Our Walk in the Light

Well, good morning. I hope I'm not disappointing anybody by being here. Here's what happened first service. You know, I've been gone the last two weeks preaching these kids camps. And I guess somebody in the first service thought I'd be gone this Sunday also. And when I came in this morning, she came and she said, "Oh, you're here today." So, I hope I'm not disappointing anybody today by being here. Um, but thank you church so much. Um, so many of you have texted me and you saw me today and asked how the last two weeks were, um, just as you blessed me and sent me to Texas to do these two kids camps. They were amazing. The first week that I was in the Dallas area, 900 kids and 300 sponsors were at this one particular camp. And that week, we saw like 200 kids just respond to receive Jesus as their savior. So, it was an amazing that was so worth it. Um, I was a little nervous on that one. Like, I've done kids camps before, but never 900. So you can imagine some of you former school teachers, 900 kids in one classroom. If the Holy Spirit didn't show up, it would be bad news and the Holy Spirit showed up. So it was a great great time. And then the next week is when I went down to the Kurville area and um I think there was like 400 kids at that one and about a hundred sponsors. You know, it was really interesting. I went to that week and and I just prayed, "God, would your peace be here?" Um and not all the kids were from Kurville, but a large portion of them. And I didn't know what to expect. And here was the interesting thing. you didn't sense any kind of just trauma or just just tension they were going through. And I talked with one of their leaders and she said so many of the deaths that occurred from the flood were from people that were vacationing out of town. And so she said the town itself did not experience the death. Like the death was around them but not towns people. And she said, "So here's what happened." She said, "God has just protected our little ones from having to really live through that. They're in it but not living through it." And I thought, God, you're so good. Um, like, well, you don't understand how his hand works and how things work in the other ways, but his hand is always still on life. And he just took care of those little kids. But that week, we had about 75 kids accept Jesus. So, almost 300 kids um over the last two weeks prayed to receive Jesus as their savior. So, church, again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for just blessing me and sending me. Here's my new motto in life. I would rather live in Colorado and visit Texas than live in Texas and visit Colorado. Okay, it's just a whole lot better here. So, it is good to be home here with all of you. Um, you know what's really interesting about it? So, we began this this series over um Ephesians, right? We started at the very beginning of the summer. So, in the two weeks that I was gone during my downtime, I was studying for this week's passage and we're just working through Ephesians. So, none of this was planned. Would you believe the exact verse that I preached for the past two weeks in those camps is the passage that God has us on this week. So, we're in Ephesians 5 verse 1-14. If you want to turn there, we'll have it up on the screen here in just a second. But here was a fun thing that happened to camp besides all that God did. Um, I was reminded of one of those childhood memories that I hadn't experienced in a long, long time. And it happened and it was almost like, you know, you just have those moments you're just taken back to childhood. And here's what it was. A firefly. Okay, it had been so long since I was seen and definitely captivated by a firefly. But one night, I was walking back to my cabinet. I looked over and there was just like sparks just pop pop. And at first I thought, what in the world? And I kind of rubbed my eyes thinking, I'm having a stroke or something. What's going on right here? I'm too old for this. And I looked and I realized it was fireflies. And just it really it captivated my innocent childhood memories of just seeing these these these bugs magically just kind of glow and go down, glow and go down. And it really just I never thought about what makes that happen. So I actually went back to my room and did a little googling and research and found out. And there are actually four different things and I'm going to call them things because I'm not scientific or I could tell you what they actually were. But there's four things that God has he put inside of a firefly that when these four things come together, it creates this this magical moment or this more I would call it more of a godly moment that causes this firefly to glow in the nighttime like that. And here's what's so interesting about that. As we get into our passage this week, these first few verses in Ephesians chapter 5, here's what we're going to learn. That God does the same thing in you and I. not not scientific things that makes our belly glow. Thank goodness, right? Because that'd be a lot of glowing for some of us going on right here. But but in our walk with Jesus that the Apostle Paul is going to point out there are four necessary things, four necessary ele elements that if we're going to shine the light of Jesus, these four things must be present. And I began thinking this week about it like in that