You are not going to learn if you do not try, therefor, it is vital that you be trying to learn.

Am I walking as a child of the Light by always trying to learn what is pleasing to My Lord?

Ephesians 5:7-14

Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church

Please turn to Ephesians 5:7-14 in your Bibles. Ephesians 5:7-14. We are going to look at Ephesians 5, with the goal in mind to learn about learning itself. There are perhaps and endless number of secular philosophies floating around out there about learning. People, in our day and culture, are now speaking of learning styles. The current practice is to suggest that if you are born with something called a style of learning, then you will not be able to learn from certain teaching methods. Actually, it is typically said that you will not learn from certain teaching methods as well as you would from others. I see some validity to this philosophy. I see it when it is applied to certain concepts in certain points that are being taught. Nevertheless, there is one problem I have with the philosophy. Namely, it does not recognize that people can learn to learn from other methods. I'll explain. But, first, let's think about another philosophy that goes something like this:

Give a man a fish, and he has a meal. Teach a man to fish, and he has the skill to give himself all the meals he needs.

How many of you have heard this little proverbial saying before? Let's take it to the next level. When you give a man a fish, then he has a meal to nourish himself--right? So, this is a wise thing to do while he is learning to fish. Further, when you give a man a fish, you are teaching him something. What is he learning? He's learning to share, and to give to those who have need, as we read in Ephesians 4:28. So, it is actually superior teaching, to give a man a fish, while teaching him to fish. But, it is even better to feed the man, while teaching the man to fish, and then go on to teach the man how to have ongoing access to fish-filled waters; and further, make sure he gets there; plus, help the man get the equipment needed to fish, and then, help motivate him to actually do it. What I am demonstrating to you is a principle that we need to consider when contemplating human philosophies of learning. The point is that human philosophies of learning are incomplete if they are reductionist. There is one thing, though, that every philosophy of learning must have. Every philosophy of learning must have, the all important ingredient in it that recognizes that for someone to learn, they must be wanting to learn, and they must be trying to learn. If you are not trying to learn, you won't learn very well. This is something that Paul knows, and we need to know it too. Keep this in mind as we read our text, starting back in 5:1,

"Therefore be imitators of God, as dearly loved children; 2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. 3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among set apart ones; 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or greedy man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience [all unsaved people] 7 Therefore do not be partakers with them; 8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; [the NASB capitalizes light all throughout this text. The capitalization is supplied by the translators, but is not in the Greek as the ESV, NKJV, NET, NIV etc., rightly render it, so I am leaving off the capitalization of light. So Paul says, but now you are light in the Lord;] walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), 10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; 12 for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. 14 For this reason it says, 'Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.'" Ephesians 5:1-5

This is the passage that forms the backbone of the sermon this morning. Please prepare your mind for the preaching of God's word, in this sermon, titled,

Am I walking as a child of the Light by always trying to learn what is pleasing to My Lord? [prayer]

We have arrived at a place in Paul's flow of Holy Spirit led thought, where Paul gives more emphasis concerning a stark contrast that God wants us to be instinctively aware of. Paul describes the contrast between what it means to be a saved person living in the world, and what it means to be a lost person living in the world. We, who are saved, know what Paul is talking about. All of us were there once. What a horrible life it was--being there; lost, and living among the lost. Now in our saved life, as we go about each and every moment through the motions of the daily grind, we may not always be focusedly mindful of the contrast of who we are in comparison to what lost people are; but think about this: The fact that the moment to moment focus may not always be there is exactly why Paul is hitting this area so hard in the first 5 chapters of Ephesians. The point is that God wants us to start putting our minds there too. God wants us to immediately know how different we are from the lost people we associate with, whether we do business with them, or watch movies made by them, or talk to them about the weather. Rather than thinking,

It is amazing how much I have in common with the lost?

