Walking As Children Of Light

The second thing I think points more toward God, righteousness. That has to do with your relationship to God, never deviating from his pure path of holiness. And the third term is truth. And as I checked out lexicons on that, I find an interesting thing. One said it means integrity, one said it means honesty, one said it means reliability, one said it means trustworthiness. And that has to do with my own self. First, goodness in relating to others, secondly, righteousness in relating to God, and thirdly, integrity as I view myself as I am what I say, honesty, reliability, in contrast with the sham and the falseness and hypocrisy of the old life.

This is God’s desire for us. And beloved, he says, look, if you are walking as children of light, there is to be the fruit of light toward others, toward God, even within your own self. You ought to be able to examine your own life to see if you’re really in the light. Now there are people, as I said, who claim to be in the light, but there’s one good way to tell. In Matthew chapter 7 and verse 15, Jesus said, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

You shall know them, watch this one. By their, what fruits? Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? In other words, if they’re a thorn and a thistle, nothing will grow on them. Even so, every good tree brings forth good fruit. Now listen to me people, all Christians bear fruit. Did you get that? There’s no such thing as a no-fruit Christian. There’s a lot of little fruits, got nothing but a few shriveled raisins hanging on, but there’s no such thing as a no-fruit Christian. If there’s life, there will be product.

Every good tree brings forth good fruit. A corrupt tree brings forth bad fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth forth not good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits, you shall know them. The point is this, if you are a child of light, there will be the fruit of light. You see? So when somebody comes along and says, well we did this and we did this, finally, you know, the next text in Matthew 7, he says, you can say Lord, Lord, all you want.

You can say you cast out demons, you did this, you did this, you did this, but I never knew you. No fruit, no life. And so some claim to be walking as children of light, but there’s no fruit and they lie. Now from time to time, you know, we who are Christians who sin and when we sin our product drops. And maybe they’ll look a long time in your life to find some fruit, because your life isn’t what it ought to be. The expression of your life at this point is sinful in some ways.

The Christian who walks as a child of light will produce fruit, and as you sin, even as a Christian, fruit diminishes. But what he’s saying here is this. If you’re really walking as a child of light, there is going to be some fruit there. There will be goodness, righteousness and truth, and this will verify your life. Look at verse 10, really great, proving or verifying what is acceptable to the Lord. What is he saying here? You shouldn’t just teach what is acceptable to God, you ought to live it, you ought to verify it in your life.

This is the joy of the Christian, to be a living example of God’s truth, to be a living verification of what is pleasing to God. People say, well, how do I know I’m a Christian? Or how do I know this person’s a Christian? It’s verified in the fruit. It’s verified in the fruit. If you have to sit down with yourself and say, I don’t know if I’m a Christian, well, let’s see. Yeah, I guess I am. I mean, I’m religious and I’ve gone to church a long time, and I remember when I made a decision.

If you’ve got to speculate and philosophise, you’re not doing it the way the Bible says. You can prove what is acceptable to the Lord. You should be able to verify it by looking at your life. It ought to be there. If you do the deeds of the light, the light is in you, see? A child of God will bear some resemblance to his father. You know, in the East, I was in Damascus one time, and they have these little tiny streets. And the streets are dark because, not because the sun doesn’t shine, but because over every little shop there’s no windows or anything, just an open shop.

They hang all this material, so you can’t see anything. It’s dark in there. And they do it in little narrow streets, so there’s a little tiny strip of light going down the middle of the street, in between all these things. And when you go in there, I remember we went into this place to buy some linen for my wife, and in order to tell if the stuff’s any good, you’ve got to take it outside and find a little bit of light, and hold it up, and see if there’s any floors in it.

And I guess maybe that’s the idea. You know, I would only purchase something that passed the test of light. And I guess maybe that’s the only way to really evaluate our lives. We can’t determine that we’re a Christian because of some past thing. The only way to do it is to show it up to the light and see if it stands the test, you see. To expose every action. To expose every decision. To expose every motive to the light of Christ, and see whether it’s genuine. You know, when I go into the airport and I have to put my suitcase through that x-ray machine, I never worry about that.

I just go right on in there. Just, I know I don’t have any guns in there. I don’t have any bombs, no hand grenades, not smuggling diamonds, nothing. I don’t worry about it. I don’t mind having my suitcase x-rayed. And you know, that’s the way it ought to be with Christians. We don’t mind having the light reveal what we are, because we find it will only verify the truthfulness of our identity. Right? We are to be willing to bring ourselves to the light, to prove by our living, to verify in our life that we are light.

So he says, look, the contrast is clear. You’re not that anymore. You are light. Now live it. And if you’re really living it, here are the characteristics. Goodness and righteousness and truth. And these will become the verification to you and everybody around you, that you are walking as a child of light. But beyond that, there’s a command too. Look at that in verse 11. There’s a command. The contrast and the characteristics lead to a command. Just in case you need something negative, he says in verse 11. And have no fellowship with the case it isn’t clear to you yet what I’m saying.

Based on the contrast, you see you’re so different, you’re so far removed, you’re over here trying to verify the life of God in you, you’re over here involved with goodness, righteousness and truth, you were that. Now the point is, have absolutely no fellowship with that. And he uses the word sugkoine. Koine means fellowship. You add a preposition to the front of it, it intensifies it. Have no really intimate fellowship. In other words, don’t you get involved at all in sin, the unfruitful activity of darkness. Don’t get involved in the ignorance of the world toward God.

Don’t get involved in the immorality of the world. We’ve been saying this so many ways, people. There’s no place for that. There is no place. We have no part. You say, well, does that mean you never go near anybody? No, because we’ve got to touch the people of the world. We’ve just got to leave their sin alone. People say, well, if we’re going to witness, don’t we have to get a little involved? No. The only way to witness is to not get involved. You’ll destroy your testimony. You know, it says in 1 Corinthians 5 that we’re not to fellowship with fornicators and covetors and idolaters and all that.

And then it says those in the church, not those in the world, those in the world need us. Just don’t do what they do. Reach out and love them, but don’t do what they do. See, we’re to be non-participants in the world’s fair. Well, I don’t know how you relate that to your life, but that’s pretty practical stuff. Do not fellowship together with the unfruitful works of darkness. The system is sterile, see? It bears nothing. You have no part in it. It’s a fruitless, dark system. Don’t waste your time. You say, well, you mean I just sort of crawl in my little hole and don’t ever peek? No, you don’t participate.

You’ve got to peek, because the next thing is the commission. Look at this. The contrast leads to the characteristics which leads to Paul’s command. And since we’re to have absolutely no fellowship, we might all bail out. And so he adds this, but rather reprove them. And the word reprove is expose. Listen, don’t do what they do. Expose what they do. We are the spiritual CIA folks. And our job is not to be involved, but to expose the crimes of darkness. Every one of us is called by God to do that. And the agent or the tool that does that is the Bible.

Thank you for joining us in this exploration of walking as children of light. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].