actually become light in that Christ who is light comes to live within us. We are light in the Lord, the text says.

We have the very nature of Christ within us and we can become the personification of light. Therefore, because of these things, we can walk as children of the light. Because we have gone from darkness to light, we can obey this high calling and that is walking as children in the light and of the light. And then we learn. We learned of the fruit of our high calling, just like we would pick pears from a pear tree or apples from an apple tree or figs from a fig tree or oranges from an orange tree. There are certain fruits that come from the life of one who is walking as children of the light.

First goodness, a goodness within and it's seen in good works or deeds. Also righteousness, a righteousness before God that is seen in right living. And then third truth and truthfulness, a truthfulness within and it is seen in true and right living. And then last discernment, an ability to test and to prove that which is right and that which is pleasing to the Lord. But not only the ability to test it and see it, but this ability to live it. So last week we saw that Paul was calling us to be imitators of God and to live a light of life. And we saw the title of the message. Well simply be imitators of God, live a life of light.

It's right out of the text and that's going to be the title of the message this morning. Now this morning we will be getting into the negative side of the high calling. We've seen this. We're looking at this walking as children of the light and Paul's going to turn the side of the coin into the negative. Now let me go ahead and share with you how we'll break down the verses and then we'll read them here in a moment. We're going to look at a strong command out of verses 11 to 12 and then we're going to look at a strong call out of verse 11 or excuse me verse 13 and 14. So let's pick right up in verse 11.

Paul says, "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. Therefore it says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you." So number one, out of verse 11 we see that Paul gives a strong command. It's right there out of the verse. I call this a strong command.

Now just like Paul did starting in verse 3, here Paul explains the kind of things that are not to be allowed in the life of one who is an imitator of God and one who is living as a child of the light. We will see that this is a strong command not just in what Paul calls them not to do but also in what he calls them to do. So let's look at what he calls them not to do. First he says, "Do not participate in the deeds of darkness." Look back at verse 11. Here the English standard says, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness." Some of you have the New American standard.

It reads, "And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness." Now there's a key word here. This word participate in the New American standard. It simply means to be partners together. It means to partake together. It means to fellowship with or to share company with. And this speaks of a partnering. It speaks of a partaking together. It speaks of a fellowship, one with another. But here it's obvious. Paul is speaking of the negative. Paul says that as children of the light they should not partner with or partake of the unfruitful deeds of darkness. I think about a business partnership, a business adventure.

If we have an opportunity to partner with and participate in some kind of an unethical or illegal business, well if we have a good Christian friend, that good Christian friend might tell us not to partner in that business venture. That Christian friend would tell us not to participate in that illegal or unethical business. Well that's what God is saying here. Through Paul, God was commanding these Ephesians, these believers not to partner with and participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness. But a question. What are these unfruitful deeds of darkness? Is this just anything that is done when the lights of the house are turned off? No.

Paul has already told us what these deeds of darkness are. Think about what we've studied. All throughout chapter four and five, Paul has been listing them. Now I want to challenge you, go back through chapter four and five and note those deeds of darkness. But we have seen these deeds all throughout our study. He talks about lusts and deceitful desires. He highlights falsehoods, sinful anger, stealing and corrupting speech. He highlighted bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor.

He mentioned slander, all malice, all types of immorality, all sorts of impurity, covetousness, inimmorality and impurity, filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking, more covetousness and idolatry. All of these things we have studied. And all of those sins and the different degrees of those sins are the very deeds of darkness that Paul has in mind here. And here Paul commands them not to participate in and not to partner in these things. And this commandment is for us as well, not just for the Ephesians. But I want us to notice one more detail here. Paul calls us to keep away from these deeds of darkness, right? But not the doers of the deeds.

Look back at verse 11. What does verse 11 say? Take no part in the unfruitful works or deeds of darkness. And we really need to see this. Here Paul calls them, these Ephesians, to keep away from those deeds of darkness, but not the doers of the dark deeds. You see that in the text? But there are times that Paul commands God's people. God through Paul commands God's people to actually disassociate with certain people who do practice the deeds of darkness. Yes, God does call us and His people to disassociate with some. First Corinthians 5, there was this issue of sexual immorality within that church.

And Paul called those Corinthian Christians not to associate with those immoral people. In verse 9 it reads, "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people." It even seems like he's saying, "You shun them." Paul continues and he says, "This does not refer to immoral people of the world." Verse 10 says, "Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy or the swindlers or the autologists since then you would need to go out of the world." And we need to ask, what is Paul saying here? And how do these verses in Corinthians relate to what we see here in Ephesians?

