Main Idea: Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ I am fully free to live my life differently.

Matthew’s Gospel begins its last chapter with these astounding words, "Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to see the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, because an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled aside the stone and sat on it. His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. Then the angel spoke to the women. ‘Don't be afraid!’ he said. ‘I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn't here! He has been raised from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying. And now, go quickly and tell his disciples he has been raised from the dead….’ The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to find the disciples to give them the angel's message." (Matt. 28:1-8)

The day for these women had begun in darkness, a darkness that was deeper, not because the sun had not yet announced the dawn, but a darkness of despair because their hopes had been crucified. Yet when they arrived at the tomb and found it empty and heard the words, "He isn’t here! He has been raised from the dead," they would forever live daily in the light of that wonderful announcement. For the rest of their lives a sunrise would be different because they knew that the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead had transformed them. German pastor Dietrich Bonhoffer would write, "To live daily in light of the resurrection, this is what Easter means."

That’s the question I want to ask you: "Is that what Easter means to you?" In four weeks we will celebrate Easter. Yet is it a day that you can say, "I live the rest of the 364 days of the year with the power of that day infusing my very existence!"? Rather, is it a day that is filled with tradition and busyness that are nothing more than an excuse to go to church and be with family? Do we live daily with the truth and life of the resurrection empowering us, changing us, transforming us daily? For most of us the answer is, "Probably not."

Over the next four weeks that’s what we are going to talk about: How we can live daily in light of the resurrection. Paul knew personally what it was to live in this power and he wrote to Christians about how they could live that way as well. Today as we look at Ephesians 5:8-14 I want us to see how Paul instructs us that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ we are fully free to live our life differently.

In Ephesians 5 Paul has been encouraging them to live their lives in such a way that they imitate God in everything they do. They were to be an example of God’s love and his light. In 5:1-7 he tells them that their love for Christ should be so pure that it would not tolerate any moral impurity. He says in verse 4 that their lives should be lived with such moral purity that there wouldn’t even be a "hint" of any impurity. He carries that idea on in verses 8-14 by reminding them that due to the transformation of their lives because of the resurrection they were now free, fully free, to live a life of moral purity.

What does it mean, though, to live a life fully free of moral impurity? How, with the way our culture saturates us every moment with images, messages, thoughts and temptations, is it possible to be fully free? Well, Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:8-10 that it means that when you compare my life as a Christian with others that it is different.

He begins the first part of verse 8 by saying at one time both a person who is a Christian and a person who is not a Christian shared the same past, a dark past. (v. 8a) He says, "Your hearts were once full of darkness." He is literally saying that when it comes to moral impurity that we carry around the seeds of that life inside of us. Jesus said the same thing when he said that out of our hearts come all the impurities that corrupt not only us but also everyone else around us. (Mark 7:20-23). Yet notice Paul says that this is what we "were." Though I may share the same dark past as a person who does not know Christ, now because of Christ’s transforming power, I’m different! There is to be a clear, distinct line between what we were and what we are in comparison to others around us.

That’s what he explains in verses 8-10. Though we once shared the same dark past as everyone else, as a believer I now live differently. What is different about us? One thing is I have a different life (v. 8b). He says, "Now you are full of light from the Lord." He is saying that when I received Jesus Christ as my Savior that his life, his resurrected life, came into my life. Because his life is so completely pure, his life transforms my life so that the difference is like night and day! If you are a believer, you not only have a different life—you are a different life!

I have a different life but I also have a different direction for my life (v. 8c). Paul says, "Your behavior should show it." If you are a person who has a different life, then the direction of your life is going to show that. Let me ask you, "Where is your behavior taking you?" I didn’t ask, where is someone else’s behavior taking them but where is your behavior taking you? Is it taking you in a direction that is different from the one you know reflects the life of Christ or is it taking you in a direction that is distinctly different from others without Christ? A person who is fully free is free to let their behavior take them in a different direction.

