Children of Light

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.” (Eph 5:8-10)
 
Review
Last Sunday, we talked about the new identity we came to have in Jesus. Paul said that if we’re in Christ, we become new creations.
 
In order to understand what it means for us to become new creations, we looked at how the Bible describes human beings. In Scripture, we find three types of humanity.
 
God created human beings in His image out of the mutual loving and intimate relationship that the triune God—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—has with one another, so that humans could also have that kind of relationship with God, with one another, and with the other creatures that He created. We know this from what God said when He created humans: “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…” (Gen 1:26).
 
That’s what created humanity looks like. The first human beings were created in the image of God with the ability to love and have a relationship with God and others.
 
But the image of God was distorted and lost when sin entered the world through their disobedience. They ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with the desire to be like God themselves and thus rebelled against Him.
 
As a result, they lost the image of God in which they had been created. Moreover, all the relationships they had with God, with others, and with other creatures were also severed or distorted. All of the problems we face in the world today stem from these broken relationships. Moreover, all people are heading toward eternal death because of sin. That’s what fallen humanity looks like.
 
But the good news we find in the Bible is that God didn’t leave humanity in a fallen state. From the time sin first entered the world, God had a plan to save people from sin. He revealed His plan of salvation through His prophets and finally achieved it in His own time through His Son, Jesus Christ.
 
Jesus bore all the sin of the world and died on the cross. By doing so, He made a way for people to be saved from their sins. Now, all those who believe in Him and accept Him as their Savior and Lord are born again spiritually and have a new identity in God.
 
We were once sinners, deserving the wrath of God, but now we’re beloved children of God. We were justified by the precious blood of Jesus Christ and are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit until we’re finally glorified when we join in the resurrection of Christ when He comes back. That’s what the new humanity looks like.
 
That’s what it means for us to become new creations in Christ. To believe in Jesus is the only way for us to be born again and become new creations, because only He has the power to save us from sin.
 
To be a new creation is different from the concept of renewal in the world because while worldly renewal only makes something look new, the biblical concept of renewal refers to making old things completely new.
 
The important thing is that biblical renewal happens regardless of how we’ve lived in the past. There’s a saying that goes, “Life is a sum of all your choices.” It means that our past decisions have made us who we are now. In other words, we’re reaping what we’ve sowed in the past. We can’t expect to reap good fruits if we sow bad seeds. We can’t produce roses out of onion seeds.
 
But this natural law loses its power before the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who are in Christ can still reap good fruits regardless of what we have done and who we have been in the past. In Christ, we’re not influenced by our past anymore because when we believe in Jesus, He lives in us, works in us, and makes us new creations by sowing good seeds in our lives.
 
We don’t have to try to do anything to be new creations. The only thing we can do is to make Jesus the Lord of our lives, give Him control of our lives, and follow Him as He works in us.
 
So, the key to becoming new creations is in Christ. That’s what truly brings genuine transformation in our lives. For us to believe in Jesus means that we’re united with His death and resurrection. As Paul said,
 
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me…” (Gl 2:20)
 
“If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Rm 6:5)
 
So, we die to sin with Christ and we live for God with Him. We say what He would say and do what He would do. We continue to follow His example. That’s how we are being “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29) day by day until we “become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13)
 
In Christ, we recover the image of God that we lost because of our sin. In Christ, we grow into the image of God, because He is the image of the invisible God made manifest on earth in human form. That’s what it means for us to become new creations in Christ.
 
Children of Light
Today, I want us to continue to talk about this new identity we came to have. There are several metaphors that illustrate what the new creations look like in the Bible. One of them is children of light.
 
In today’s passage, Paul said, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” (Eph 5:8-10)
 
Here, we see an obvious difference between two concepts—darkness and light. Paul said that we were darkness, but now we’re light. Paul didn’t say that we lived in darkness but that we ourselves were darkness. What does this mean?
 
Light is used as one of the important symbols that describe God’s character. John says, “God is light” (1 Jn 1:5)
 
Moreover, when describing the incarnation of Jesus Christ—the coming of Jesus in human flesh—John says, “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.” (Jn 1:9)
 
Then, if light is part of God’s nature, then darkness refers primarily to any realm in which God's presence is absent.
 
Technically, darkness doesn’t exist. The definition of darkness in the dictionary is “the partial or total absence of light.” So, darkness only refers to the absence of light. By contrast, light does exist. Light has particles and waves. It has speed. We can see it with our eyes.
 
But darkness doesn’t have a shape. If you see darkness, it’s only the absence of light. That’s why darkness can never overcome light. But even the slightest light can overcome darkness.
 
That’s the reason John said, “In him there is no darkness at all” (1 Jn 1:5) after proclaiming, “God is light.”  Because God Himself is light, darkness has no place in Him.
 