We need to see that God's standard, God's expectation here. His command in all of this is that we do not participate in or partner with the deeds of darkness, but we don't disassociate with all those who do the deeds of darkness. We actually disassociate from those within the church who practice such deeds of darkness, but we love and witness those outside of the church who actually practice these very deeds. Now here's where I want us to turn over and look at these 1 Corinthians 5 passages. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 5. I want us to read verses 9 to 11. Some of you really need to see these verses.

This will help us understand what Paul is saying here. Verse 9 on down to verse 11. Paul says, "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people." What is he saying? Disassociate, shun, break off ties. Verse 10, "Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy or the swindlers or the idolatchers. Since then you would need to go out of the world." In other words, you'd have to just leave.

Now verse 11, "I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolaterer, a reviler, a drunkard or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one." Now what is the point here? The strong command is this. We shun those deeds of darkness from ever coming into our lives, but we do not shun those who live in these dark deeds of darkness. We love them. We show them Christ by the way we live and we tell them of their need for Christ, but we disassociate from those who bear the name of a brother or a sister, but they are guilty of living in these dark deeds.

Their lives are characterized by these dark deeds and those dark deeds are proving that they are indeed darkness. And look church, right here is where so many professing Christians miss it and even so many churches miss it as individuals. We can't have some kind of a Pharisaical separatism in our minds and in our lives. Some are just like the Pharisees that we see in the Gospels. Oh, we've been learning so much about the Pharisees in our study through the parables on Wednesday nights, but out of pride and out of their self-righteousness and using all sorts of extra-biblical rules, what do we see those religious leaders do?

They separated from law centers. They wouldn't even go near them. They despised them. They were looking forward to God judging them. And on the other side, we can't have this liberal association going on. Some just have this liberal view here like we see in the Corinthian church. Out of an attitude of inclusion and love and not wanting rules or legalism, there are some that associate with sinners and they condone their sin and they have fellowship with those sinners in a very unhealthy way. We also see churches get all of this wrong here. Some churches do not hold to these standards for professing Christians and members of the church.

And some do not hold to these standards here and address these things when these come into the lives of professing believers and members of the church through what? Church discipline. Therefore, they accept those who practice the deeds of darkness in the church and they act like they are somehow right with God. I remember years ago, years ago, a friend of mine in the life of a church in which I served. He was a deacon and a leader in the church. And I began to see some strange behavior. I saw him acting in some ways around another woman that wasn't his wife. You know the rest of the story.

When I did go to him and I confronted him, I went to him with the word of God, opening up my big black Bible. In love, I tried to reason with him. Well, the rest of the story goes like this. He left his wife and he took another man's wife. He stole another man's wife. And the leaders of that church just watched and let it happen. Well, lo and behold, years later, he circled back around and ended up back in the church. And I'll never forget a solid man of God, a Christian.

He said he was visiting back in that church and he said, "When that man walked by with an offering plate and put it in front of me, he said, 'I thought I cannot stay here.'" See what I mean? See what the text says? See how it applies? But conversely, some churches are so pharasiacal and separated from the laws to live in the deeds of darkness that law centers are never welcome in their midst. Some of you know this, but there has been a criticism levied against me in the past, at least one.

But I've had people before criticize me as a pastor for allowing law centers to come and worship in our midst, to come and be a part of our worship, I should say. I've been criticized for allowing lost people who are in open sea and come and visit and sit on the pew and eat with us, not members of the church now, not serving in the church. I've had people come up to me and say, "You should not allow them to stay." It hurts the reputation of the church. But I always thought about Christ. Christ never, ever ran off sinners. The only ones He ever ran off were Pharisees. So we see that Paul calls these Ephesians and us to a strong command.

And that command is not to partner with or participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but the command is not to withdraw from the world and lost people. I love what one commentator said here, and I'm quoting, "The follower of Christ will go wherever his master went and meet those his master met. But though he does not withdraw from the world, he refuses to adopt its standards or fall in with its ways." He is concerned to produce the fruit of the light. That's so good. Now let's look at what he calls them to do. So second, we see that he called them to expose the deeds of darkness. It's right there in the verse.

Now here we see the second part of the strong command, and that is to expose the dark deeds of darkness and those who live in those dark deeds. But there is a lot that we need to see here. So let's just keep moving through the text. And here there is another key word for us to understand, this word expose, the new American and the English standard use the word expose. Now the King James gets at this in a big way, and what is communicated here, it uses the word reprove. But this speaks of exposing. This speaks of even correcting. This speaks of even punishment and discipline.