we should be thinking,

It is so clearly obvious how much I am different from the lost,

and we need to consciously be thinking about it as much as possible. As soon as we start to forget the contrast, or we start to ignore it, then we are going to run into huge problems in acting out what we are called and created to be in Christ. Led by the Spirit, Paul is already there in his thoughts and actions. Led by the Spirit, Paul knows that most Christians, in the area around Ephesus, are not there. In fact, many of us here this morning are not there either. Sure, we remind each other of our peculiarities on Sunday morning. We see that we are unique when we are together. But we need to be going to the next level. It's the level that is supposed to come after this brief spiritual booster shot that occurs during these times of being pampered in the comfortable spa of the body of Christ on Sunday mornings. Our thoughts need to camp out on the next level when we are away from a midweek bible study, or after our imaginations leave the Bible world that we read about in our devotions. What I am getting at is that God wants our minds to be transported into that other world all the time. Our minds need to be in the kingdom-Bible-world right now. We need to consciously be there everywhere we go. We need to be there during everything we do. So, when we look at verse 1, we see that Paul is urging us to be there. We need to be thinking about what we are, and then we are to be doing the important action thing. What is the important action thing? The important thing is to be acting like what we are; and what are we?--are we not called God's children? Think about it for a moment. We had to learn this important fact didn't we? You and I are children of a great Spirit being. Really think about this. For us, the God of the universe is not some distant unapproachable despotic emperor that we have a kind of detached business relationship with. I know there is a beautiful term in this relationship that tends to bristle against some people, but,

how many of you realize that God is your Daddy?

I met with someone recently, who has a Father that repulses her in such a manner that she has had a really hard time relating to the beautifully safe, secure, loving, perfect, pure, special, and right fact of the matter that God is her precious Daddy. But, God really is our Daddy-Father. You know, some Christians have a problem saying this. Is that you? Something about it irritates some Christians. It makes them feel uncomfortable for some carnal reason. Again, is this you? There are Christians who may even be feigning piety, and so they are acting like it is pretentious, and even disrespectful, to call our Great and wonderful Daddy what He really is, which is our great and wonderful Daddy. What a shame, because they are missing the intimate family connection that we have in a special way with the Creator of the universe. Let me ask you another question:

How are you going to walk as the children of light, if you do not recognize that God is really your Father?

And folks, I think one of the saddest things that can happen in one's Christian walk, is to never realize the realness of what this means. I mean, first you've got to recognize that it is true. The Christian needs to recognize that it is true. You've got to learn it, and then, the need is to be awed by the hugeness, and beauty of what it means. Some people have a hard time with this, but, by the same token, have you ever stopped to consider just how easy it is for many of us to say something like this? It is almost too easy; at least, what I mean is that it is so easy to say it, that we can easily say it, and then at the same time, not consciously be thinking about the profound magnitude of what we are really saying. Jesus understood the awesome magnitude of such a relationship, when He said,

"Daddy! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will." Mark 14:36

It is an awesome relationship, and it is real. It is more authentic, and more important than most people realize. But, I know what we can think:

Wasn't Jesus God's only begotten Son in the flesh--in fact, the eternal Son as deity?

Jesus was the eternal Son. We read it in such passages as Colossians 1:13-17, Hebrews 1:2, John 1:18, John 17:5 and so on. And of course Jesus knew (knows) His Father. But, I am talking about the profound magnitude of you and me having this relationship too. We have it because of Who Jesus is. Check yourself. Ask yourself if it is getting too easy to say that God is your Father. I'm talking about being so easy that you are not realizing what you are saying. Think about how easy it is to quickly read it, and then just leave the profoundness of it back there in the Bible:

"For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a Spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Daddy! Father!'" Romans 8:15

"Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Daddy! Father!'" Galatians 4:6

People who are lost, hear something like this and they think of science fiction, or they think of vivid imaginations of people who pretend to have a relationship with an infinite being that is thought to be beyond reach. Consider, for a moment, that if you tell a non Christian that God is your Daddy Father, they're going to think you are a kook. In fact, most lost people will hardly bat an eye if you say something mundane, and kind of broad like,

I believe in Jesus.