firefly, if one of those four things was missing, then it wouldn't glow. It doesn't glow dimmer. It doesn't glow at all. And I wonder in the world that we live in, the reason that we as followers of Jesus have so little influence on our culture, could it be that we're missing some of them? That we're like, "Oh, yeah, I I'll try for these two over here, but not this one over here." And we think, "I'll just won't be quite as bright." But reality is, when we don't have all four working together, we lose the light completely. And so I want us today to look at these four things that are necessary as followers of Jesus. These aren't these aren't um optional things. These are non-negot non-negotiables. These four things are a must if we're going to let that light shine through us. In fact, the verse that I want to point you to today is go ahead and look with me to Ephesians 5:8. We'll have it there on the screen. It's in your handout there. But here's what the Apostle Paul writes. He says, "For once you were full of darkness, but now you have the light from the Lord." And that's so important from the Lord. Because too many times we get into this thing called behavior modification. And we think our light is because we're acting good. But that's not where it's coming from. It's the Holy Spirit in us because of Jesus living out of us. But then the apostle Paul goes on to say, "But now you have the light from the Lord and look at his command us." So now live or walk as children of the light. He's going, "Go glow." In the terms of of kids this past week, go glow. In terms of the of the firefly, go glow. We are commanded to glow. And so let me take the next minutes that we have together today and let me just point out through the scripture the four things that are going to not help us but will cause us to shine forth that w that light and walk as children of the light. Now because I'm coming off of two weeks of kids camp sometimes I teach a little simpler form um for the kids and somebody said Keith you ought to try that here. We might catch on to a little bit easier if you try that. So So here's these four things. Let me just go and tell you right now as you write them down here in just a few minutes as we go over them. They're going to start with G L O W. Okay. The four words I'm going to give you are going to start with the letters G L O W. And it's the four things that scripture shows us that we must have in our lives if we're going to glow and live as children of the light. So here's the first one if you're taking notes there. The first one is this. We got to have grace. Okay? We must have grace in our lives. Look with me to the first verse in chapter 5. Paul writes this. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. I like the way the message paraphrases. Message says this. Watch what God does and then do it like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. You know, there's a lot of things characteristics about God that we need to that we need to imitate in our lives, right? There's characteristics like compassion. His faithfulness would be something else good that we would imitate and do in our own lives. His truthfulness is patience. But if I had to narrow down to one, what is the most important characteristic of God that we imitate, that we do in our own lives outwards for other people to see, it would be to bestow and show and give the same grace that God gives us. That just as Jesus graced us, forgives us, so we should grace and forgive others. you know, I I understood what grace was, but I didn't really get it in my heart until my senior year um at in seminary. And and here's what took place. It was in a class, and it wasn't the studies that helped me to understand grace. It was a it was an experience in a class. It was my last semester in seminary. I was just so close to being done and beginning a life of ministry that God had called me to that I was dreamed of. And one of the last classes I had to take was a philosophy of religion class. I don't know if you in back in college if you ever took philosophy classes, but there are some words they use that we don't use in normal language. And I stepped into that class. Now, understand this. My whole educational life, I was always an A or B. I never worried about passing or failing. It's just how good a grade did I want to get. And so, it's my last semester in seminary. I'm going, hey, I'm just whether I get a B or A, I don't care. Let me just get this class and get out of here. But after about a week sitting under the teaching of Dr. Woodfin. He's the only name I remember and it's not a positive remembrance I have of Dr. Woodin. He he must have been speaking some different language. I had no idea what he was saying and all the terms and phrases and and just he lost me. And after about a week, I thought, well, I'll catch on. I tried to keep up with my reading and so on. And then the second week, he actually gave us our test schedule. And he said, this class will have two tests, a midterm and a final. Now remember, it's my last one of my last classes, my last semester. So I knew if I didn't pass this class, I wouldn't get out of seminary. We go three weeks into it, four weeks into it, five weeks into it. I am more lost then than I was the day I walked in. The midterm rolls around and we're a week away and I'm thinking, I I don't I don't know what I'm going to