Exposing Darkness: A Call to Live in the Light

“It’s my privilege to be able to bring the word of the Lord here. I’ve been excited about what God’s been doing. He’s made some shifts, some changes, and they’re all been so great. And I’m just thankful to all of you who have been so supportive of the move of God in this house, being willing to do whatever God asks us to do. He always has something new and exciting for us. He’s never boring because you just never know what’s going to happen, right? Like last week’s service. I love this place. We never know what to expect. Holy Spirit broke out. The spirit of prophecy broke out. Miracles happened, things came know. And the pastor of the house was willing to lay down his message and let holy spirit take over and move. And I’m really grateful that we have leaders like that that are willing to give God their time. It looks like I got a little extra time of his from last week, which is good because he sent me his notes and there were so many things in there that were just amazing and I have actually woven some of them in throughout my message. So we’re going to kind of give you a little bit of pastor Jonathan and Pastor Celine. That’s a little bit of an interesting blend and mix. I’m sure he never thought that would happen, but God has a sense of humor, I’m sure. But we have been on a journey here for well over a year. We’ve been talking to the Lord about fivefold ministry and what does that mean? And this is a church that was born and bred on the book of Ephesians. This is a church that believes in the fivefold ministry. It’s a church that believes that God is able to do anything, that all things that are written in the word of God are for today. And that Jesus didn’t expire prophecy, and he didn’t expire Holy Spirit. But that holy spirit is still alive and well and moving in the earth today, and that nothing is impossible with him. And so we’ve been in the book of Ephesians lately. We were studying all the different letters to the early churches that were set up by the apostles of the Lamb and the twelve disciples. Most of them were written by Apostle Paul, but there were some, and they were brought to bring clarity to the current leaders, along with correction for problems. The early church had problems. Shock. Today’s church has problems. Why are we surprised? Why do we act like, what? Oh, my gosh. I can’t go there. They’ve got a problem. Oh, my gosh. They didn’t do that right. What do those people think? They’re just a bunch of hypocrites. Why? Why do we get surprised? We have an enemy of our soul who hates Jesus. So he’s going to do everything he can to thwart what God has promised, what God has said, to twist truth, to change it just a little bit and bring death. In the last few weeks, we’ve been focusing on ephesians five. If you can put up the key scripture here, it’s verses eight through 13. It says, for you were once darkness, not that you were in darkness, you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Finding out what is acceptable to the Lord and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light. For whatever makes manifest is light. A few weeks ago, Pastor Pat preached on this portion of the scripture, and he stated that we are now light because we have the incorruptible seed of Christ within us when we’ve choose to receive Jesus as our personal savior. Jesus is the light of the world. We find that in John one, one through five, and in one John one, five through seven, that in him was life, and the life was the light of man. And that light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. And God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. But if we claim to have fellowship with God but walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light and as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. We have the life and the light of God within us. I want you to say, I have the light and life of God within me. Is this a little light? This little light of mine? Think that’s a little wrong? It’s only little if we put the dimmer on, because the light in me is great and powerful. Last week, Pastor Jonathan, as I said, he didn’t get to share his whole message due to that breakout of Holy Spirit. But he began to exhort us during worship about verse ten, which is finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. Do we take the time or even ask ourselves, is what I want to do acceptable to God? He stated that we are in a process, as we walk in the light of discovering the things that please God. The discovery brings spiritual clarity. And this is good because we have got to move past any uncertainty for whether we think we are pleasing God to knowing that we are. We do not have to dwell in uncertainty. We can dwell in confidence because we have the life of God in us. And if we’ll take a minute and ask him and then be quiet to hear the Answer. By the way, we all are really good at 1000 questions, and we’re all really good at telling God how to do it, especially when we pray, right? God, you do it this way and you do this, and then you do this, and then we got it down, right? But do we stop and listen for the answer? Love always wants to please the object of its affection. Love always wants to please the object or person of their affection. Sometimes that can get us in trouble. Like if I want to please my kids who want to play in the street, that’s hard, right? Love is very broad. But if our true love is God, then this is the question we should be asking and seeking answers for, rather than trying to find a list of do’s and don’ts or find out how close to the edge I can get before I fall off. If I stop for a minute and I say, God, does this please you? I can hear him. I can read my Bible, which is a manual for life. And then my question would maybe go from, not only can I do this, but should I? All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. If these become our questions for