Yawn.

But you go on to say,

... and because I believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is in me. I am adopted as God's child, and God sees Christ in me, and because Christ is in me as the first born Heir, I'm also a fellow heir with the Son. God is my Daddy Father.

You say that, and those same people will start glancing around looking for the nearest door. In other words, the world takes this great, heavy truth very lightly. But it is just as easy for us, who really are God's children, to take this great heavy truth very lightly. Notice that Galatians 4:6, states that it is the Spirit of Christ in us, Who cries out Daddy Father. But you and I are the body of Christ, right? And so this is why Paul also said in Romans 8:15, that by the same Spirit of Christ, you and I cry out Daddy Father. God the Father does not take this lightly. God the Son does not take this lightly. God the Holy Spirit does not take this lightly. We better not be taking this lightly either. But, it is so easy to casually say it as a kind of cliche' and not really give any second thought about just how different we are. We must be very careful to never treat this as merely a poetic statement.

This leads to the other important heart attitude that keeps us in the right place concerning this great truth. The important mindset is the essential attitude of gratefulness. You are a family-child of the one and only great God, and you are this because He decided to adopt you according to His own perfect wisdom, kind intention, and good pleasure. So, think on this. Everyone else who is not saved, is an orphan, in one sense, yet in another sense, they have a kind of dark spiritual surrogate parent that begot them, so to speak. It is the sinful denizen of darkness. Remember when Jesus told the lost Israelites,

"You are of your Father the Devil."

Here, directly before coming into verse 7 in our Ephesians text, Paul calls the lost, the sons of disobedience. They have a dark spirit motivating them, moving them, and working in them, as Paul says to us who are saved,

"... you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." Ephesians 2:1-2

We all were once darkness like that too, so we need to be grateful for our rescue and adoption. We were all orphans groping in the dark according to the dark spirit. Sometimes it is hard to imagine, but we were shameful to God. We were once horrible beings called "a son of disobedience." Paul is always consciously aware of this, and he is grateful. You and I must also realize this in a clearly conscious way, and be grateful for what we have. It is only then that we will search our hearts for the action that I am preaching on this morning. The action we want to nurture is that of walking as a child of the Light by always trying to learn what is pleasing to our Lord. There is absolutely no way to learn anything of spiritual substance, without understanding your radical difference from those around you who are not saved, which means that we need to face the uncomfortable fact, that they, as the unsaved, really are, in the eyes of our Father, horrible beings. It's our first lesson. Aunt Betty, who cooks really good meals for the family get-togethers is a horrible being if she is lost. We love her, and we want her to know Christ, but right now she is horrible. The billionaire who gives millions of dollars to help out with social causes is a horrible being if he is lost. We love him, and we want him to know Christ, but right now he is horrible. Religious, yet lost people, who pray every single day, and make little sacrifices to idols, are horrible, because they are lost. They may not appear horrible, but they are. We must have a grateful recognition of our salvation. So, recognizing all of these things, Paul tells us here in Ephesians 5:7-8, what we clearly must do;

"7 Therefore do not be partakers with them; 8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord;"

Starting into this verse, we need to get some technical things out of the way. The first one is that Paul starts out saying therefore. What he means is that since you and I are children of light, and since the sons of disobedience are going to be receiving wrath from God, then we are not to partake of the wrath things that they partake in. That doesn't seem so technical, but the point is that when you see a therefore in scripture, you need to ask yourself what is there for. The therefore is there for what was just said. The therefore is a magnifying and summarizing comment that is made about the point that has been presented. So, we understand this, but the technical thing we need to do is make a correction to the English text of the New American Standard Bible. I mentioned it earlier, but what has happened is that the NASB has capitalized the word, light, all throughout this text. If you have an NASB, look at verse 8. You will notice that light is capitalized there. It is the Greek word phos, but it is not capitalized in the Greek, so to do so is a matter of interpretational reading into the text. The reason why I point this out, is because the NASB makes it look like Paul is talking about God, in verse 8, by putting a capital on Light. But the literal translation is,

"you were formerly darkness, but now, light in the Lord."