From this, we can infer what Paul meant when he said, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord” (Eph 5:8)
 
Saying that we were darkness or that we lived in darkness describes our state of life without God. We were created in the image of God in His light. But we lost the light when we chose to rebel against Him by disobeying His command and trying to pull Him down from His position as our Lord. As a result, we were separated from His presence and started to live in darkness.
 
But the good news we find in the Bible is that God doesn’t leave us alone in darkness. He sent His Son into the world as the light of the world.
 
John said, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.” (Jn 1:5,9)
 
The apostle Paul also said,
“God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” (2 Co 4:6)
 
In our sin, our relationship with God was severed, and as a result, we were living in darkness without even realizing it. We were spiritually blind.
 
But God, who created light at the beginning of the world, came into the world as light to shine His light on our hearts through His Son Jesus Christ. We were once blind, but now we see. What’s more, God also delivered us from darkness and allowed us to live in the kingdom of light. As Paul said,
 
“[I give] joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:12-14)
 
Here we see two kingdoms—the kingdom of light and the dominion of darkness. The kingdom of light refers to God’s kingdom where He reigns as light. This kingdom is also called the kingdom of the Son, Jesus Christ, where we can find redemption and the forgiveness of sins.
 
In contrast, the kingdom of darkness is where God is absent and His sovereignty is ignored. That’s where we were before we believed in Jesus. We lived in our own sin, following the ways of the world, our desires, and the spirit of disobedience—Satan.
 
But God made His light shine on us through Christ and rescued us from the dominion of darkness to take us to the kingdom of light, where our sins are completely forgiven and we become new creations. We once lived in darkness, but now we live in His kingdom of light. We were once darkness ourselves, separated from God’s presence, but now we have become children of light.
 
So, “children of light” is another expression for new creations. That’s who we became in Christ. That’s the very purpose of Jesus coming into the world—to give us light, to make us light, and to allow us to walk in the light.
 
This purpose was prophesied in the Old Testament and fulfilled in Jesus’ life.
 
When prophesying the birth of the Messiah, the prophet Isaiah said,
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned… For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…” (Is 9:2, 4)
 
When Jesus was born, a star appeared and shone with great light. It was so bright and special that magi from the east followed it until it stopped over where Jesus was.
 
This bright, shining star served as a signal for Jesus’ birth and revealed the nature of His ministry. He came to earth to shine light into a world filled with darkness and bring true peace and the joy of salvation to all people.
 
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (Jn 8:12)
 
In Jesus, can we find true light. In Him, can we find true life. He came to show us the way to go. In fact, He Himself is the way through which we can go to the Father in heaven and be reconciled with Him. If we believe in Him, we will never lose the light. If we follow Him, we will never walk in darkness, because now we’re in the kingdom of light, the kingdom of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
 
That’s the way of life we are to seek and live out as children of light. We should never try to follow what we followed in darkness before we were shown Jesus’ light. Instead, we should make every effort to walk in the light in our restored relationship with our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ.
 
You may know Paul’s conversion story. On the way to Damascus to persecute Christians, Paul saw a great light and heard Jesus’ voice. Jesus told him,
 
“I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me… I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” (Ac 26:16-18)
 
The mission Paul was given by Jesus was to turn people from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Darkness and the power of Satan refer to where we were without Christ, while light and the power of God refer to where we are in Christ now.
 
We lived in the dominion of darkness, but now we live in the kingdom of light where Christ lives with us. We lived under the authority and power of Satan as his slaves, but now we live under God’s love and sovereignty as His beloved children. That’s the identity we came to have in Christ when we became new creations in Him.
 
So, where do you want to live? Do you want to live in darkness without God, or do you want to live in the light with Christ? There are two ways before us—the road to darkness and death and the road to light and life. I want us to choose to walk in the latter path.
 
Please remember who you are in Christ. The apostle Paul continually reminded Christians who they have become in Christ in his letters. He said,
 
“But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness… You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.” (1Th 5:4-5)
 
It is important for us to keep reminding ourselves of our identity as children of light because it gives us direction in our lives and helps us truly live out this precious identity as the light of the world.
 
Please keep in mind that our identity as light in the Lord can only be proven by how we live out our lives as we follow Him, not by our claims.
 
John said, “… the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.” (1Jn 2:8-11)
 
We must beware of thinking we are living in the light when we are actually living in darkness. Claiming to be in the light means nothing if we do not live it out. What’s worse, we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we are in the light when we’re not.
 
Being God's children of light is only shown by the way we obey His commandments of love and strive to live according to the example of Jesus Christ.
 
We must continue to remind ourselves of who we have become in Christ so that we can truly live out what we claim to have become through faith in Him.
 