guiding our lives, may I propose that we would want to ask ourselves a question that I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say out loud, but God? Not only do I want to know what pleases you, I want to know what hurts you. We hear a lot about church hurt. We hear a lot about family hurt, friend hurt. But have we ever stopped to ask if what I’m doing or saying is hurting God? Too many people do not want to recognize that God has emotions, too. But we are made in the likeness and image of God, and we have a lot of emotions. So does he. He can be hurt. He can be grieved. He can be sad. He can weep. He can rejoice. And the list goes on. Right? So why is it that we so rarely consider the effect of our choices on how they make him feel? I’m saying this to people who say they love God. There’s people who don’t love God, and they don’t care. But I’m talking to people who love God. This would keep us out of a lot of trouble. Right? So, going back to our scripture in Ephesians five, it comes down to a couple of main points. The first one is light versus darkness, right? They are polar opposites. They’re opposed to one another. You cannot have darkness if there is light present. If we understand the power of the light God has placed within us, and we allow it to enlighten the darkness around us, we will be able to make clear decisions that will bring life and light. The second thing is, as we just talked about, is what is acceptable to God? Finding that in order to find something, sometimes it’s lost, right? Or you have to look hard. You have to seek for it. We have to understand or believe that God is the master engineer and designer of mankind. That is the premise of our faith, that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and with God. And in the beginning, God looked over the earth, and it was without form and void. It was in darkness. We have to believe that the next thing God said was, let there be light. And light came into existence. We have to believe that in our core in order to understand that. It was then that God went on to create a beautiful place called earth, with land and animals and humans and skies and seasons and fruits and vegetables and meat and animals. Just everything. God made a beautiful world, and God made me see. We’re living in a world that doesn’t think that God makes people. They think that life is random and not necessarily an act of will. But God makes each and every life, and every life is important. And as I said earlier, he even went to the extent of writing a manual to life for mankind. We choose whether we will read it and live our lives that way. By walking in light. It produces fruit, right? When you plant a vegetable or a tree, it needs soil, water, and light. Light produces fruit. And the fruits of God produce goodness, righteousness, and truth. And pleasing God will require actions that produce that kind of fruit. The third thing that we’re going to actually dwell on today is this part of the scripture. Do not fellowship with the works of darkness, but expose them. This is not necessarily a favorite topic of mine, but to recognize that God put his light in us, to expose darkness so there would be no darkness, so there would be no evil. That’s why we have the light of God. And when we get that, we can go somewhere. But let’s do a little breakdown of these words. Fellowship to share in company with, that is, coparticipate, in, communicate, have fellowship with, be a partaker with. It’s a friendly association, especially with people who shares one’s interest. Unfruitful, barren. Literally or figuratively without fruit. Because fruit is a visible byproduct of life. You don’t get fruit on a tree that’s dead. You only get fruit from life. Works are simply an implication of acts or deeds or doing or labor. And darkness, the simplest definition for darkness is a lack or absence of light. We could stop there and just say, if the world is dark, that means we’re not doing our job if we have the light. So why do we complain so much about it? This is where the problem is, if there’s darkness. Darkness is also the quality of being without light or a situation in which there is little or no light. The strong’s concordance notes it as shadiness or in a literal or figurative obscurity. You know, figurative darkness can represent evil, wickedness, sadness, ignorance, which is a lack of knowledge. That type of darkness can manifest itself in our souls, our emotions, the way we process things. And it could begin to change who we are, and it can cause fear and a sense of rejection. Darkness isn’t a substance or even anything measurable. It is the absence of something. Darkness is the absence of something, or in our case, someone. Sin is the absence of God’s goodness and perfect holiness. If light symbolizes God, darkness connotes everything that is against God. The works of darkness do not produce the fruit of the spirit that we find in Galatians five. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. These are things the Bible says against such there is no law because there’s nothing wrong with those things. These fruits manifest in all goodness, righteousness and truth. The works of darkness are sin. You can’t change it. You can’t make it look any nicer than that. It’s just flat and simple sin. They are barren and they’re unable to produce good fruit. The Bible defines these sins in many ways. And we all like to look at the big ones, right? Sexual immorality and witchcraft and all this good stuff. But it’s also wrath. Anger, lust, greed, idolatry, drunkenness, partying, murder. Oh, the Bible says that when you hate your brother, you’re a murderer. Just saying gossip, I know that does not exist here. Hatred must I say? We won’t say. Never mind. Gossip. Hatred and so much more. There are scriptures after scriptures after scripture that if you want to know what God hates, you can find. But I want to kind of just ask one question. Why does