When I was in college I had a friend who I would go on night walks with. We would go out into nature and hike around at night to see where we might go. I remember one night where we drove up into the Cascade mountains and found ourselves hiking through a dried up river bed. We didn’t have flashlights, though it was a clear night with a close-to-full moon, so once our eyes were adjusted we were able to see our way pretty clear.
There was something exciting about hiking this riverbed at night. I’m not sure what it is. I know that if I’d come to it during the day it just wouldn’t have had the same power to it. There was an air of adventure to what we were doing that wouldn’t have been there during the day.
Things look different in the dark. Things that are commonplace become mysterious. Without light, the world seems much more dangerous. When you cannot see, you never know what might be coming next.
Unfortunately, the very thing that made our trip into an adventure also caused us a problem, for my friend twisted his ankle not very far into our walk and then we found ourselves in a place where his car took forever to turn around, we did about a 90 point turn, for we didn’t have much space to turn and we couldn’t drive backwards because we couldn’t see in the dark. We made it back okay and his ankle ended up being okay, but the darkness took our adventure and made it a little too dangerous for us, and because we were living in the darkness, we ended up suffering a bit. And so we come to today’s scripture where we are told to live in the light.
I. Out of the Darkness
There’s something about light that makes it a great metaphor for faith and right living and following God. I think it comes down to the fact that light brings safety, light brings illumination, light allows you to see all that is going on around you.
Throughout the Bible, Jesus is referred to as light. He is the light of the world. He is the one who illumines our path. We are to live in his light and we are to shine his light to the world around us.
Winter is the time of year where light becomes most important to me. When most of the hours in the day are spent in darkness, one seeks the light as much as possible. And as each day becomes a bit longer and we see more and more light each day, we remember that this cold, that this darkness will end and spring will come. But light is something we take for granted with the ready use of electricity that surrounds us, but when I was a child and went on vacation with my parents sailing, we treated the light much more reverently. We needed to conserve, so we didn’t let ourselves waste the light that we had. We found ourselves living more by the rising and setting of the sun. The amount of natural light dictated what we were able to do.
In today’s scripture, again we find reference to light. We are told that we are not in darkness, but rather we are children of the light and children of the day. Just before saying this, Paul tells us that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. But we, as Jesus’ followers should not allow this coming of the Lord to be surprising, for we don’t live in the night, we don’t let ourselves be surprised by the things of the night. Instead, our lives are lived in the light, in the day.
That means that when we live in the light of God, we will not be surprised by the things that God does. Instead we will come to know God so well that we are able to see God at work in all the things going on in our world. I have to admit, I’m not there yet. I do find myself surprised by the way that God works. I often am not able to see God’s work until after the fact looking back at an event. And I think that Paul, when he writes this, knows that this is where most of us are. So he continues by telling us what living as children of the day means.
II. Belonging to the Day
Starting in verse six he says, “let us be alert and self-controlled. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.” Living as children of the day means to be alert and self-controlled. Living as children of the light means that we are to live in faith and love and remember our hope of salvation.
Let us begin with being alert. I think this is probably the simplest of the parts of belonging to the light. Being alert means to keep your eyes on what’s going on around you. Being alert means not tripping over something in front of you because you missed seeing it. But in this context, I believe it also means looking for God in the events around you. Be alert! Look to see where God is working. We look across the world and see such horror going on right now. We think of the hundreds of thousands killed in the Tsunami. We think of the millions who are without home or food. Where is God working in that event? I’m not one to say that God was responsible for the earthquake or Tsunami, it was a natural occurrence that God allowed to happen, and the type of which will continue to happen until the end of days. But God is present in the midst of it. God is working through all those who are reaching outside themselves to help in this time of need. Missionaries and Christians are working alongside Muslims and Atheists to help bring safety and healing to those who need it. Muslims are seeing the good side of Christianity, which they aren’t always able to see.
And here in America, people are being changed. People who spend all their time and energy focused on getting more for themselves are realizing that this isn’t the center of their world. They are seeing the power in giving. They are seeing that we all have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters who are less fortunate than us. So, the Tsunami is a horrible event, and it in itself is in no way of God. But when we are alert, we can see God working through it and using evil to bring about good. And I need to add that it is not enough to be alert and see where God is working. We also need to be sure that as God’s children, we are about God’s work ourselves. When we are alert and notice God’s work in the world, then we as a church and as individuals make sure that we are a part of that work.