A person who is fully free has a different life and a different direction but they also have a different focus (v. 9). Paul says, "For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true." He says that if we are full of this light, this life of Christ, then this life is going to have a specific focus on what is good, right and true. In fact he says that this light is only going to produce things that are consistent with a life that is morally pure: things that are good, right and true. What does that mean? It means that what is going to be produced or grow out of my life will be things that express concern over someone else’s needs, a life that intentionally shows a passion for what is fair and a life that is just, straight forward enough to care deeply about the truth. So the question is, "Is that your focus?" It is if you are living a life that is fully free. If your focus is not on what is good, right and true, then your life will be out of focus for the life of a believer!

There’s one more thing Paul mentions that is different about a Christian and that is they have a different purpose (v. 10). My different life changes my behavior so I’m going in a different direction. This different direction is guided by a new focus—a focus on what is good, right and true. This focus, though, raises the vision of my life and shows me that I have a different purpose for my life. What’s my purpose? To "try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord." This is such a great statement because it simplifies things for us. We struggle with what our purpose is. Our purpose as a believer is just this: Live daily with an intentional decision to find out what pleases God! That may sound simple and I know its not that easy but it is our purpose.

Jonathan Pettigrew discovered how his life could be lived pleasing God in a very painful way. Jonathan fell 100 feet while hiking in the Cheyenne Canyon near Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2002. During three weeks in the hospital, ten months in a neck brace and four months confined to a wheelchair, Jonathan had time to reexamine his priorities and goals for his life. That examination of his life gave him a different direction, focus and purpose for his life. Now Jonathan serves as a missionary with the North American Mission Board of the SBC as the campus minister at Indiana and Purdue University in Indianapolis. He’s just one of 5,200 missionaries supported by our Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. He is working among 28,000 students on that campus. Those 28,000 are only a drop in the bucket of the 16 million students on campuses in our nation. Yet do you know how many Baptist college ministers we have? 1000! Jonathan knows his task is overwhelming but he comes back to one single commitment: "When you look back on the day, the only way to measure if it’s been a success or not is to say, ‘Have I been obedient to what God has asked me to do today?’"

The question is: Are you free, fully free, to answer that question positively? If not, what’s stopping you? Is it because your life isn’t really different from others? If it’s not different, why is that? Living fully free means that when you compare my life with others it is different—really different!

The next part of our text for this morning takes a turn from addressing our own spiritual lives to challenging the lives of others. You see living fully free does mean that when you compare my life to others it is different. Yet it also means that I challenge others to join me to live differently as well (v. 11-14). Now I will be the first to say to you that what Paul says here is hard to hear. Some read this and say that he is only speaking of those who are believers within the Ephesian church. That there was a real concern about persons in the church whose lifestyle paralleled those who were not Christians. Others read this and say he is talking about those who are outside of the church. I don’t think that we should be exclusive to one or the other because underlying this is an understanding that a believer’s life is to be so different that by our behavior and our words we challenge others to live differently!

Where does this start? It starts with our caring enough about others to help them see how dark the darkness really is(v. 11). Hear what he says in verse 11, " Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, rebuke and expose them." Those words apply to ourselves and to others. They apply to us in that we make a conscious decision to have nothing to do with deeds or actions that are associated with darkness. Jesus warned us we were to look at our lives, inspect our lives, before we try to examine the life of someone else (Matt. 7:1-5). So Paul says that we are to have nothing to do with immoral deeds or actions. However, it doesn’t stop there. We are to be concerned enough about the danger of these things that we are willing to show others just how worthless and wasteful those deeds or actions are. In this verse the "them" is not referring to people as it is to the deeds or actions that people can do. So, he is saying our goal is not to expose the people for what they have done but to expose the people to see how worthless their deeds and actions really are.