God hate those things? It hurts his heart. But who else does it hurt? Yeah, does wrath hurt you? Does it hurt the person that you’re angry with? Does sexual immorality hurt you? Does it hurt the person involved? Drunkenness. Does that hurt you? Can it hurt someone else? So God hates things that are going to hurt you. So many people think God is just mean. God just doesn’t want me to have a good time. God just doesn’t want to let me act wild and crazy. Well, hey, you had an opportunity this morning. Could have acted wild and crazy. God’s fun. He likes to have a good time. But the other thing about all those different sins that are listed in the Bible is that they are self focused. They’re all about me. I am the center of the universe. And what I want to do is most important. My personal gratification is more important. And I will not take account for the well being of another. That’s why God hates that. See, God is giving. He sent his son to rescue, to bring us back to a place where we could be in fellowship with him. Darkness does not allow us to clearly see the effects of our actions on others. They leave us unfulfilled and empty and always searching for more. Sin cares more what people think over what God says. Sin always brings harm to oneself or hurts another. Sin does not want to be seen for what it is. That is why it doesn’t like light. If people could truly see another’s heart and the true effect their actions were having on that person, they probably wouldn’t do it. I mean, what are all the psychological textbooks have to say about a girl who’s been or a young man that’s been sexually abused by an adult. The list goes on. It causes breakdowns, it causes torment until they find Jesus. And Jesus can heal their soul. See, there’s nothing that Jesus can’t heal. He came to take away sin. He came to take away the effect of sin. These sins always take from others and places my own feelings above the need of someone else. Sin promotes my individual right and demands its own way, and it refuses to recognize that there is a right and a wrong. We live in a world that blurs them. We live in a world that Isaiah prophesied about calling good evil and evil good. These are the works of darkness that we are to have no communion with no agreement, with no fellowship with no partnering with. Is that wrong? Is that good? Is that bad? As you can see today, this message is intended to make you think. This message is not about what a fantastic preacher I am, because we already know that I’m not. It’s all good. But what it is is to provoke you to think, to provoke you to be able to stand up to the lies of the wicked one, the lies that say, if I just can’t do whatever I want, I’m not free. So here’s our keyword. Expose. To confute, prove wrong, admonish, convict, convince, telephault, rebuke, reprove. Webster says it’s to show the truth, to deprive of shelter, protection, to deprive darkness, shelter and protect it. But it also brings a risk from a harmful action or concern, because when you expose something, some people or some things are not happy. Light is considered more powerful because in order to have light, it requires a source of power and or energy, whereas the dark is simply the absence of power and energy. Light will always be stronger than darkness. The opposite of expose is to hide, to put or keep out of sight, conceal from the view of others or notice of others, to keep it secret, to cover it up. That’s the opposite of what we’re supposed to do for sin. The other word I wanted to focus on in that scripture was manifest, which is to show something clearly through signs or actions, or to make visible. Once again, back to light. Light is illumination, and illumination is necessary for walking through dark places. In other words, the things that please God are revealed by his light. And when we discover these things, we become capable of exposing darkness for all that it is. We’re capable to see where we’re going. We can capable to see the pothole on the road, to run past over it. You’re capable of knowing what’s going on? Instead of living in a world of oblivion. Some people like to be oblivious, but that’s not what God intends it. He is a very intentional God, and he wants us to know what we’re doing, where he’s going. And when we have light, we can see that. Okay, so this all boils down to one thing. We choose what or who we believe. No one else can choose for me. We can also open doors to darkness in our lives. We make the choice, and in turn, it dims our vision or our understanding by participating or having even a friendly view of the world’s ways or their defiance against the ways of God. When people who disregard God’s design for life are given a voice of truth in our minds and in our hearts, we find even ourselves doubting who God says we are. And then we begin to question everything rather than be secure with what we know and that we have a hope for our future, that we’re not just left out there to dry, but there are great things that we are going towards, and there are great things on the journey, on the way. We then take our faith in everything. Rather than being secure with that hope, we take our faith or our belief, and we place it in ourselves. Now there’s a big mistake, which leads to insecurity, then to anxiety, then depression and dissatisfaction with ourselves and for our life all around us. And this leaves one with utter hopelessness and even a despair of life. Is that not what we see in our world today? It’s because if I am supposed to have all the answers and I have it all together by myself, that’s not a good day. There’s so many things that I personally do not know, and I need help, and I need light, and I need to find out how. But all those things lead to the problems that we are having in our world today. And these are not new problems. In contrast, if we are the light and we understand the power of God, our God given light, we can be surrounded by darkness, but