We are not now, God, nor are we, as those who are crucified, and risen, with Christ, where we are the body of Christ, in any way, actually Christ either. We are lower case l--light in the Lord Who is Light, but we are not actually the Lord Himself. Nevertheless, we must understand that Christ is called the Light all throughout the Gospel of John and in other places. In our context He shines on us. Also, the Scriptures state in 1 John 1:5, that God is Light. God and Christ are the Light, whereas all that is of sin and the devil is darkness.

So, with this important truth in mind, Paul is telling us to not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord who is the Light, John 1:4-8. There are two great biblical themes here. One is that we are identified with God and Christ Who is the Light, because Christ is in us, illumining us with the glory of God. It is our family trait. The other great biblical theme is one that runs hand in hand with God's grace in forgiveness of sins. It is the great biblical theme of staying away from, and repenting from those same sins. In other words, Paul is telling us that since you are light in the Lord, start shining the light out from yourself in what you do. Emanate God's glory out of yourself. Start manifesting your family trait to the world. Let me illustrate something here. Our lost culture, for example, has entered into a time where there is no longer a meaningful distinction made between two people living together in sexual activity, from those who are committed in the God designed, and God ordained, institution of marriage. A few weeks ago I was listening to a conservative political talk show while driving down the road. One of the advertisers that supported the show had an ad for something called a pajama-gram. OK, I want you to realize that I have heard Christian homeschoolers call in to this conservative radio talk show which is touted to be listened to by more people than any other. The ad kept coming on at every break. The big catch phrase, was that with a pajama gram, you are guaranteed to get her clothes off. Okay, this could be argued as inappropriate enough, but there is more. All through the commercial, the female voice kept saying that this was a wonderful thing for your wife, or girlfriend. Did you catch that? She said,

"Wife, or girlfriend?"

OK, we are children of light. We are different, so immediately we should recognize the problem here. The first problem is that in the sacred institution of God's design of marriage, pajama grams are not the great method for achieving intimacy that the commercial is touting. Biblical love, and biblical respect are the lesson for this--which is another sermon--but there is another overarching problem we need to notice. The problem is that we do not have as much in common with the world as the world wants us to think. They are horrible beings that are manifesting their family traits to us as if we are their little brothers and sisters. But, here is how we manifest our family traits back to them. We say, no--girlfriends and boyfriends are not on the same par with married people. The best thing you can do for your girlfriend is tell her to leave her clothes on, and in most cases today, go on to tell her to put more clothes on than the scant tightness that is vacuum wrapping her skin. What I am illustrating is that the darkness of the world is trying to put a pretty paint job on sin, and then bring it before the light as if the paint job is worthy to be endured. But, here is what God is telling us folks. God is not only telling us that we are different, and that we are to shine as different, but God is telling us that one way we do this is by not accepting sin by dismissing it as something merely among another group. What I mean is that it is way too easy to say,

Well, those are the opinions of the unsaved, so let them have their world view.

It is easy to say that the world is lost, and so what the lost world does, is what the lost world is, and then go on our merry way. But, the problem is that even though the world is lost, the individual sins that those in the world commit, are still sins, so Paul says,

"11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;" Ephesians 5:12

In other words, it is so easy to let the sins of the world slide by. It's so easy to say,

Well we are us, and they are them.

How many of you realize that this is the number one way to justify watching wrong movies? Wrong movies are written from sinful minds, with sinful thinking in every scene. They are acted out by sinful, lost actors, according to sinful lost themes and dramas, and millions upon millions of Christians in our age, justify partaking in the drama, through this quick dismissal;

Well, we are us, and they are them. After all, it is only a movie, and after all, we can not be naive. This is how the rest of the world really is.

