Who You Are In Christ - Light in the Lord

Well, today we're up to the class that we're, if you folks haven't been with us before, this is Who We Are in Christ. And Dr. Schaeffer, in his systematic theology, kind of documented 33 riches of God's grace, he calls it, or 33 things that every believer has, regardless of how mature they are, whether they realize they have them. It's things that are true of a believer when he trusts Christ as his savior.

And so now we're down to number 28, lighten the Lord. The previous ones, we talked about inheritance. In fact, we have actually two classes on inheritance, his inheritance and the inheritance of the saints. And so now we're going to start into lighten the Lord, and then we'll finish out through 33.

So actually, before we actually get into this first, can I have someone volunteer to read First John versus one through five? I think we need to make sure the context here. So First John versus one through five. First John, chapter one, verses one through five.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, and have looked upon, and our hands have handled, that the Lord have bought them. For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show and debut the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that we also may have fellowship with us. that ye may also fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Thanks, Margaret. Well, as we start into this idea of being light, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, being light in the Lord, it seems appropriate that we see what scripture says about God in terms of light.

And the word light is used, in fact if you notice, in fact I kind of picked up on this, if you notice that light in most translations, I'm not sure, is it King James, does it capitalize light in the King James? I'm not sure that it always has done that. Okay, well then some of the newer translations have tried to capitalize when they see a an attribute of deity or deity itself. And you'll notice if you have like a numerical standard or others, you'll notice that light is capitalized whenever the translators think it describes a person or attributes of God.

And you'll see it kind of show up, and it's interesting. We'll see it in the passage which talks about the believer. And so I thought we'd get to the next passage, which is kind of the key passage here in Ephesians. You're going to notice that the translators will capitalize light in that case. I thought this was kind of an interesting thing, and we'll see why they do that. Why is it appropriate to capitalize light in this passage? First of all, let's dissect this passage. It's a wonderful passage. It has several parts to it. The first part, we have heard from him the message.

What Margaret read, John's talking about He saw the Lord Jesus personally, and he heard him. And it's really vivid if you go back in those first four verses it talks about. They heard him, and they could still hear him as it were, his words ringing in their ears. They still remember talking with the Lord Jesus and hearing him. So this is kind of carrying on that idea. We have heard from him the message.

And based upon that, we announce to you the message. So before we go any farther, and this is not should be real hard. What's the message from this passage? God is light. Thank you, Margaret. It's not real hard, but actually by structuring, and this is the way the original is structured.

We have heard the message from, and message is actually what in English would be like a direct object. We have heard the message. We have heard from him the message. We announce to you the message. So heard here, so we're going to go through each of them through heard, announce, and message. Heard is a kuo, to hear in the perfect tense. So what does it mean to hear in the perfect tense? Do you have perfectly good hearing? I'll try to use some of Vern's little things. Do you have perfectly good hearing? My hearing is perfect.

Is that what that means? Now and future. What's that? Now and future. Now and future. Okay. Basically, kind of carrying along the idea. They heard Christ in the past and they continue hearing up into the present and on into the future. That's what the perfect tense is all about. So this is a pretty incredible statement. They heard that God is light in the past and they continue to hear that if you, so to speak, up into the present and on into the future. Okay.

And then the second word is announce. And this word announce and message are all these words that are kind of a family of words that all are tied back to the root word which is angelios, which is the word for angel. Angel is a messenger, so this is a form to report, to bring back a message, to announce. So they're announcing, as an angel, if you would, announcing the message.

And that word is used in a couple of places. Let's just look quickly here. In Acts 15, if I get someone to read Acts 15 and verse 4, Right. So in Bob's translation, you have the King James. It's declared. They announced, or declared, or reported back all that had happened to them. In the American Standard, it's reported. So they reported all that had happened to them.

And then another, in John, let's look at John chapter 4, Gospel of John chapter 4. Also with John chapter 4, and actually I'll just read this one. It says, and this is where Christ was talking to the woman at the well. John chapter 4 verse 25. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. When that one comes, he will declare all things to us. So Bob, what do you have in your, what do you have Tell, right. Report back. He will tell all things to us. So it's used in a very, you know, to report in a very obvious sense. Okay, so let's go on. Message. Another form of this word for angel. Proclamation. And actually it's used in a couple places.

It's used actually in 1 John, again, 1 John 3.11. And there are several messages that the Apostle John wanted to declare. This is another one.