do. And so I began praying and fasting, thinking about cheating and praying and fasting and whatever it was going to take to pass this. And finally I'm like, "God, I I'm going to trust you." And I went into that test and I made a 50. Now, I may not know philosophy of religion, but I knew math. So I knew if I had to have a 70 to pass this course, it was going to take a 90 on my final exam to pass this course. And so I just keep studying, going through it, and going through it. And I am as lost as can be. It got a few days before the final, and God showed up miraculously. He made the announcement. Dr. Woodin, not God, but Dr. Woodin made the announcement. The final exam is going to be open book, open note test. I was going, "Oh no, that's not really Oh, because I looked at my notes and there was nothing to be said on." Okay? Like I couldn't figure out what I wrote down and I still couldn't figure out the book out, right? And I'm going, "Oh, no, God. What I'm going to do?" So I went and took that test and I tried the best I could. In this particular class, you had to come back to get your like a actual piece of paper test back handed to you. This is before they could put them out through computers. And I remember sitting in that class waiting. Did I pass? Did I pass? He handed the paper on my my test on my desk. I turned it over to look at it in big red numbers. Guess what it was? 50. I failed. Like I needed a 90. And I failed. My heart sunk. But then I looked a little bit closer and here's what he wrote. 50 plus grace equals 90. Exactly what I needed. It was that moment in my seminary career that I grabbed hold of grace. Because isn't that the story of grace in all of our our lives? I looked over my buddy next to me and he only needed I forgot what he needed. But whatever he needed, it was his grade that he made plus grace and it equaled what he needed. Nobody was graded on the same. It was just grace got you to where you're supposed to be. And isn't that a beautiful picture, a realistic picture of what grace is? What God did for us. He gave us what we didn't deserve. We didn't measure up. But whatever we didn't measure up, he took it to the level that we needed to. And that's grace. And if you and I are going to glow, if we're going to shine the light that Ephesians chapter 5:8 talks about in our lives, we must not just to be a receiver of grace. That's the easy part. We must be a giver of grace. We must be willing to forgive others just as Jesus forgave us. And so the first element, the first thing, the the the first piece that we need if we're truly going to grow in our relationship and glow where people can see is we need grace. In fact, if you're taking notes, I put it kind of I'm still in my kind of kid-friendly terms this week, so I put it as simple as we could put on there, but really, I glow when I forgive others. I do think one of the reasons that as Christians we have such little influence in our culture is because we're not people of forgiveness. We're people of grudges. We're people of hanging on. But rather than just bestowing and giving out that grace, giving out that forgiveness as freely as Jesus gave it to us, we hold on to it. So we must be willing to give grace if we're going to glow. Here's the L. The L in the GL stands for love. Ephesians chapter 5 verse two. Here's how the Apostle Paul wrote it when he was writing to the church of Ephesus. He says, "And walk in love." Makes it as simple as he could say. "And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God." You know, there's two ways to express love. You can say it or you can show it. And for the most part, whether you're a believer or not believer, just a person, as a world, as a culture, we do pretty good saying it, don't we? In fact, just to prove it to you, if you go back to last February 14th, Valentine Valentine's Day, 2024, here's what the statistics say. Over 190 million Valentine cards were distributed. That's a pretty good way of saying I love you. In fact, take it one step further. Um, statistics show this. Over $18 billion dollars were spent on roses, chocolate, cards, and dinners and gifts. Now, that's a way to say I love you, right? But I wonder how many of those people that gave a card on that 14th were showing it on the 15th. Saying it, saying, "I love you," is so, so, so much easier than showing I love you. I think about that. wife whose husband gave him flowers and and took her to dinner on Valentine's, but the next month spent more time at his job working than he did spending with his wife and just one-on-one time with her. Or I think about those parents who who has their child that comes up and says, "I love you." But the minute they turn around, that child is throwing a temper tantrum because they didn't get what they wanted, where they wanted, and how they wanted things. or a friend that says, "I love you," but it's not there when you need it because you're in a crisis. So, showing love and saying love are two different things. And as the Apostle Paul writes here that we're to walk in love as Christ loved, here's what I know when I read scripture. Jesus was amazing at showing love. In fact, he showed us love because he died on the cross for our sins, right? That was the ultimate way of showing how much he loved people. But we may look at that and go, "Okay, if Jesus is my example, I'm not sure I could die for