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Title: Streaming: Live Presenters to End-Users
Text: Ephesians 5:8-14
Thesis: Living in the light is to be visible evidence of God-like living.
Lenten Series: Reflecting, Repenting and Returning to God
The Lenten Season is a time for reflection, repenting of our sin and returning to God. During Lent we confront the presence of evil in the world, the reality of temptation and human sinfulness. However, it is in acknowledging human sinfulness and the need for repentance that we find our way to return to God who is merciful and gracious.
Introduction
Years ago I remember my first exposure to Lower Wacker Drive in Chicago. Wacker Drive is a multi-level street that runs along the Chicago River. The upper level is for local traffic and the lower level for truck traffic with dock areas for serving buildings along the drive. Chicagoans are currently busily reviving the Lower Wacker Drive area but it was once a perfect example of life in the underbelly of the city. A virtual community of people lived down there in the darkness. Residents drug discarded living room furniture down there. They set up makeshift shanties and built fires in old oil drums. It was a dark world.
Not far away is the Four Seasons Hotel with a 5,000 plus square foot penthouse suite. The suite is richly decorated with a wood burning fireplace, green marble and black granite. Mahogany paneling, wide plank wood floors, birds-eye maple and pear wood accentuate the décor. But the most glorious feature is an unobstructed 180 degree view to the north, south and the east toward Lake Michigan. And you can live there for $9,950,000.
Life in a makeshift shanty on Lower Wacker Drive is a stark contrast to life in the penthouse of the Four Seasons Hotel. One life is lived underground and the other on top of the world. One life is lived in darkness and the other is lived in glorious light.
The contrast of darkness and light is one way to describe the way we lived before we became followers of Christ and the way we live as followers of Christ.
I. The Way We Were, But Now Are Not
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Ephesians 5”8a
Using comparisons and contrasts is a powerful literary device in making a point. The greater the contrast the more powerfully a point is made. When we use descriptive language like “the difference between night and day” or “the difference between black and white,” the contrast is vivid in our minds.
Comparison and contrast is used in the bible to illustrate the difference between not being a follower of Christ and being a follower of Christ.
Jesus said in John 3:19, “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. In John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
In Ephesians 2:12-13 Paul wrote, “Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, without hope and without God in the world. But, now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near.”
Colossians 1:21, “Once you were alienated from God and enemies in your mind because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you…”
In Timothy 3:3-5, “At one time you were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us…”
“You are a chosen people… a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people – now you are the people of God.” I Peter 2:9-10
It is with that kind of powerful, descriptive language that our text begins. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Ephesians 5”8a
William Barclay states, “[The Apostle] Paul saw the heathen life as life in the dark; and the Christian life as life in the light. So vividly does he wish to put this that he does not say that the heathen are children of the dark, and the Christians children of the light; he says that the heathen are dark and the Christians are light.” (William Barclay, Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians, Westminster Press, P.194)
A. You were darkness describes what we were before we became followers of Christ.
B. You are light is how we are described as followers of Christ.
The bible says that living in the light results in fruit.
II. The Way We Ought to Be
(You were once darkness, but now you are light.) Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Ephesians 5:8b-9
Galatians 5 distinguishes between the fruit that grows out of our sinful or human nature apart from Christ and the fruit that grows out of our lives in Christ. The fruit of the Spirit exists in stark contrast with the fruit of darkness.
The whole point of establishing the contrast between what we once were and what we are to be now is to point out the difference in the way we live. People who live in darkness live differently than people who live in the light. And when we live as people of light it is important that we find out what pleases the Lord.
Note that captured in parenthesis between, “Live as children of light” and “find out what pleases the Lord” are three hints.
A. Goodness (Benevolence) is generosity of spirit.
B. Righteousness is giving God and others their due, i.e., justice.
C. Truth is intellectually knowing but with a moral responsibility to do what is right.
Commentator William Barclay suggests that to understand what is being taught, we imagine a Middle Eastern bazaar. Imagine a narrow street running along between buildings on either side. Imagine jutting out from the walls of those buildings, canopied booths lining both sides of the street. The street is more alley-like than like a street. People are milling about and merchants are hawking their wares from their booths.