It's more than exposing and revealing, it carries with it the idea of exposing and correcting and even bringing discipline to bear. Now I question, how is the Christian to expose and reprove the deeds of darkness and those who do such deeds? Are we here to be the holy police? You ever met anybody that just, you know, they're the holy police? Are we here to be like a jerk for Jesus? Have you ever met anybody that's a jerk for Jesus? You know what a jerk for Jesus is? A jerk. But think with me here. I mean we need to ask these questions.

How is the Christian to expose and to correct the deeds of darkness and those who do such deeds with words or only through actions? With words and actions, being a silent witness as some would say, or even moving to words, how? And I want to answer both of these questions, all of these questions by looking at two words, the word attitude and action. We need to look at all of these things by looking at our actions and our attitudes or our hearts' attitudes here. First our actions. There are some who would argue that this exposing and correcting work should be done non-verbally. They would simply say we should do this through our witness.

I don't know if you've ever heard this phrase, but some use this phrase called being a silent witness. They would argue that simply being a witness is exposing and correcting those dark deeds and those who live in those dark deeds. But honestly, honestly, it is really imposing on the text to say that this confrontation is not verbal. I would argue that this confrontation is certainly verbal as well as being a witness. Remember verse 9? That's our witness producing and bearing those fruits. But then second our attitude. Simply the attitude in all of these things must be one thing. Love.

This exposing and correcting the deeds of darkness must be done in love and out of love. And there is no better place to see this than in 1 Corinthians 13 which is commonly called the great love chapter. Now here's where I want you to turn over to 1 Corinthians 13. I want to read verses 1 to 7. And if you pay attention, you're going to see how this applies in a great way. First Corinthians 13, 1 to 7. Paul says, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." Oh those are some powerful statements. But it continues. "If I give away all that I have and I deliver up my body to be burned, but I have not love, I gain nothing." Now verse 4, notice he changes. "Love is patient and love is kind; it does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant, it is not rude; it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth." And here's the climax.

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things." So notice, along with 1 Corinthians 13, here we see that Paul calls these Ephesians and us to expose and correct the deeds that are done in darkness. He is calling us to expose, to correct, and even to discipline the very ones who were doing the deeds in darkness. How? As the holy police? Being a jerk for Jesus? No in love. Disexposing and correcting work should definitely be done in love. But Paul adds one more command here, and you might not see this as a command, but I think you will when we get through with it.

Verse 12, notice verse 12, and I'm talking about Ephesians 5 verse 12. "For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret." And notice, in verse 12, he adds to the seriousness of the deeds that are done in darkness. Back in verse 3, Paul said that these deeds of darkness must not be even named among God's people. And here in verse 12, he says it's even shameful to speak of the things, these dark deeds that they do in darkness. In other words, these deeds must not even be mentioned to God's people, and we should not even talk of such things. There's a very big lesson for us here.

Deeds in the darkness, done in the darkness, they should be kept in the dark. And what I mean is this, in the name of exposing and correcting such sins, we can be tempted to talk about and to discuss and even glamorize such sins. Expose and correct the sins, yes, but describe and elaborate on those dark deeds, no. And there's a big, big warning here if we see it in the verse. If we allow ourselves to get casual here and loose here, well, in talking about and discussing all of these dark deeds in a wrong way, that can take us one step towards committing those same sins.

Speaking of and describing such things can make us numb to the seriousness of such sins, and that is always dangerous. So notice this strong command here. Paul calls these Christians not to partake in, partner in, all of the deeds of darkness. And he's just named so many of those deeds he does all throughout the letter. And he also calls the M and us to expose and correct those deeds and the doers of those deeds. But he says, "Steer clear of speaking of and describing those dark deeds." Oh, just talking of those deeds is dangerous. And so for us, listen, we must be vigilant. We must be sober, and we must be wary.

We must always be on guard to never allow these dark deeds to come into our lives. Oh, look, sometimes you're going to feel like it's a game of whack-a-mole. You whack one of these deeds out of your life and another one comes back. There's the temptation for one deed over here, and you conquer that temptation, and there's another one just outside the door. We are always vigilant to fight this fight. We are never to allow these dark deeds to enter into our life. But oh, folks, we need to see. I'm talking to the church here now. I'm talking to professed believers here now.

