Ephesians 5. 8-10
“For you were once darkness,
BUT NOW you are light in the Lord.
Live as children of light
(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)
and find out what pleases the Lord.”
Do you remember the old story about Boudreaux the Baptist who lived in one of the very Catholic neighborhoods of coastal Louisiana? Boudreau was a skilled hunter and often enjoyed barbequing some part of deer – most often on Friday after his work week had ended. Now the aroma of the succulent venison wafted gently and floated teasingly from Boudreau’s grill into the surrounding Catholic neighborhood.
For the Lord’s Catholic children this produced a theological tension for they had committed themselves to eating fish on Friday – and deer meat was not fish. So they prevailed upon the parish priest to attempt to proselytize Boudreaux the Baptist and make him a Catholic – thus ending his Friday night barbeques of venison. The attempt succeeded with the priest baptizing Boudreaux and adding into the baptismal formula, “Once you were a Baptist, but now you are a Catholic.” So the Catholics rejoiced over their newest member but next Friday came and the odor of the cooking venison again lifted from Boudreaux’s grill to the chagrin of his good neighbors.
They came to check things out and as they peeped over the backyard fence, they heard Boudreaux’s incantation as he basted the deer meat on the grill, “Now I baptize you; once you was a deer; BUT NOW you is a fish.”
Well, what do you think?
Is it as simple as Boudreaux made it?
Is Boudreaux’s baptism descriptive of the change from spiritual darkness to spiritual light?
What constitutes spiritual life – darkness as well as light?
I don’t always feel like I am “light in the Lord” or that I live as a “child of light”, do you? I remember that in the years I was not involved in “vocational ministry” that I seemed to enjoy a much closer relationship and more sensitive experience of his presence than I now do.
What does the Spirit wish to tell us in this text about good and evil, darkness and light in the life of the Spirit?
1. You and I were once “darkness.”
a. There is darkness – evil – that which is opposed to God and the goodness and will of God in this world.
b. There is darkness within you and me.
c. Even though we are children of light in Jesus, we still feel the effects of darkness.
We still hold the image of God within us, but it is a marred and shattered image which only life in Christ can restore.
We face a constant battle to overcome the imprint of darkness upon us.
Jesus stated this very concisely in Mt. 6. 22-23 –
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?”
Our “eyes” are the factors of life which frame our outlooks
And give us focus.
By birth and culture, by incorrect theology, by ill treatment as children – even without malice our opinions and views of the world around us are distorted ---– we call this sin.
So even in Christ, the darkness within us is great but the One who is within us is greater than he who is within the world.
Now you and I are in the light of the Lord
2. Now that we are light, though still under the influence of darkness, the Light reveals Himself to us in certain ways.
This text tells us that the fruit of Light is composed of goodness, righteousness and truth. That is a fabulous portrait of a Christian – goodness, righteousness and truth. That is the image of God within us.
We look like the God we serve and love.
a. We look like the Father---- for you and I are meant to be agents of goodness.
Goodness comes from the Father for goodness is
the essence of God. His goodness is giving love.
That is the only way to truly have LIFE.
b. We also look like the Son for He is our righteousness.
The purpose of life is to return to the Lord who gave us life and live within his will in doing so.
The only way to do that is to find the highway that leads to the Father. There is only one highway.
The name of the ONE highway we must travel to get to Father is named God’s Way – or Righteousness
Adam tried to get to the Father traveling on his own
Highway. The name of his highway was My Way.
On the other hand, Jesus succeeded where Adam failed because He traveled on God’s Highway rather than His Way.
God’s Highway is named Righteousness –
The Right Way –
The Way of Trust and Agape and Truth.
Jesus is the Life of God –goodness and
He is the Way to God- the Right Way.
c. Lastly we look like the Holy Spirit because we seek the truth—the only Truth found in Jesus the Christ.
Jesus is the Supreme Truth – the Only Truth.
He is not partial truth or just religious truth.
His truth rules every sphere of life—scientific
Historical, philosophical, social, moral.
He indeed then is the Life, the Way to the Life and the Purpose and Love of life- the Truth.
3. All of this is to describe “coming to the Light.”
Living in Light is Trinitarian for it converges and reveals itself at the intersection of the Father’s goodness, righteousness of the Son and the truth imparted by the Spirit.
The witness of Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit never draws attention to Himself but He always points to Jesus.
Jesus is the Truth indeed – the Spirit leads us to Him for
Jesus is indeed the Truth- the Guarantor of Goodness and the Grantor of right dealings with the Father.
This is the holy-ization of the Children of Light – sanctification.
4. What about the “But Now”?
a. You were once darkness.
b. You are light.
The text reads,
For you were once darkness, BUT NOW, you are light in the Lord.”
That’s the truth old Boudreaux was trying to get at.
“Once you were a deer, BUT NOW, you is a fish.”
Once you and I were in darkness, BUT NOW, we are light in the Lord.
Something has to happen between the darkness and the light.
Something has to happen to free us from the darkness and bring us into the light.
That something is the BUT NOW.
“BUT NOW “is God’s work.
Do you remember the name of the Easter sermon –
God Works the Graveyard Shift?
God is working even in the darkness of our lives to bring us into the light of his Son.
The “BUT NOW” moment is when you finally realize your Father is working – that He loves you – and that He has chosen to bring about goodness and truth in the right way in your life.
“BUT NOW” is when you begin to trust Him
and give up your way and
give in to His Way.
You will never begin to live in the light of the Lord until you reach that “BUT NOW” moment.
Are you willing to do that this morning?