It is easy for me to tell you where I think you are wrong. It is different for me to care enough about you to talk with you and pray with you so that you can see where you are wrong. It is easy for me to stand here and rail about the decadence of our culture; it is another thing to try to engage our culture to see its decadence. Yet the one thing that is not an option is silence! To be silent is to say I don’t care enough about you or about our culture to do or say anything that’s going to change it.

You say, "Bruce, Jesus said to the Pharisees, ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone!’" Yes, but he also said to the woman who committed adultery that was the object of their indignation, "Go your way and sin no more!" (John 8:1-11). He cared enough about her to let her see just how destructive her deeds and actions really were and he set her free! The different life I live cares enough about others to help them see that their lives can be different also.

There’s something to remember, though, about the things people do and that is that sometimes the things people do just defy description. (v. 12). Paul says that there are things that people do in darkness that are so disgusting and abhorrent that it is shameful to even repeat them verbally. Does that mean that because it’s so awful I’m supposed to ignore it? No, it means we just realize the full scope of the things that are capable of being done by people. Because they are so disgraceful that is all the more reason to expose the deeds and actions for how worthless they are.

Do we stop and realize just how disgusting some of the things are that we laugh at on sitcoms? Do we stop and realize just how abhorrent some of the things are that supposedly entertain us on TV or movies? Do we stop and question the shameful things that we read in novels just because it’s a good story? You say, "Well, Bruce, the Bible has some pretty R-rated stuff in it and you use it to preach from every Sunday!" My response is, "Don’t even go there!" I realize it’s a struggle but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask the questions!

Why, though, should we involve ourselves in caring about the darkness of others’ lives? Why should I dare to understand the scope of the darkness when I can just pretend it isn’t there? Because the freedom begins when the darkness is brought out into the light! (v. 13-14). Paul tells us that the reason for exposure is not for judgment or criticism but so that a person can really see how dark the darkness is. Then he adds that by allowing the light and life of Christ to be seen and spoken through us that the deeds are seen for what they are. This is, however, not an option but an obligation because he issues a call to ourselves and to others to wake up from the darkness of our deeds and allow the light of Christ’s resurrection to shine on us! And that is where the freedom begins.

It is our obligation to shine the light of Christ’s life and light on others because if we don’t, then they stay in darkness! Kim and Marc Wyatt, missionaries with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship have sensed that obligation and moved from North Carolina to Toronto, Ontario to work with immigrants from Pakistan. Through relationships in their mostly Pakistani neighborhood they are being the presence of Christ. One of their tools is the showing of the "Jesus" film on DVD in the language of their neighbors. They know that by showing the story of Christ’s life, death, burial and resurrection that the light of Christ will shine on their darkness, allowing them to be fully free. Your giving to the current offering for missions can help people like the Wyatt’s shine the light of Christ.

The sun that has given light to this day is a rather ordinary medium-sized star in our universe. The light and energy generated by our sun in one second are more energy than has been used since the dawn of civilization. Matter at the core of the sun is so hot that a pinhead of it could kill a person standing 100 miles away. It would be difficult to imagine a light more powerful. Yet on December 27 scientists detected the brightest flash of light ever detected from beyond our solar system. The flash came from a dying neutron star in the constellation Sagittarius over 50,000 light years away. What is so amazing is that that one burst of light packed more energy than our sun will produce only every 150,000 years! That one burst of light traveling through the universe exposed the darkness of our solar system for only a moment. But that moment showed us that there is light out there that we can’t even imagine.

On that Sunday morning 2000 years ago Light burst forth from a darkened tomb in the person of Jesus Christ, exposing the darkness of remaining night, announcing the beginning of a new day. A light so full and so brilliant that it eclipses all the other light we might know. It is a light that has shown itself into the darkness of our lives, exposing our lives and setting us free. A light so powerful that it gives us the ability to live differently, not just daily but also for eternity! So here’s the challenge: Are you living daily in that Light? If not, then Jesus wants to set you free from the dark!

Sunday, March 6, 2005

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org