I'm talking about members of the church who profess and confess Christ, who have placed their life into the life of the church. This is where church discipline comes in, folks. In love, we discipline. Oh, we're not the church police. We don't church, folks. No, we go to a brother. We go to a sister, and we expose the dark deed that's coming into their life. Oh, we correct them. And look, if we will do this right, you know what we'll do? We'll help each other because we need it. We can eradicate and keep the dark deeds of darkness out of our life without each other. But what about those lost folks?

Remember, we're not supposed to disassociate from them. We're not supposed to shun the lost. Jesus went where the lost were. As we go into the lost world, as we engage with the lost, we are to share with them the gospel, and we are to also name their sin, show them what's wrong with them, that they are slaves to sin, and those deeds that they're doing, they're in darkness. Why they're doing those things, how they're doing those things, how those things are even destroying their lives. That's a part of evangelism, folks. So we see Paul's strong command here. This is a part of walking as children of the light.

But then number two, we see that Paul gives a strong call. This is out of verses 13 to 14. We see that Paul gives a strong call. Now, I've said before that Paul talks of light and darkness all throughout these verses. He goes back and forth. Starting in verse 13, Paul continues to speak of light and darkness, and Paul uses the effects of light in the physical or the natural world. He's simply using an analogy, an example. He says that when anything is exposed by light, it becomes visible. Look at verse 13. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. You know, this reminds me of one of my hobbies.

I don't have as many hobbies as I used to, but I still like to deer hunt a little bit. I've not been able to go yet. I'll go soon. But I enjoy deer hunting. I especially enjoy deer hunting in the morning. And my daughters will tell you that when I go deer hunting in the morning, we go in at night, carry a little flashlight. And you know, no matter where I'm going on my granddad's place, not only am I trying to navigate my way, I'm always wanting to see what my light will reveal. We have bears on our place.

Now, I'm a grown man, but every now and then, while I'm going through the woods by myself of that light, I'm looking up to see if that light might reveal a bear. Well, it's the same here. Paul is using this analogy in connection to what he has just taught, and he is issuing a strong call, a strong calling here. And we're going to see too. First, there is a call to shine truth into the darkness. Now think back and look back at verse 11. Paul commands them not to partner or participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but to expose them, right?

And here in verse 13, Paul explains that when something is exposed by the light, it is made visible or it can be seen for what it truly is. Well, what is to be made visible? The dark deeds of darkness, that's what must be made visible. Sin, sinfulness, and the sinfulness of sin must be made known. It must be made visible. And these dark deeds must be seen for what they are. But how are these things made known? Look at your copy of God's Word. Look at verse 13. Look at what verse 13 says. Now I'm reading from the English Standard Version.

But when anything is exposed by popular opinion or cultural norms, it becomes visible for what it truly is. Is that what the text says? I'm reading from the New American Standard. But all things become visible when they are exposed by the opinions of social media influencers and television talk show hosts. Is that what it says? No, the text does not say that. In verse 13, Paul says that all things, all things, all things are exposed and made known for what they are when they are exposed by the light. Well, what is the light? Is that Dr. Phil? Is that Fox News? Is that the Democrats or the Republicans? Is that an opinion of the Supreme Court?

Oh, is that what your parents and grandparents have taught you? No. The light is God's Word. The light is God's Word. And look, the dark deeds of darkness can never be seen for what they truly are unless they are made known by the light or the truth of God's Word. And oh, folks, you need to hear that again. The dark deeds of darkness can never be seen for what they truly are unless they are made known by the light of God's Word. And look, church, look, the world will tell us that the deeds of darkness are really not sin. The world will tell us it's good. It'll make you happy. It'll bless you.

But God's Word will not only tell us that the dark deeds of darkness are sin, the Word of God will tell us just how dark and just how destructive the dark deeds of darkness truly are. So Paul is issuing a strong call to expose the dark deeds of darkness by the light of God's Word. And look, folks, how can we know what is right and wrong within our culture? How? By shining the light of God's Word on it and letting God's Word tell us what it is. I don't really Facebook. I usually look at my wife's. So if I tell you that I've seen something on Facebook, it's because I've been looking at my wife's.

I've said this before, my wife will kind of scold me. She says, "Don't touch anything. Don't like anything. Don't press the heart button." So if you see funny emojis, it's probably because I accidentally touched it. But this past week, I was just scrolling through Facebook a little bit, catching up on a few things. And I saw where someone from this community was celebrating their marriage. It was a gay marriage, two men, two men. And I saw people down below comment. Congratulations. Oh, I'm happy for you. And I saw one lady comment, and I know her. She is active in the life of a local church, folks.

