Walking in light

Incentives for holiness

Be aware of the darkness

Paul made clear at the end of our passage last week the state of those who live in sinfulness “every sexually immoral or impure or greed person doesn’t have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”

-This doesn’t mean that if any of us sin that we immediately are condemned. The question is about our response to our sin. One whose actions show not a desire to let go of sin but who actively lives in sin.

-What we should not have is sin ruling over us. Romans 6:12–14 “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.”

-So how do we keep ourselves away from this darkness? Don’t let those who live in sin deceive you!

-There are many deceptive people in the world. People who will tell you everyone will get to heaven, or that you don’t need to believe in Jesus for eternal life. Those who will tell you that God is okay with your sin and make arguments that distort the truth of scripture.

-So how do we stay away from deceptive?

Expose the darkness

Paul says, don’t become partners with those who live in sin, rather reveal in the light what is the truth.

-This doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with sinners, rather, who are you practicing life with? Who is shaping your choices and actions?

See, light always exposes the darkness. It doesn’t matter how dark a place is, light will always reveal what was once dark.

-The thing about darkness is that you can’t see, you stumble around, it is hard to tell what is what. That is what happens in the world, people stumbling around trying to figure out what is right and what is wrong. It changes, from culture to culture there are new rules.

-But the light reveals what was hiding in the darkness, it reveals the hidden motives, it shows the twisting of what was once good for something evil, it is able to take perspective where everyone else see’s things in black and white.

We see in our world that there is a lot of darkness, we see what is happening in Israel where there are people literally supporting terrorists. We see people who because they disagree on certain issues believe it is okay to threaten someone else. A world that has allowed themselves to become depressed and anxious about every thing in their life. Who blame everyone else for their problems, who ignore advice from anyone who believes differently then them.

Watch your step

So what are we to do instead? “Walk as children of light.”

This means that you will be different. Because the light consists of “goodness, righteousness, and truth.”

We are to be wise people, he tells them to “pay careful attention”, that means, don’t do anything without proper care. How do you do that?

Make the most of your time

A lot of times that we get ourselves in trouble is when we have idle time. Staying up late at night, rather than doing our chores or our homework procrastinating, scrolling through social media or youtube videos endlessly. What i’ve found is that often that leads to dangerous paths eventually. The more you use your time idly the easier it is to make unwise choices.

There is a saying…nothing good happens after midnight, I have found that often to be true.

Stay away from obvious foolish choices

We usually know what a foolish choice is, we just sometimes make a decision even when we know it is foolish.

Keep your senses clear

Things like alcohol, drugs, even those like marijuana are things that change our behavior. Even cigarettes that lead to withdrawal if we are without it.

Here is what I am going to say…to be someone in the light you NEED to look different than those around you. And I don’t just mean in small ways, I mean people will think you are WEIRD because of your actions. Praying before you eat your lunch in your cafeteria, people will think that is probably weird. Being someone whose speech always build up others and never tears down, who never uses curse words…people will think that is weird. Not having sex before marriage, not vaping or smoking, not being greedy…all of those things will label you as weird. But weird is good.

Now the other thing about being weird is that it can be difficult sometimes, but luckily Paul shows us how we can do this.

Walk with others

Fellowship (speaking to one another)

Worship (singing and making music)

Gratitude (give thanks always)

Humility (submit to one another in the fear of Christ)

Jesus is our ultimate example of this