And so children of light sit there entertained by the futility of the Gentile mind in all its dark absence of glory. But here is Paul's point--our family trait as light, is that we don't participate in darkness. We are God's great exposers. That is what light does; it exposes what the darkness is claiming as its own. When you walk with caution through a dark room, you reach out for the light switch. All is dark and dangerous to your steps. You turn on the light and all is made evident in crystal clear illumination. It is the same way with the unfruitful deeds of darkness. Through God's word, by His Spirit, we expose them for what they are. This seems simple enough to understand doesn't it? But, unfortunately, this right here is one of the hardest things to truly embrace for the average Christian who has been influenced by false philosophies. There is a kind of contempt that has become prevalent in the church. How many of you know what I mean when I say that there is a contempt among a general segment of Christians, for confronting sin, and error, straight on? What happens is that biblical confrontation is confused with lack of love. I am talking about the spirit of our age, where calling someone on the carpet concerning their error is considered to be uncaring. What these dimly lit Christians are saying when they say these unbiblical things, is that they would prefer that you don't shine your light and expose what the darkness is claiming as its own. Also, we can not be naive. We must admit what Paul knows. We must admit that there are a lot of dimly lit Christians that sin in direct rebellion to this passage by participating in the unfruitful deeds of darkness. The deeds are unfruitful for the spiritual Christian's life, but they do it anyway. Now, knowing this, we need to ask ourselves:

Is God saying to hide what the people are doing according to the dark culture of sin?

Is God saying to leave it enveloped in the dark where we can say we don't see it, and so we can just ignore it?

We know what God says don't we? God says to expose it. The question we need to ask ourselves then, is whether it is truly loving to expose the unfruitful deeds of darkness. Of course it is loving, and the way we know this is because we get our definition of what love is from the creator of love. But, we have come to a strange point in Christian history, where dimly lit Christians do not want to agree with God when it comes to exposing the unfruitful deeds of darkness for what they are. Not bearing fruit for Christ and His kingdom, is an unfruitful deed of darkness, and being bound to deeds of that black hole of sin that permeates the world that we are supposed to be separated from in our illumination as true Children of God, is unfruitful. It is our job to expose it.

OK, this leads us to what could be considered a puzzle in our directions from Paul. What do I mean by a puzzle? Look at verse 12. Our loving task as grateful children of God is to expose the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but notice what Paul says next,

"12 for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret."

Certainly we could have a puzzle here, if we are to think that God wants us to expose the deeds of darkness, but yet, if we are to speak of those things that are done in secret, we are being disgraceful. This could be a problem--that is--if we make this more complicated than God wants it to be. It is really very easy to understand when we realize that what Paul means is that if you are having conversations about the unfruitful deeds of darkness that are not meant to expose them for the sin that they are, then you are having conversations that are unfruitful. What I mean is that there is a way to talk about sin that is not meant to expose it, but is meant to bring curiously enticing subjects into a conversation for juicy chat material. This is what it means to be disgraceful. It is talking about sin in a manner that is meant for fruitless entertainment value, rather than for ministry value, and the spiritual edification value that God wants from your mouth. When you talk about these kinds of things for entertainment value, then what you have is no value. You have fruitlessness. Or to put it another way, the value is fruitless. When you talk about these things for exposure value, to warn, to encourage, to pray, or to bring repentance, then the value is the good fruit that you produce in God's kingdom of exposing the bad fruit of the lost kingdom as a light. This is what Paul means.

Now, at this point, we need to back up to the practical realization of what this means for you and for me. We need to look at what Paul is telling us to do as God's living flashlights. Starting at the end of verse 8,

"7 Therefore do not be partakers with them; 8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light."

God is our Father. We are His children. You were transferred out of the domain of darkness into the Kingdom of Christ. God and Christ is light. So, what are we supposed to do? Do we continue to emulate the dark culture around us, as if it is shining the same Christian rays of light that illumine our Christian minds to a nice happy lifestyle? No, we are different. Are we to entertain the temptingly deceptive question that we looked at last week that seeks to make Christianity acceptable to the darkness;

How much like the world culture can I look and act like, to be acceptable to the world, so I can show the world that I, a Christian, am really more like them than they probably think?