I thought, "What in the world are you thinking? What are you doing? You know what God's Word says." And what that tells me is this. She's looking at what the world says is good, and what the world says is acceptable. She's looking at what the world commends, and she is not comparing it to what God's Word says. And she says it's good when God's Word says it is evil, it is sinful. Those are the deeds done in darkness that we shouldn't even speak about. And for us, listen, folks, we cannot take our whole lives and let them be judged by the light of popular opinion.

We've got to let everything we do, everything we say, everything that we are be judged by what God's Word says. Sometimes I speak in analogies. I thought about when I was a little boy growing up. I enjoyed all the time I spent on my granddad's farm. And one of the things I loved to do was to take that old seignet he had. He had an old seignet on, and on both ends were two cane poles. I think he used cane poles for everything. And we would take that seignet, and we would go through those creeks, and we'd seign those creeks, and we would seign everything we could out of those holes. And look, whatever was in the water came up out of the seign.

And we seign everything through the grid of God's Word. It doesn't matter if our parents are doing it. It doesn't matter if popular opinion says it's okay. What does the light of God's Word say? But then continuing, here in verse 14, Paul makes a shift. He moves from using physical light from the natural world to a quotation. You will see this in your English translation. Notice that it's a quotation. And let's look at verse 14. For anything that becomes visible is light, therefore it says, it's obvious Paul's quoting, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." But a question, who or what is Paul quoting here?

Now there are several opinions. If you do some reading and studying on your own, you'll see this. There are some scholars who say that Paul was quoting Isaiah 60, verse 1. That verse reads, "Arise, shine, for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." But if Paul was quoting this verse, it is a very loose quote. And this quote is not found in a direct format in any of the Old Testament Scriptures. So if he is quoting Isaiah or some other Scripture, it's a loose quote. But there are others that believe that Paul was quoting an early Easter hymn that was used by the early church.

And within that hymn or song, there was this invitation to the lost to come the faith in Christ. Within the verse or the song, we can see a call for sinners to wake up to arise from the dead. And if this is indeed a quotation from an early hymn, it could certainly be seen as an Easter hymn. But what should our opinion be here? Two things. First, we can't be certain where the quote came from. We simply do not know. Of course, it is okay to speculate, but we can't definitively say. But second, we can be certain of its message. Within this quotation, we see a call for the sinner to awake and to arise.

We see a clear and strong call to awake and to arise and to look to Christ. And simply whether this is a loose quotation from Scripture or a few lines from an old hymn, this is a strong call for the sinner to look to Christ, to look to Christ. So Paul is using this quotation and he is giving what? A second call. A second call, which is a call to call those who are in darkness to come to Christ, you see. And by quoting something that these Ephesians obviously did know, Paul was calling those Ephesians to always make a strong call to those who are in darkness.

He was calling those Ephesians to always make a strong gospel call to all of those around them who are in darkness and doing the deeds of darkness in darkness. And it's the same for us. So notice this strong call here. It's a two-fold call. It was for them and it is for us as well. The first call, which is to shine the light of truth into the darkness and to expose and prove the deeds of darkness. And then the second call, which is to shine the light of the gospel into the dark lives and hearts of those who are living in darkness. And for us, we must take these two calls serious.

How are we going to know what is pleasing to God if we don't know God's Word? We must know it. We must study it. We must learn it. We must memorize it. We must understand its application. We must know God's Word. We must know God's Word so that we can shine God's Word into anything and everything that comes into our lives that we come into contact with. And you know what's so sad? So many professing Christians in the professing church have totally lost if they ever had it an understanding of what sin is and the sinfulness of sin because they do not know what God's Word says.

How will we know what sin and the sinfulness of sin is if we do not know what God's Word says? So we see Paul's strong call here, or two. And these are a part of walking as children of the light. Now as we close this section, what I mean by section verses 1 to 14, we've really received two positive commands. Be imitators of God, right? In love, in the love of Christ, with the love of Christ emanating in us and through us. In love, we are called to imitate the great example of Christ and give up ourselves as Christ gave Himself up.

And we are to walk in life, in our daily lives, as children of the light because we have been changed from darkness to light and because we have the light of Christ within us, we can truly live as children of the light. And that is what's before us. And I am fully confident that with God persevering in us and us persevering in God, you see both sides? We can't sit over here and expect God to zap us. And we can't work our fingers to the bone by ourselves. God perseveres in us and we persevere in God in all of these things. And with God persevering in us and us persevering in Him, we can live what is before us. Perfectly no.

Every day just right, no. But we can. We can. So what do we see here this morning? The title of the message, "Be Emitators of God, Live a Life of Life."