not let it into our lives. Jesus wasn’t afraid of darkness, but he did not, and I will say, did not allow darkness to overtake him. If we will just shine. This will either cause people to come into the light and find wholeness, find goodness, find righteousness, find truth, or cause them to run because they want to run into the shadows. They don’t want anybody to know. They want to just kind of be out there. We must be willing to expose the works of darkness. Now, the common mistake made is we think that means exposing people, our war is not with people. Our war is with powers and principalities. We are to expose darkness, but we are to love people. God so loved the world. God so loved mankind. He gave his only son. So we must be willing to speak the truth in love. This is the key when dealing with people. We must hate sin, the action, but not the person. We have to quit putting faces on the sin. We must be more concerned with giving people God’s truth rather than being concerned for what they may think, because the darkness does not allow them to see truth. We have to bring truth. We have to bring the love of God, the grace of God, the mercy of God. We have to bring that. God’s love requires choice. That is absolutely imperative. And yet he makes it actually so simple. For him, there’s two choices, life or death. We have to be able to give people information to know that there’s a life that is worth living, that there’s a God of love, that there’s a life of love, that there’s a life that is abundant life, a life that is satisfied, or there’s darkness and death and depression in all of that. A couple of months ago, I was walked in a restaurant and there was a young lady that had a shirt on and it said, I am dead inside. I almost began to weep. You know, our world is kind of obsessed with zombies. I kind of have an issue with it because zombies are the walking dead. They’re people who are confused. They’re people who don’t have hope. They feel helpless. They’re cynical. They feel like a failure or they’re full of self doubt. They’re unmotivated and detached and ambivalent towards things. This is what life can look like to someone who refuses the light. I want to bring people life. I don’t want to live with zombies. I want to bring people life. Yet our world is literally parading zombies down streets of cities, and zombies are the walking dead. I want people to live. I want people to have life abundant. I want to be able to give to them what they cannot see. So as I kind of went back and I looked at this passage of scripture, I kind of summarized it up in my own words because I thought, if I profess to be a Christian, what does this mean? Right? If I say I’m a Christ follower, what am I saying? I must be confident in who I believe and who I choose to listen to. I must understand that. I must be willing to live a life that represents my father with great honor. I cannot devalue his truth, and I must acknowledge that there is right or wrong. Nor can I allow darkness to creep in, making things shady or unclear on my path. My personal life decisions or choices must come from a place of deep love for God, not force, and a deep love for my family and my friends and look out for them rather than myself. I must not be afraid of speaking God’s truth that will uncover Satan’s lies and tactics with great love and concern for another soul. I cannot minimize the destructive ways of the enemy of our soul, nor can I remain silent. My greatest act of love for others is to live a life that promotes God’s way over the world, to be a light that will always point them to their creator and to walk with them through their journey. But as a church, as a corporate man, what does the scripture look like? Pastor Jonathan wrote this. A church aiming to please God will be a church walking in faith. What does that look like? After following our corporate fast at the start of the year, he really felt the Lord began to bring clarity to this question. Our fasting and prayer was really directed towards spiritual clarity. How can we see clearer in our minds what the heart of God is and what the obstacles in our lives are? Light brings clarity. It reveals what exists and what is true. The spiritual clarity God wants for us involves what is to please him. Ultimately, pleasing him requires walking by faith, because without faith you cannot please God. We need to have faith in the notion of discontinuing fellowship with darkness. We need to have faith by doing the things that please God, because without faith it is impossible to please him. Faith puts in action our understanding of the truth and knowing. This explains why the church of America has lost her relevance in America and in our culture today. We love darkness more than light. We need to change this. We need to have faith in the understanding that we are light. Even more, we are the revelation of God to the world as stated in ephesians three, verses nine and ten. And they say, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ, to the intent that now, not yesterday and not tomorrow, now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. To who made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly place. The church is to be the manifold or manifested wisdom of God in the earth and be a dis. They ought to make the powers and principalities tremble. Okay, that’s our job is to make the powers and principalities nervous to make them wonder what’s going on, what’s going to be our next move. If you didn’t know, demons are not all knowing. God is. It’s another subject for another day. A church aligned with desire to please God will be a church with a testimony. A church with power. A church full of God’s love. And when it’s all said and done, God is pleased when his people are exposing darkness by the light they bring. So I’m going to ask dad to come and play. And Pastor Shelley, if you want to come. That’s great. You all hopefully got communion cups. Could