somebody. I'm Here's the deal. God is not even calling us to sacrifice our lives for somebody." But there's so many other ways that we can show love to people other than just simply dying on the cross like Jesus did. I think of the story in John chapter 21 um after Jesus had been crucified on the cross and he was buried and rose again three days later. We know this that scripture says that before he ever ascended into heaven that he made an appearance several times to different people on this earth. And in John chapter 21, there's this really just it's one of those stories that you don't think about much. The Bible says this in John chapter 21 that Peter and some of his friends, other disciples, they were out fishing and you can imagine they were still kind of distraught because the one they had given their life to followed was buried. And so they're just trying to figure life out. And all of a sudden the Bible says that one of them looked up on the shoreline about a hundred yards away and they said, "Look at that person. Must have been over there kind of waving at him. They said is that Jesus?" And when they look closer, Bible says Peter finally realized, "Wow, that is Jesus, the resurrected Jesus." Just like he said. Now remember this. Peter's looking at him. The last time that Peter had seen Jesus was when Jesus was being crucified, when he was being whipped and beat. Remember the story of Peter? Three different times during Jesus's trial and his crucifixion, he denied Jesus even knowing him. So Peter's in this boat looking 100 yards going, "That's Jesus, and I want to go see him." But you got to believe in his mind, he's going, "But does he want to see me?" like what kind of reaction am I going to am I going to get from Jesus? But the Bible says that Peter jumped in the water and swam over there. Didn't even wait for the boat to or what row itself over there. Got up and you wonder like what kind of tension when these two men met each other. Like if I'm Jesus, can I just be honest with you? Might not have been so nice. Might have been a moment when hey buddy, we need to have a talk. You know, you said you would die for me, Peter, and you then you wouldn't even own up to me, Peter. So there had to be maybe this tension. Now that's what I'm suspecting could have happened. But let me tell you what the Bible said did happen. Bible says Jesus or Peter got out of the water and walked over to Jesus and that Jesus had made a fire and said, "Peter, let's have breakfast together. Sit down. Let's just talk." Like think about this for a second. Jesus in his love that he wanted to show Peter. The first time he had interaction with him since his resurrection, what did he do? He simply showed kindness. He just made him breakfast. Did he owe Peter breakfast? Absolutely not. Did Peter deserve breakfast? Absolutely not. See, we can say we need to show people love, but too many times we make love a bigger deal than what it has to be. Let me explain that love is a big deal. But sometimes we don't show love because in our mind we romanticize what it should look like. It should be some kind of showing love that's out of the movie when really just fixing making breakfast for somebody could be the best greatest act of love. And and so in your life, as we think about what is it going to take for us really to shine out the light in us and through us that we can go be that light, it is simply loving people. And the best way to love people is by simple acts of kindness. If you're taking notes, like I said, very simple there. I glow when I show kindness to others. Now, can I be real honest with you right at this point? I feel like a bad preacher right now because as a your pastor and preacher, I feel like I should come on a Sunday and bring you this profound like, woo, look, dig deep with me and look at this and wow, did you ever to see that before? Let's discover this the deep the deep wisdom of scripture. You know what I've given you so far? You need to show grace and show love. That almost feels like I'm still a kids camp, right? It almost feels so simple. Like, Keith, can't you bring us a little bit more than that? I mean, we pay you bigger, better money than that. Can you you need to study a little bit more during the week? Why do we need deeper when we're not even good with what we have? Paul's writing to the church of Ephesus and this is what he told him. If the light wants to shine out of you, you got to show grace and you've got to show love. And then he moves on to third thing. He goes, grace, love. Third one is obedience. We need to have obedience in our life. Look with me in verses 3-6. Now, before I read this, let me just kind of point out, it's going to be interesting. He's about to tell the church, the church of Ephesus, but the church of South Sub that we need to be obedient to Jesus in our life. Now, you can imagine the number of people that he's writing to in the church of Ephesus. But, you know, 2,000 years later, we get it. Every other church gets it. So, you would think that Paul would paint this big broad stroke of obedience, like just put it out there, then you get to fill in the in the in the blanks what you think obedience should look like in your life, what area it should look like in your life, what area it should look like in your life. Like, it would make more sense. That way, everybody kind of gets their toes stepped on