In 1 John 3.11, he says, For this is a message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. So that was another message that was to be heard. But the message here is, and we're going to see the next chart, we're going to expand on the message here, is that God is light. and then closely tied with that, and in him is no darkness at all. So we're going to see how that kind of plays out.

Questions so far or thoughts? Yeah, Roger. Sure. How does that fit in then with Genesis 1-3? Let there be light. Okay. Well, this is used in a different context, hence it's capitalized. It's going to be the very character of God. Exactly. Light, well actually in scripture, light is not only used to describe God's character, it's used to describe physical light. Let there be light, and I believe he's talking about the opposite of darkness.

Right, and that's true. And there are some parallels. There's a physical sense of physical light and darkness, and there's also a spiritual sense of darkness being sin, portraying sin, and light portraying holiness and righteousness. So we're going to see that. That concept is there.

But there's a kind of a physical sense of darkness and light, I'm not sure about you, but I don't like to be in a dark room. It's peaceful sometimes. When I go to sleep, it should be dark, but just the idea of walking around in the dark isn't... I usually fall down, hurt myself, or run into things. There's kind of a foreboding thing. You think of darkness. If you go into some place you haven't been before, darkness is not your first choice to go in there. You try to find a new place. I find I can't find it when it's dark many times, or I get confused or whatever. I'm not sure that's directly in German, but anyway.

Let's go on. God is light. We're going to get down to the basics here. Actually, some of these little is's is important. Some people may think it's not, but it is a very important word, especially in Greek. It's an extremely important word. is Amy in the Greek, the state in which someone or something continuously exists. So this makes a wonderful declaration, that God continually exists as light. That's his state. And the word for light is phos, and it comes from the English word phosphorus, to emit light.

But it's used here in a different context in terms of holiness. Let me just see if I wanted to show something here. OK, so let's just go on. So light describes God's holiness. And there are several passages here where that's the case. It talks about in Timothy. 616, we won't turn to that. It says God dwells in unapproachable light. He dwells in holiness and righteousness.

And then in James 1.17 it says, from the father of lights. Now light is associated with God, his very character, that he is totally free of sin. And we're going to see that when we go to the second part. And actually in the Greek this is like a compound a compound sentence with the and connecting it, God is light and in him is no darkness at all. By saying there's no darkness at all, he's actually going to clarify the purity of this light. Darkness cannot have one single aspect of that in terms of God's holiness. There is not even one particle of darkness in God. That's totally excluded.

So let's go on. Let's do the second part here. And so actually I rearranged that little phrase to make it a little more understandable and also a little more true to the original. God is not darkness in himself at all. Not easy to read. And once again, we have our is word, amy. So what this says is, God continually exists without darkness. Darkness is not part of his character. The state in which someone or something continuously exists, darkness is not continually existing in God.

I'm not sure I can even say that right. Darkness is, I'm not sure I can pronounce that, scotia, something like that. It's use of spiritual or moral darkness. And once again, it's also use of physical darkness. And that's where context determines that. And it really implies emblematic of sin.

And we're going to see that because we're going to see the same kind of... We see that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Then we're going to see the believer talked about having been in darkness but now is in light. So we're going to see the same kind of contrast between light and darkness. First of all, with God in this passage, and then with the believer, and how when he trusts Christ, he moves from darkness to light. And we're going to see actually the position, his position in light, and his condition in light, because we're to walk in the light. And what's interesting here, this last little phrase, is the idea of not even one, or maybe even stronger, not even one particle, and this is what I was referring to before, there's not even one particle of darkness in God.

We know this because of the nature of God, but it just really nails it down. A person that says, you know, that they try to hedge on God. Well, God's, you know, and they try to make him into a man's God. God declares... That sentence where somebody, you know, where they said, couldn't Christ have sinned?

Exactly, exactly. That's exactly right. When man opens the door, thinks of himself, and tries to put that on the God of the universe, where God declares that there is no darkness, not even one particle of darkness in it. I mean, that's where the study of the language just really is so wonderful to kind of just nail that down. God is light, and in him is not even one particle of darkness.

And this is a continually ongoing thing. It's not something, well, God, at some point, well, he's going to blow it. At some point, he's going to slip up. Nope. It can't happen. It's impossible. He would cease being God. So this is kind of the foundation for the next part we're going to look at in terms of the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ being light in the Lord. Was there a question?

Yeah, I think James 1.17 is really kind of deep there. Okay, well why don't you go ahead and read that.