you bring me mine when you come up here, too? Thank you. We’re going to take communion together. But what we’re going to do right now is I’m going to have them put up a few questions as I go along here. Because communion is about the blood of Jesus that was shed for my sin and the body that was broken so that I could be made whole. Communion requires reflection on why God would do this. Communion requires one to self search and ask the Lord if there’s anything that we are doing that is not of him. So I’m going to give you a few questions. I have a few answers. But I want you to fill in your own answer. Because any answer I give is my answer. First question is, do we have a desire to please God? Or do we just wonder if we are pleasing him? Is it just something we don’t really think about? Or we just hope? Or is it something we’re willing to make a reality? Next question. Why expose sin? My first reason is really simple. Because Satan doesn’t want me to. I love driving him crazy. If you want to drive him crazy like he tries to drive you, dish it out. Say the name of Jesus. Do the absolute opposite of what he’s telling you to do. Okay? That’ll make him crazy. So that’s the first reason why to expose it. Secondly, because sin leads to death. The wages of sin are death. It brings harm to one’s soul. How many thousands of other people are like that young lady I saw? That said, I’m dead. Insider. Exposing sin is not to make someone feel bad. It’s not to beat them up. It’s not to make yourself feel bad. The first person we have to let sin be exposed to is ourselves. But exposing sin is exposing lies. Exposing sin is exposing lies. What if someone really thinks because they made a mistake, there’s no hope, there’s no future, there’s no forgiveness, there’s no change. And they’re just doomed to make it work out. That’s a lie. That’s a lie that comes from the pit of hell, not from heaven. If I expose that lie and give them the truth of the love of God for them, so much that he was willing to even die in my place, that they have a hope and a future, because their creator, their master designer, actually had a plan for their life. And it’s a good plan, an expected plan, one with a future, one with hope, one with happiness and joy. What if they knew that and that all that took was a simple choice of saying, wow, God, I believe that you love me. I believe you cared so much for me that you even sent your son to die in my place. And God, I just want you to live in me for the rest of my life. And I want to learn what you made me for, what my purpose is, why I’m here on earth, how I can be meaningful, how I can help somebody else, how I can change the world I live in, how I can make it a better place, I think that’s worth exposing the lie. The next thing to ask ourselves, do we speak truth in love? Or do we just want to be right and just say, I’m just saying how it is. That’s not speaking the truth in love. Exposing the works of darkness is bringing truth to the matter. The truth of a God in heaven that loves, that cares. I’m going to drill that home today. Because there’s a world who has no idea. Some people have heard truth, but they’ve not heard love you sad’s way. You know, choice was given to man out of love. It’s the riskiest thing God gave us. Letting us choose what we want. Why? Because he wanted a people that loved him like he loved us. He chose to love us. He wants us to choose to love him. Some people put it this way, God’s a gentleman. He’ll never force us. You know, a lot of people like to blame God for a lot of things. Why did God let this happen? Why did God let that happen? Why did that person do this? Why did God let all these things happen? I feel sorry for God. He’s apparently responsible for everything. It doesn’t matter that he said, don’t do that. Don’t get drunk. So you get in a car and accidentally kill somebody. God forbid we look at that as God doesn’t want me to have a good time. Really? He doesn’t want you to be out of control and unintentionally hurt somebody. The power of choice left a huge potential for rejection and hurt to himself. But he chose to risk it, and he chose love. Will we? His ways always require the ability to see the future, that in spite of present circumstances, we won’t give up because we’re looking to the future. His purpose will bring righteousness, peace, and joy. You know, when Jesus hung on the cross, it said it was for the joy set before him that he stayed there. Can you imagine thinking about joy when you’re nailed to a cross, bleeding out, beaten, exposed a mockery, that there was an ounce of joy in that? Love and choice always have the ability to see the future. And what Jesus saw with you and me, he saw people who were passed on through their dna, sin and death, and he chose to hang there, to take that from you so that you could choose for yourself. You were born in darkness, but he changed it. This is truly a counterculture way of thinking. We do not live in a world that thinks like this. This requires an internal mindset of God and others. First, will we choose that? Will we welcome the light of God in others to expose the things in our lives that might be holding us back? Do we want to just stay away from everybody? We don’t want them to shine on us where maybe we don’t got it all together? Or do we welcome their love and their light to expose the things in our own life that’s causing us to stay in the shadows? Where God didn’t intend me to live. He intends us to live in the light and in life. It’s only fear that comes and grips us in that moment. But fear is a tactic and a lie of the enemy. And it’s perfect love that casts out all fear. Will we choose love? The choice is ours, life or death. In these last couple of minutes before we take this communion, ask yourself, will I choose God’s way, understanding that he only has truth in love, that he only has things for me to do that will make a difference? Or will I insist on my own way?