We became new creations in Christ. We are no longer slaves to sin or Satan because God has delivered us from darkness to His kingdom and adopted us as His children of light. That’s the truth I want us to keep holding on to this year.
 
There are many things that keep us from focusing on the truth we have in Christ. Internally we face our sinful nature, evil desires, and failures, and externally we face temptations from the ways of the world.
 
That’s the spiritual fight that we’re to continue to fight through our faith in Jesus. But we’re not fighting alone. We fight the battle with the One who already overcame every sin, temptation, and even death.
 
We can't shine the light ourselves. We're like the moon reflecting the light of the sun, not the sun shining on its own, which means that we can only live as the light of the world if we remain in Jesus, who is the true light, and let Him work in our lives. So the only thing we can do is to continue to hold on to Him and walk with Him. Then we'll naturally shine His light as He works in and through us.
 
That’s the life I want every one of us to live this year. I want us to continue to remain in Jesus, so that we may be firmly rooted in Him and be conformed to His image of light day by day, and so that we may truly live lives worthy of the calling to be the light of the world.
 
If we hold on to this identity by our faith and continue to live out our calling as children of light, we’ll also be able to turn those around us from darkness to light and from death to life.
 
Let’s take time to pray now.
________
 
Today, we dug deeper into what it means for us to become new creations in Christ through the metaphor of light.
 
The Bible says that we were darkness but now we’ve become children of light. We once lived in darkness, separated from God’s presence because of our sins, but He sent us His one and only Son as the light of the world. He is the true light that gives life to all mankind. He came into the world to deliver us from the dominion of darkness and bring us into God’s kingdom of light.
 
Now, all those who believe in Jesus are freed from their sins and darkness and become children of God's light. We don’t belong to or walk in darkness anymore because we belong to Christ, the true light of the world.
 
That’s the precious identity God has given us through Christ. To do this, Jesus came into the world as a human and died on the cross, bearing all our sins.
 
Now, it’s important for us to keep reminding ourselves of the new identity we came to have in Christ. Jesus came into the world not only to shine His light on us but also to make us the light of the world, so that we may join in His ministry to turn people from darkness to light. We’re called to be the light of the world by reflecting His light wherever we are.
 
We can't do this unless we remain in Jesus and He remains in us. We can't love those around us as He loves us unless we experience and are filled with His love. We can't follow in His footsteps unless we are filled with His power. We can't produce light ourselves. We can only reflect His light that we have received by His grace.
 
So, during this time, I want us to remember who we have become in Christ, what He sacrificed for us, and the purpose for which He made us children of light.
 
Now, let’s give thanks to God for giving us this amazing gift of salvation and the new identity He has allowed us to find in Christ. Let’s start with a prayer of thanksgiving, and then we’ll move on to the next prayer topic.
 
Let’s continue to pray, asking God to work in our hearts. As I said in the sermon, we’re called not only to receive the light, but also to shine the light of Jesus on those around us. And we can’t do this alone, because we don’t have the light ourselves.
 
That’s the reason we need Jesus at all times. It’s only when He remains us and shines His light on us that we can live out our calling to be the light of the world by reflecting His light. So as Christians, we need to continue to allow Jesus to work in us, remembering who we have become in Him.
 
So let's pray now, inviting Him into our hearts and into our lives. Let's pray for Him to come and fill our hearts with His light. Let’s ask Him to guide us so that we can shine His light wherever we are and join in His mission to bring those around us from darkness into His light.
 
Let’s pray.
 
<Closing prayer>
Heavenly Father, we come here in remembrance of the wonderful salvation You have given us and the light You have shone upon us through Your Son, Jesus Christ.
 
Thank You for everything You have done in our lives to save us. Thank You for giving us Your light through Jesus Christ when we lived in darkness. Thank You for delivering us from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light. And we thank You for making us new in Christ and allowing us to walk in His light.
 
We ask that You would open our minds and hearts to You and let our faith be firmly built on this truth. Help us not to be distracted by anything but strengthen us to keep walking with You. We don’t want to live as if we’re the lords of our lives. Please come and be the King of our lives so that we can live Christ-centered lives. Help us reflect Your love and light to those around us.
 
We confess our weaknesses. We don't have the strength to live as the light of the world. Please continue to remind us of the calling for which You have saved us, and let us remain in You so that Your will may be done and Your kingdom come wherever we are. We pray that we may be used as Your vessels to fill the world with Your Light.
 
We love You, Lord.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
 
[Reflection Questions]
1. The apostle Paul said, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light” (Eph 5:8). Think about this verse and share what you think it means.
 
2. What does it mean for you to be light in the Lord? How do you know? How do you want to be part of God's mission to turn people from darkness to light?