Yeah, it says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. It comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow or turning. Right, exactly. There is no shadow there. You ever go into the woods and the sun is shining, and the leaves are moving, and you walk through there, every time you turn, there's a shadow. It keeps reflecting shadows and light. When God, there's no such thing.

Exactly. That's a beautiful verse. That's why I had it down on my list, but we zoomed past it. Thank you for doing that. That's a wonderful verse. And that's the thrust of this. We start off with God is light, and there's not even one particle of darkness, and now we're going to move to a wonderful truth about us, and something that we're to hang on to, and that we're to see. And that's what's really exciting. That's what's exciting about this study, about who we are in Christ, because we're learning the foundational things of the believer. And so often we get tied up in the world and things, and we don't see the wonderful things that God has provided for us from his very character, his very nature.

All right, so let's go on. So here's sort of the verse where the name of this particular attribute came from. And actually, I'd like to have someone read Ephesians chapter 5, verses 5 through 9 to kind of get the context again. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 5 through 9. And anyone can read.

It doesn't have to be the front row. that no immoral or impure person or covetous man who is an adulterer has an 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 the disobedient. Therefore do not be partakers of them. For you were formless in darkness, but now you are in light, and the Lord walked as children of light. the light to assist in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Okay, thank you. So, and actually I just have from five on through nine here. We're going to kind of go through and dissect each part of this.

So I wanted you to see that he says, therefore do not be partakers with them. So he's referring back to what was read. Don't be partakers with those who basically are outside of Christ, outside of God. Don't be partakers with them. And this is in the section of Ephesians, which is to be a practical part. But in this section here, he's going to make a statement about us and our position.

We're light in the Lord. And then he's going to strongly, and actually it's a command, walk as children of light. He's going to say, based upon that you're light in the Lord, act like who you are. you tell your kids, act like you're, I don't know what kind of age you tell them that, different age and you tell them different things, but you tell them, don't act like that, you're five years old now, act like you're a seven year old, or whatever it is. And true in the Christian life, God declares all these wonderful things, and we're studying the 33 riches of God's grace, and he says, act in accordance with what you are, don't act contrary to that. and that he's not asking you to wall up some great strength in yourself.

He's asking you by faith to believe that and to trust that he has done that for you. You know, it's an operation. Go ahead, Bob. You think I was going to give you some law here? Okay, well, hopefully I won't lapse into legalness here. Act like who you are. Let me try harder. Yeah, well, I know. Well, the question is, how do you accomplish that? That's always... Life is being, right? Right, exactly. Exactly. Right. But it is interesting that the imperatives are there, and it's for us, with careful interpretation, to not...

Some would take that and do exactly what Bob said. Excuse me for saying this for a sec. They make a law out of that. They say, well, this is the law, and that's a law. You're to walk, as children of light. I want to see you. Where's your checklist for that?" And they would put the law on you. So we're to carefully go through that and accurately pull it apart. Go ahead, Stan. You were talking about position and condition. Isn't it interesting?

Most churches today would say, but you are becoming light in the Lord. I know. I know. And this says you are light. So the cutting part is us realizing that we are. Amen. That's the beginning point. If you think, well I'm kind of a mess, and God is just kind of, I'm not sure I even have the right words for this, but you have this wonderful place in Him, you're light in Him. And notice, it's capitalized. It took me a while. So the translators thought, That's an attribute of God. We have an attribute of God.

Now, the King James doesn't do that. I'm sorry, Stan. Keep going. That's also why the word create is used when it talks about the new man from the old man. You are created. Right. So this is an act of God. Exactly. Creating this to happen. Right. Actually, and we're going to see that. That's great. That's great. This is really amazing.

Oh, it is. I mean, and interesting, notice the capitals here. You are light, capital light in the Lord. Walk as capital light. I mean, that's pretty interesting. So that says... It's walking as you are. Exactly. You are light. And you walk as what you are. Exactly. So you have the very life of Christ, which is holy, righteous, just, pure. It's life. And that's neat.

I mean, just watching the... So what's kind of neat is, you know, You can understand what the translators did here just by looking at what they did with the word light here and how they saw that it was a position just by saying that. You come along and you interpret it differently. You say, well, I'm becoming light. The translators didn't think that. They thought, you are light in the Lord.

I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's go on here. Let's go through this. OK, so he's going to start with a negative. You formerly were darkness. And we're down to words and is. This is our favorite word again. This is another form of a me. So you were formerly continually existing as darkness. The person who is lost has no choice. 24-7, he's darkness. He is a sinner by his nature from Adam and by his deeds. He has a double whammy. He's related to Adam, but that's his nature. And so he is 24-7, you formerly were darkness.

