As a child I used to find myself scared while I lay in bed. Maybe it was a movie I had seen a part of that scared me, or maybe it was a weird shadow in the window, or a noise I heard under the bed. I used to lay in bed, shivering, afraid. I remember that as a young child it was monsters and witches I was afraid of, but as I got older it was demons. I guess my fears became more Christian as I got older. But in ways, the fears became more real. I found myself truly afraid of the dark, afraid of what I could not see, afraid of what could be lurking somewhere in the darkness, ready to get me.
But I discovered a trick that put an end to these fears. The trick was to turn to God. The trick was to pray. When I went to God in prayer, when I asked for his protection, I realized that I was protected and I didn’t need to fear the darkness anymore. “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” With Christ shining on me, there was nothing in the darkness to fear. When I was focused on God, when I was praying to Jesus, the fears of darkness no longer held any power over me.
This is what it means to no longer live in the darkness. This is what it means to wake up and allow Christ to shine on us. Even when we’re surrounded by darkness, even when we feel that we’re blind, we don’t have to have anything to do with the darkness around us. Instead we can focus on the Light. Instead we can focus on Christ. And when we do this, he will deliver us from the darkness that surrounds us
I. Children of Light
Ephesians 5 tells us that we no longer live in darkness. Now we are in the light of the Lord. But then it tells us that we have a choice of how to live. Are we going to live like we did when we lived in darkness or are we going to live as children of light? Ephesians 5 tells us what it looks like to live as children of light. It tells us that the fruit of the light is goodness, righteousness and truth. It tells us that living in the light is doing things that please God. When I look at darkness and light, I believe, though, that there is something else that is inherent in being children of light. If we are living as children of light, if we are showing the fruits of light, then we will no longer live fearful lives, afraid of the world around us, afraid of things that go bump in the night. Instead we will live with confidence and courage. We will trust that God is caring for us, that he will meet our needs. And we will find ourselves able to do things that we didn’t think we could do.
Now I’ve been talking a lot about actual darkness, and actual fear of the darkness a lot so far, but to truly allow this message from Ephesians 5 to penetrate our lives, we need to move past the literal. When we look at the darkness of this world, when we look at the things going on around us in our culture, in our lives, we often find ourselves responding with fear. We worry about a whole lot, from terrorist attacks to the collapse of our economy. We worry about what our children and grandchildren are going to come in contact with in school, and we worry about whether we’re going to be able to pay our bills. Spiritually, we worry about a culture around us that seems to like darkness a little too much and seems to be ready to fall off the ledge into the abyss of moral and spiritual decay.
But as children of the light, as children of God, we are called to stand against the darkness, we are called to shine the light of truth into those dark places. And we no longer need to live in fear of the things around us. Fear is never a good reason to make decisions. Oh, fear helps you make good short term decisions, usually decisions about survival. But fear doesn’t give you the tools you need to make decisions about what God has planned for your life. It is never good to decide large things in your life because of your fear. When you allow fear to be central in your decision making process, you are living in darkness. But when you allow God to be central to your decision making process, then you are truly living as a child of the light.
II. No Fear
But what does life without fear look like? Does it mean that we are foolhardy or overconfident? No, life lived trusting in God looks exactly like Ephesians 5 says it looks. It is a life centered in goodness, righteousness and truth. When your decisions aren’t centered around your fears, then you start deciding based on what is good, on what is right and on what is true. Whether it’s a decision about whether to cheat on a test at school or whether to share your faith with a friend, once you stop fearing failure, once you stop worrying about what people will think, then you start deciding to do what is right. This is living in the light.
When we live in the light, we sometimes do things that may look foolhardy to those around us, but we aren’t being reckless. Rather we’re being responsible with the gifts that God has given us and the directions that God has given us. God can use us to make a difference in the world, but only if we don’t allow ourselves to be afraid of the world, only if we don’t allow ourselves to be afraid of failure.
God has brought light to the world. In doing so he has conquered the darkness, and therefore we just don’t have to live in fear of darkness any more. The culture around us that is turned against God, it has no power over us. We can confront it and trust that God will get us through. We can believe that God will work with and through us to shine a light on the darkness and break it down.
And yet, so many Christians do live in fear of the darkness. So many of us do allow ourselves to see the godless world around us as something that we need to hide from, that we need to protect ourselves and our families from. But, as Ephesians 5 tells us, we no longer live in the darkness. We now live in the light. We need to begin acting like this were true. We need to begin to live courageously. We need to allow God to truly be bigger than the things we are scared of, the things of this world that keep us down. Our fears are truly nothing in relation to God’s power and his plans for us and his light.
III. Night Walks
I began this morning talking about how as a child I found myself irrationally afraid of the dark. Through the message we have gone from talking about literal darkness to the spiritual darkness that surrounds us. But I want to end this morning by talking again about literal darkness. You see, having spent time praying I found that I had conquered my fear of the dark. Not only am I no longer afraid of the dark, I now somewhat enjoy it. Through high school, I would regularly go out at night, after dark, and find a place where I could sit in the darkness and stare at the sky, enjoying the many stars in the heavens. Something that is much easier to do when you’re not afraid of the dark. And in college, I had a friend and we would occasionally go out for night walks. We would drive up (in his car, I was carless at the time) to the foothills and the mountains a half hour up the highway from our college and we would find some forest road and drive out to it until we found a path. One time we got extremely lucky and found a wonderful dried up river bed. Yes, we almost got his car stuck trying to get to it, but it was the greatest adventure. We didn’t take any flashlights. Instead we let our eyes adjust to the moonlight, and then we started hiking up the dried up river bed. It was truly beautiful. It was absolutely amazing. The forest noises weren’t scary but rather were wondrous. The darkness did not hide dangers from us, rather it gave us the opportunity to discover the beauty of God’s creation in a different light. It was an amazing and beautiful night as we walked up that river bed exploring the nighttime forest.
It is the kind of experience that I wouldn’t have been able to have if I allowed my fear of the dark to keep me from going. That is what fears do. They hold us back. They keep us from experiencing what it is that God has given us. So, this day, be a child of the light. Don’t live as if you still lived in the darkness. Live in the light. Let go of your fears. And allow God to show you new and wonderful things. “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
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