So that’s being alert, but Paul also says that we are to be self-controlled. Now Paul mentions drunkenness in this passage, but I think it is just an example, one that ties to darkness verses light. This is not the only self-control that he is talking about.
There is something about darkness that allows for us to think we can get away with more than what we’ll try to get away with in the light. When your actions are shown in the daytime, you live a more self-controlled life. Hiding in the darkness, hiding behind curtains and closed doors, what secrets do you hold? We all have them. But the truth is that we can hide none from God. Now I have to be careful here, because my goal (and Paul’s goal) is not to scare you into being a good Christian. When I worked in Chicago, I had a boss who told us to use fear to get our workers in line. She told us that we had to let them know that we were watching them and so they’d better watch out because if we caught them doing anything inappropriate, they’d be in trouble. And, you know, sometimes you need this. But these workers didn’t. Oh, they needed to know that we were watching them, but this wasn’t something that they needed to be scared of. We were watching them so that when they needed help, we’d be able to help them. We were watching them so that we could help them to become better at what they were doing. We were watching them because what they were doing was important. God is not an evil disciplinarian watching us and worrying about each thing we do wrong, ready to strike at us the moment we sin. Oh, he is watching us, but that is so that he can help us, because he loves us, because we are important. And so he calls us to a life of self-control and he offers us tools to help us live that life of self-control. Those tools are faith, love and hope. He describes faith, love and hope here as defensive armor. Faith and love as our breastplate and the hope of salvation as our helmet. I don’t want to make too much of the analogy but faith and love protect our heart and soul whereas hope protects our heads. And these three are all things that are gifts from God, but they are things that we do. Faith is believing, love is reaching out to those around you and hope is trusting. We know the importance of these three because they come up throughout the letters of Paul together. Faith, hope and love. They are so important to him because they are the things that protect us, they are the things that bring self-control to our lives. When you live in faith, you believe that God is real; you believe that Jesus died for you; you yearn to follow him, and therefore you live the life that will follow him, a life of self-control. When you live in love, you think of God and others before you think of yourself. You live humbly and you don’t allow your own desire and wants to become too important to you, and this is the very definition of self-control. When you live in hope, you believe that God has a plan for you. You trust that God is the one in charge and God will prosper you in God’s way and God’s time. Again, when you live this way you will discover that you will not be living for yourself, but allowing God to care for you and therefore reaching out to those around you, again, living the life of self-control.
III. Build Each Other Up
Paul doesn’t end this discussion of living in the light with telling us to live with self-control, though. He ends it with good news and then with a “therefore.” The good news is that whether we are living in the day or the night; whether we’ve succeeded or not at the life that he has prescribed, God offers us salvation through Jesus Christ. So don’t fear. If you don’t always see God working in the world around you, if you don’t have the self-control that you’d like, it is not the end. You are still offered the grace of God’s love.
And then there is the therefore. The word “therefore” tells us that all that has come before leads up to what is coming. “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” Again, our focus is not on ourselves but on each other: encourage one another; build one another up; live for each other. This is what living in the light is about. This is why we are children of the day. So that we can help each other out. This is the response that Paul calls us to. This is the community that God calls us to. This is how our light shines, this is how we live out the faith, hope and love that God gives us, by supporting each other through good and bad, through joy and sorrow, through the times we follow and the times we fall. This is what it means to be the church. Being the church isn’t about coming together once a week to worship, though that’s something the church does. Being the church isn’t about conducting the business meetings that the church has, though that’s something the church does. Being the church isn’t about hearing the pastor preach, singing songs, maintaining the building, giving offering, teaching Sunday School, being on a committee or board, though these are all things that people in the church do. Being the church is about being the family of Christ. And being the church is about holding each other up, supporting each other, encouraging one another, loving each other, and reaching out then to the world with that same support, encouragement and love. Being the church isn’t about you, it’s about those around you and how you can do something for them.
So, be the church today, be the church this week. Reach out to those around you with love and encouragement. Practice self-control and be alert. This is what it means to be a child of the light. This is what it means to allow Christ’s light to shine in your life. Let his light shine. Amen.
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