No, we are different; but, there is more to our task than leaving the dark cave of our sin laden culture. There is more than rejection of the dark hole of sin. Exposing the darkness has a lot to do with what else we are supposed to do. What is important about this, is that there is the positive doing side, where God is telling us children, that we are to be walking in such a way as to be walking right now, as if we are walking on heavenly glory-lit streets of gold, and we do this as children of light. It is the positive doing side to the real question we should entertain. We looked at it last week too:

How much like the intense Christian culture of the heavenly kingdom of Christ can I look like, and act like, to be unacceptable to the world, so I can show the world that I am really not as much like them as they probably think? In which case, I will repel those who don't care about Christ, and will draw those who God is truly drawing to Himself.

Christ walks a certain way. In maturity, we are to walk that way too. We need to explore this more deeply. How do we walk as children of light? Paul tells us in verse 9,

"9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), 10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord."

The whole sermon this morning has been building up to this point.

Remember the theme question:

Am I walking as a child of the Light by always trying to learn what is pleasing to my Lord?

John says that Christ is the Light, and in Him is no darkness at all. In other words, Christ is pure goodness, pure righteousness, and pure truth. This is what we want to do in our walk as children of Light. We want to manifest our sonship in the Eternal Son, by manifesting the good things. But what I want to bring to our attention this morning is the means of getting there--the means of getting to where we can go from living as dim, (kind of ambient) light that is like baby crawling spirituality, on to walking in radiant fruit producing goodness, righteousness, and truth. Here is what you and I need to do. We need to be trying to learn what is pleasing to our Lord. You see, if you aren't trying to learn, then you aren't going to learn. It's that simple. So this is the primary point this morning;

Are you trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord?

Let me ask this another way:

Is it your ambition to be learning what is pleasing to the Lord?

OK, this leads to another very important question:

How do you expect to walk as a child of your Father, and manifest the fruit of the light which consists of all goodness, righteousness and truth, if you are not trying desperately to learn what all goodness is--not partial goodness, or just enough to get by, but all goodness; and, all righteousness--not partial righteousness; and all truth--not just some truth, but all of it that God has waiting for you to discover to empower, and perfect your walk?

The late famous Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, who was pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church, in Philadelphia, said,

"If I had only three years to serve the Lord, I would spend two of them studying and preparing."--Barnhouse

How much time have you had to serve the Lord since you were saved? How much have you tried, as Paul says, to learn what is pleasing to Him during that time? We children of our great Father are odd creatures sometimes. We will study our latest obsession with intense fervor. We become self-made experts concerning sports, or cooking, or computers, and money investments. Some of us are maniacs for mechanical things. We have studied so much that we can take certain mechanical things apart and put them back together. We can even rebuild them into something better. We know which models are better than others. In fact, we study it so much, that we don't stay satisfied with an older model. We've got to fulfill our learning, and so we think we need to go out and buy the latest thing. We learn so much stuff on a daily basis that fills our minds with huge amounts of clutter, and yet it is stuff that will never, ever fill heaven, much less, touch it. We are consumed with learning. I think many of us are like the Greek philosophers of the Areopagus that Paul went to for preaching the gospel, where we read,

"Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new." Acts 17:21

Big deal. So what if we spend away our time learning something new? We love to learn new things all the time, but once we learn it, it becomes old, doesn't it? Yet, we spend so much time and energy being consumed with learning something new that comes along in this world, but all along, the great irony is that God's word endures forever, and many of His precious children hardly ever touch it, or show much interest in it at all. Here's what we need to do in trying to learn what is pleasing to our Lord. There are a few things:

1) is that we need to listen to sermons preached verse to verse through whole sections of scripture. God has called pastors who are teachers to be people-gifts for the body of Christ for equipping us, Ephesians 4:11. God has ordained in His word, that through preaching, the saints are to be built up, and are to learn what is pleasing to Him. I preach sermons for our edification that are accurate, and are meant to build all of us up in the faith. If you are trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord, then be asking God to teach you from the sermons I preach. Ask God to open up your understanding. Ask God to inject in you those insights that you need to hear, and then keep them, assimilate them, and then use them for your life.