a little bit, right? Let's just do a shotgun approach, Paul. But in this particular instance, what we're about to read here, rather than doing a shotgun approach and just saying, "Be obedient," and you fill in the blank of what that looks like in your life, Paul narrows it down to very laser focus. Look with me, verse three. But he said this, "But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetedness must not even be named among you as a proper which as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous, that is an adulterer, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Pretty folks there, isn't he? Now, let me help you understand this. Paul is not preaching moral perfectionism. Okay? What I mean by moral perfectionism, he's not saying, "Okay, now go be perfect." Okay? If Jesus is your Lord, now don't go mess up. Don't do anything wrong and be perfect. Now, he's leading us towards obedience, but he's not trying to say, "I'm preaching a lifestyle to you." Rather than moral obedience or moral perfectionism, here's what he's doing. He's saying, "I simply am nudging you and pushing you that allow the Holy Spirit in you to shape you to look like Jesus." He goes, "Allow the Holy Spirit to shape your habits. Allow the Holy Spirit to shape your humor. And allow the Holy Spirit to shape your heart." Think about that for a second. If I let God in, if you let God in control of your habits, your humor, and your heart, what would your obedience look like? Better question. If you let the Holy Spirit in to shape your habits, your humor, and your hearts, how much would your life resemble that of Jesus Christ? And so Paul is just simply saying obedience is important. When you and I don't live a life obedient through our habits and our hearts and our humor and we don't live a life that looks like Jesus in those areas, here's what happens. The world looks at just looks looks at us and says, "hm, that's interesting. I thought they said Jesus is Lord, but he sure doesn't seem to be their boss. If he's your Lord, he's your boss. And the last time I checked, when somebody's my boss, they can tell me what I should do and what I don't do. Yet, we live in a culture right now that kind of says, "You do you and I'll do me." And don't let the Bible influence that too much. No, the Bible influences who I am and the Bible influences who you are. And we allow the Holy Spirit to shape our hearts, to shape our humor, and to shape our our habits. that we would look like Jesus. That way when the world looks at us, they're going, "Oh, I see a clearer picture of who Jesus is." But I don't know if you caught on when I read that. There is one verse in there that's I call it kind of the toe stumper. It's the one you're reading, walk along and you're reading, "Whoa, whoa." And it just stumps your toe because you're like, "What do you do with that verse?" It's verse seven. I'm sorry, verse five. Let me read it to you again. As Paul was writing all this, this is what he said. For you may be sure, in other words, he's talking about obedience and that our hearts and our humor and our habits should look like Jesus. But then he says, for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an adulterer, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Wait. No one who is sexually impure, sexually immoral, an idoltor, covetous, that person, he says this, will never know and be a part of the kingdom of God. I got some bad news for you. Your pastor just got disqualified from the kingdom of God. Okay. When I read that, the reason it's a toe stepper, I'm going to toe stumper. I'm going, "Wait a second." Like, I I I can't measure up to all that. I mean, if we use that for all of us, we'd probably be all sitting on the wrong side of the line of getting into heaven. So, let me explain to you what he meant when he said that because I think it's so crucial and critical to our disciplehip. He he's not saying this one, if you mess up, you're out. Okay? He's not saying if you sin sexually, if you covet, he's not saying if you do one of these, you're out. He's going, "But if you do these things and you don't struggle trying not to do these things things, it's a reflection of what's really taking place in your heart." You see, there are those that think, "Hey, I'll just take Jesus as my fire insurance. I get to keep living my life however I want to." And Jesus said, "If he's the Lord of your life, but he's not the boss of your life, then he's never been the Lord of your life." And you can't have him as savior if he's not your Lord. The Bible says this, "Our salvation rests on us going, I believe, I take you as both my savior and my lord." And so what the apostle Paul is clarifying there going obedience is a way is one of the parts one of the elements that will help us glow for the world to see us when the world sees obedience they see Jesus living in and through you when you're looking like Jesus now we may all stumble we may all struggle and that comes with it that's where the grace comes in but if you never struggle because you just give in if who you are never looks like Jesus But you just claim Jesus, then you probably never had Jesus in the first place. So it was obedience. So we got glow. We got grace. We have love. We have obedience. If you're going to simplify that, if you're taking notes, I glow when I do the right thing. Wouldn't that preach for