What Pleases the Lord

Now You Are Light:

Your history: “You were once darkness.”

• It does not say, “You once lived in darkness.” It says, “You were once darkness.” Darkness covers the planet spiritually. You were once part of that blanket of darkness.
• Darkness covered the face of the deep (Genesis 1:2).

Your transformation: What happened to you? Why did you switch from being darkness to being light?

• “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). Just as the original light in this universe came through the spoken word of God, so the word of God brought forth you as light in this world.
• The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned (Isaiah 9:2 quoted in Matthew 4:16).
• The Messiah would be “a light of revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:42).
• You switched from darkness to light because you received the Messiah, God’s Promised One. For he rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves (Colossians 1:13).

Your Now Identity: I wish that God’s people could see themselves this way. I wish that I could see myself this way.

• “God saw that the light was good. God separated the light from the darkness. The light he called ‘day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night’ (Genesis 1:4). God named the light itself, as well as the darkness. And God named you in your New Birth. Now He calls you light. “Good morning, Light. You shine like a star in the universe. You have a busy day, Light. You are going to show someone the truth today. Your words and your deeds will be light in the darkness”
• Mired in the everyday grind of messy grace we have a hard time understanding who we are.
• Paul is simply carrying forward the truth that Jesus announced to his disciples, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14).
• Our “lightness” is “in the Lord.” We are only light because He is light. “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world,” Jesus said (John 9:5). “That life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).
  • The Light was a person—Jesus!
  • The light is still person—You!

 Live as Children of Light:

We have a new function as well as a new identity.

• Our new function is perfectly aligned with our new identity in Christ.
• We are light in the Lord. Now we must live as children of the light. Last week we saw that we are “dearly loved children.” Now we are "children of light."
  • Once we were darkness. This was our state of being.
  • We were born again. Now we are light in the Lord. This is our new state of being.

We struggle with our new function just as we struggle to embrace and believe our new identity.

• We are tempted to continue to live in darkness because it still gratifies the desires of the flesh.

Living as children of light is worth learning to do: for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth (v9).

• If you are interested in what is truly good, what is truly right and just, and what is truthful, then you are interested in learning to be a child of the light.
• These three virtues have three evils that correspond to them: malice (vs. goodness); impurity (vs. righteousness); and falsehood (vs. truth).

 Find Out What Pleases the Lord:

You automatically know what pleases the flesh. We all have these desires of the flesh and of the mind. We are all by nature children of wrath, not children of light.

You have to find out what pleases the Lord. It’s going to take some learning, some research, some investigation. You’ve got to get to know the Father better so you will understand his heart.

Some things please the Lord. Some things do not please him. Not everyone cares about this, but you do. You are one of his dearly loved children. You are one of his Holy People.

Six ways to find out what pleases the Lord:

• Learn the Word of God. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” We are children of light. We must behalf that way.
• Learn the Character of God. “I want to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering.”
• Learn the Way of Love. Paul mentions this way, this walk, in the first verse of this chapter. The more you learn about real love, the more you know about God. “He who lives in love, lives in God, because God is love.”
• Fellowship with God’s Holy People. You will learn from them as you learn who they are and what makes them tick.
• Have the two-way conversation where you talk to God and listen as God talks to you. God speaks. We know this. It is the consistent truth of scripture. So let’s listen.
• Trust him. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6).

Have Nothing to Do with Fruitless Deeds:

Here is one of those "Put Offs." You have to put off some things, we learned earlier, as well as putting on some things.

Fruitless—akarpos, in contrast to karpos of the light.

I have a Satsuma tree in my front yard that Wayne Labat gave me five or six years ago. Last year I got 400 satsumas off that tree. This year I have found on 19 satsumas on the whole tree. It has grown quite large. It is something of an inconvenience. I thought it was great when it was loaded with fruit. But in a barren year, you think about cutting it down. The only use it really his is the fruit it bears.

Deeds of Darkness.

• There are a lot of references to good deeds in the Bible. Here we have a mention of the other kind—the fruitless deeds of darkness.
• They are deeds of darkness because they operate in darkness. They produce no good fruit.

Expose these fruitless deeds. Tell the truth about them.

We had a discussion recently about how you decide the level of transparency you should practice. We decided that transparency is in part about the audience. Some audiences need to hear your full story. Some are not that kind of audience. One of the ways that you expose the deeds of darkness is to honestly describe your own experience in walking that way and how dark it was.

He who does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God (John 3:20-21). When you start hating the light, you are in danger. You are living the lie. You are afraid for your true behavior and character to be revealed.