2) if you are not doing it already, then start reading your Bible. Here's how you do it. Read your Bible with a pen in hand, so that you can underline things, and make notes in the margin. Read whole sections in their historical context, and in the contextual flow of thought. Recognize the intended audience distinctions, and then find the overarching principle, or precept that applies to all Christians everywhere--in other words--to you.

3) Read commentaries, but read at least 4 or 5 different ones. Don't just rely on the comments in the margin of a popular study Bible. Consult, consult, consult.

4) Along this line, consult the online transcripts of the sermons I preach. Much of the time, I will have gone over a passage that may be difficult to understand, and will have already explained it, and how it applies to you. The point is, that we should consult what others are saying. We don't consult them as if what they say is scripture, but we consult them to help us in our own thinking processes. We are trying to learn. But you aren't going to do this if you WRONGLY think that God's ministers don't have anything to offer you in the way of scriptural insights, and edification. I think what Spurgeon said concerning this is so important. It's on our website. I have quoted it before. I'll probably quote it a hundred times more before I die. No, probably thousands of times! It's worth quoting now, where Spurgeon says,

In order to be able to expound the Scriptures, and as an aid to your pulpit studies, you will need to be familiar with the commentators: a glorious army, let me tell you, whose acquaintance will be your delight and profit. Of course, you are not such wiseacres as to think or say that you can expound Scripture without assistance from the works of divines and learned men who have laboured before you in the field of exposition. If you are of that opinion, pray remain so, for you are not worth the trouble of conversion, and like a little coterie who think with you, would resent the attempt as an insult to your infallibility. It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others.—CH Spurgeon

5) is something that is easy to do; discuss scripture with people. Talk about the Bible all the time. How often?--yes, all the time. Ask questions. Question asking is what marks learners from those who remain ignorant. Many times the only difference between a genius, and a person of average mental aptitude, is simply that the genius never stops asking questions.

The point is that in learning what is pleasing, you have to try, try, try. That is what Paul says here in our text. If you don't try, then it ain't gonna happen. If I feed you a fish, and then tell you that I am going to teach you to fish, or give you all the learning tools to teach yourself how to fish, and you aren't trying to learn, then you aren't going to be a very good fisherman. In fact, you more than likely won't learn to fish at all. God is telling you to try. The scriptures proclaim in Hebrews 11, that we must believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. We can not feign learning styles with God. Diligence in hearing the word proclaimed, and in reading the word, line upon line, precept upon precept, will be rewarded, but you must be trying. Do you want to be a prize possession of God? Do you want to be a shining tool in His hand that He uses to shine His glory in this dark world? Then be trying to learn what is pleasing to Him. Don't stop. Don't get tired. Don't give up. Try, try, try!

Paul finishes off this aspect of his point with quoting something that is probably a compilation of all the wake-up prophecies concerning Israel that are found in Isaiah. Paul says,

"14 For this reason it says, 'Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.'" Ephesians 5:11-14

The point that Paul is making in his context is that God's children need to wake up from living in the deep sleep of ignorance in their Christianity, and recognize that we need to throw off the old man, quit grieving the Holy Spirit, and start living the life of Christ that we are trying to learn. Christ shining on you, is to reflect His light isn't it? It is to have Christ blessing you as a mature Christian who walks according to the measure of Christ. You sow to the Spirit you will sow eternal life things from the Spirit. You sow to the flesh, you will reap darkness. This is the point.

I urge you to be about the task of making every effort to be learning what is pleasing to the Lord. Be realizing that you are a child of the Light. Walk as children of Light. Expose the darkness through your walk. Be the light bearers in this dark world that shine God's glory that pierces through the darkness. Don't let the darkness overtake you, as you try to learn what is pleasing to your Lord--amen?