kids? Isn't that a message? If your grandkids are here, wouldn't you want your grandkids to hear that, church? That message is not for the grandkids. is for us. It's for the grandmas and grandpas and the moms and the dads and the kids. Which leads us to the last one, worship. G L W stands for worship. Now, so many times we mistake worship to the three songs that we sing in a service on a Sunday morning. That is a form of worship. But singing songs in church is way less than what worship really is. Let me give you the definition of worship. It's not in your notes, but you might want to write this down. Worship is living a life that points to God. Worship is living a life that points to God. So yes, on Sunday morning, we do worship when we sing. Stir, I loved what you said. When we worship to God, we should be pointing up to God with our words. But it's more than pointing up with our words. It's more than pointing up with your hands. It's pointing up with your heart when you sing. But when we worship, it's so much more than singing. We worship God. We point to God in the way that we work. We point to God. We worship in the relationships that we have around us. We worship when we play because when you play, when you work, when you talk, when you're in relationship, it is all pointing up to God. And I believe this, one of the reasons that Christians around the country, but maybe us at times, the reason we don't glow like we should is because so many people, they try, they go for the grace and they have the love and there's obedience, but they don't live a life that's always pointing pointing up to God. Too many people segment their life like a piece of pie going, "God, here's my worship. You get this piece of pie, but my play is my pie. My work is my pie." And we don't put it all together like that. But worship is using our whole entire life and we're pointing to God. You know, we've got the boxes out there for for Hopkins Elementary School. You know, that's worship. Why? Because we're taking things of our own and we're trying to bless teachers as they teach kids. But those teachers when they get those boxes, guess what? They get really a box of worship. It's our sacrifice that we put in there. I announced in the first service that many of you may know her faith. Um our friend from Nigeria that came about a year and a half ago. Today's her last Sunday here at the church. She graduated from Denver University and she just got accepted at a job. She's going to be working a job at the um link in Lincoln, Nebraska. There's a small school, a little University of Nebraska, something like that. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. For all those Nebraska fans out there, those corn huskers. but she's going to be moving to Lincoln, Nebraska, and she's going to be working at the school and hopefully within a year begin her doctorate program there. So, in the first service, at the end of the service, we called her up there and we just prayed for her and she wept. You know why she wept? Because a year and a half ago, she arrived in Denver, Colorado with two suitcases of hand from Nigeria, had never stepped foot in the United States of America. and she got in a little apartment and she came here looking for Christian friends because she came from family of faith and church over the last year and a half you have put your arms around her and you've loved her and as she prayed for our church blessing she prayed God thank you for family I'll never forget when she first came a few weeks into it we called her up here to pray over her and introduce her so people would know her mother was watching from Nigeria her mother sent sent me an email and you can imagine if you sent your child to another country and her mom said, "Thank you for being my daughter's safe place." Church, that's worship. So worship is more than what we sing. Worship is who we are. And if we don't worship when we play, and if we don't worship when we work, and if we don't worship when we're in relationship with the neighbors next door, we will not glow the way God intends us for us to glow. If you're taking notes, really simple. I glow when I point to God.

And so, church, as we're doing Ephesians and working through it, the first three chapters, Paul said, "This is why we do what we do. Because Jesus redeemed us." And he gets to chapter four and five, and he goes, "Now, here's what you do. Because Jesus redeemed you." And he gives us clear instructions that we are to glow. We are to live as children of the light. And the four things that are mandatory if we're going to glow to the Holy Spirit through us is grace, love, obedience, and worship. May I remind you, you take one out, you don't dim, you just go dark. It's all four that we need in our lives. Will you pray with me? Father, thank you for your word. And God, thank you that man, I just just 2,000 years ago, Paul wrote this to a church not even like us, but exactly like us. And your word is as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago. And so today, God, I'm thankful that your word is a mirror that we can look in to really see a true reflection of who we are in you, Jesus. May we may we glow. May the light of you in us live through us and that we will be a light for our world. And we pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen. I'm going to ask our elders to come forward now as