If you were to stop and shop in one of those booths you might find a piece of cloth or a piece of beaten brassware. You would never just fork over $50, tuck your purchase under your arm and move on down the street. You would take whatever it is you were thinking of buying out into the middle of the street and expose it to the bright sunlight. You would hold it up in the light of the sun to see if it was a perfect piece of a flawed piece. (William Barclay, The Letters to the Galatians and the Ephesians, Westminster Press, P.195)
In the same way, Paul suggests, we take the stuff that is our lives and we hold it up to the light of Christ in order to see if what we are thinking or doing or saying is pleasing to the Lord. It is not unlike the fad of a few years ago when it was popular to ask, “WWJD?” We hold it up and in the light of Christ we can discern if the stuff of our lives is good fruit or not so much.
It would seem that the whole point of this teaching is to remind us that whether we know it or not, nothing is hidden from God.
III. The Way We Appear to Be
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed to the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. Ephesians 5:11-14
The Lenten Season is a good time to be reminded that nothing is hidden from God or the discerning eyes of others.
Remember the story of original sin and the fall of man in Genesis 3? Immediately after disobeying God Adam and Eve were suddenly aware that their lives were laid bare and they attempted to hide from God.
Psalm 44:21 specifically states that “God knows the secrets of the heart.” And in Psalm 90:8 a prayer is recorded in which the Psalmist prays to God saying, “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.” And in Psalm 19:12 the Psalmist, fully aware that he has stuff in his life that he has either hidden or forgotten or is unaware, he asked God to “Forgive my hidden faults.”
In truth… nothing is hidden from God and little escapes the prying eyes of the paparazzi. If the paparazzi can’t get a photograph of it there are ways to snoop and sniff out everything about everyone.
A. Nothing is hidden
Years ago I read a tragic letter written by the adult daughter of a deceased man. He had been a model husband and father. She had nothing but lovely memories of her father. And then he died and in going through her father’s things she discovered things about her father that sickened her and forever tainted her memory of him.
Nothing is hidden and eventually it all gets exposed to the light and we are known.
I am not big on airline travel. It just seems like such a hassle getting there and getting on the plane and getting off the plane. It is a hassle knowing that you have to make sure everything you have will pass through security. It is a hassle knowing you will have to remove your shoes and put them on again. It is a hassle to be body scanned or patted down. But laying all of the hassle aside… what do we have to hide? Go ahead. Scan my stuff. Search my bags. Pat me down. I have absolutely nothing hidden because there is nothing to hide.
The IRS sends you a letter. Your heart leaps into your throat and you break into a sweat. Then you remember, “I’ve nothing to hide.”
That is the key to living in the light. Have nothing to hide!
B. Nothing to hide
That is what the Apostle Paul is saying. If everything is exposed, including the secret stuff, they why not live as children of light.
A couple of nights ago my brother Randy called me from Iowa. He said, “Monty, you gotta check out Decorah Eagle Cam online.”
Near a fish hatchery in Decorah, IA there is an old Cottonwood Tree where a pair of bald eagles have built an enormous nest. This nest is one of the nests featured in the PBS documentary, The American Eagle.
There are three eggs in the nest and just yesterday the first hatched. The second hatch was or is imminent. There is a live camera set 80 feet in that tree observing everything that is going on in that nest 24/7. Yesterday I watched one of the eagle parents feeding the tiny little eaglet as it stretched its neck and opened its mouth wide to receive a regurgitated morsel from the parent’s beak.
Conclusion
You may have been puzzling over the title of the message today: Streaming - Live Presenters to End Users.
Perhaps one way we can really get the gist of what Paul is to think of it in 21st Century tech talk. If we think of our lives as being streamed online for everyone to see, we get the idea of living absolutely visible lives. We might think of ourselves as the live presenters whose lives are being streamed (the eagle family near Decorah, IA) and we might think of those who observe us as end users (the viewerss of the eagles on live cam).
As children of light there is no reason for us to have any off-camera secret that would either displease God or be hurtful to others. Nothing is hidden and there is nothing to hide.
This morning the closing thought for reflecting, repenting and returning to God during the Season of Lent is the reminder:
You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live lives that are visibly pleasing to God and are a blessing to others.