Actually, a couple of verses I'd like to kind of look at in terms of, and this is a pretty common statement, the fact that the unbeliever is darkness. And several will appeal to that. Let's look at Acts 26. It's interesting, Roger, that a lot of people say that people can't act as Christians.

But what you're saying is that the unsaved person is full of darkness, not full of life. And they're walking as children of light, even though they are full of darkness. So you have the ability and the option to do that. See what I'm saying? A lot of people look at works only, and they say that if this person is walking in the light, that this person obviously has to be saved and a Christian. Which is one of the tests, I agree. But, you also have the choice, even as a person of darkness, to walk as a Christian if you choose to.

You're still full of darkness. Well, I think you're going to find it's the opposite. I apologize. I think it's the opposite of what you said. This is declaring, this is talking to believers. It says, you formerly, at one time, when you were unsaved, you were darkness. But now, contrast, but now you are, as a believer, light in the Lord. So it's contrasting the unbeliever, you were an unbeliever, now I'm a believer, and now I'm light in the Lord. It's not saying that the unbeliever He cannot do anything to please God. He can trust him as his savior. That's the one thing that he can do that God desires the unbeliever to do. But Satan can't imitate light, right? Satan does imitate light, right? He's an angel of light, right? A messenger of light. But that's not the true light from God. He's an imitator. Exactly. Hence, an unbeliever can do the same thing.

There are plenty of people out there that look good. They do what we would call good things. Bob, do you have something to say? Just the whole issue of what kind of metrics we apply looking at each other's lives. This should be entirely up to the Lord Jesus Christ. We walk by faith. It's not by putting measurements to people's performances. And the Spirit allows us to see sin when it exists. Praise God for that. But the issue is Again, our focus entirely is on the Lord Jesus Christ and his life being transformed in us. It's only God who has the measurements taken. That's entirely wrapped up in Jesus Christ. Amen. That's good. I want to carry just a couple more points about darkness here. Let's look at Acts 26, and this is going to be a passage that talks about the fact that you formerly were darkness. Acts 26 verses 15 to 18. Any other?

And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But arise and stand on your feet, for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness, not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you, delivering you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you. to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me. Right, thank you. Well verse 18 is what I was looking for here, basically the idea that You know, he's talking to, this is Paul, talking to Paul here on Damascus Road, and he said, Paul, here's what I want you to do. Here's your ministry, so that you may, to open the eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me.

So the idea of turning from darkness to light and then basically, we won't read it now, but in 1 Peter 2.9 it says that you have been called out of darkness. God's desire, he's calling people out of darkness, out of unbelief, out of their sins. He's calling them out of darkness into his light.

Okay. Sure. Right, right. Isn't that neat? That we are the light of the world. I know that's, that's, no it is, that is. I have that verse down too. In fact, there's so many verses here that you have to kind of pick and choose at some point, so. Okay, so this is this word which is pretty key. Formerly, at one time, a pastime.

So formally, and actually in that John 19.3, it talks about the man who was born blind. And basically, it talks about him being formerly blind, but now he sees. And the Pharisees ask him, well, when did that happen? It happened on the Sabbath, and they really get after him because the Lord You mean you were able to see on the Sabbath?

Well, we've got to get the law out here. That's the wrong time. That guy's just excited. Now I see, now I see. Anyway, so he formally couldn't see, but now he sees. Just to kind of tie that word in. Okay, then next. Darkness. We've been through this before. Same word here.

Same word as in 1 John 1.5. Okay, so let's go on. Here comes the contrast. But now you are light in the Lord.

So basically, actually, R, actually, from best I can tell, and I'm not certainly the world's greatest understanding of the Greek, but it looks like to me R is not actually there, but it's implied. So it's implied in the, I'm not sure, some translations don't actually have R there. It's implied. How does yours read, Bob? It's implied. It's in italics.

Okay, exactly. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, good. So I didn't... It's always nice to... I didn't look at every possibility here. Okay, lighten the Lord. You can read it without R. Yeah. But now, you lighten the Lord. Right. The R isn't in the... But it's implied. I mean, it's implied in its present tense. You are 24-7 lighten the Lord.

Now the question is, do you act? And we're going to see that God's desire is that you act and conduct your life in light of that, in accordance with that. So light is an attribute which originates from God. So I kind of thought, in looking at this war, I thought, oh, it's interesting. We see other expressions in scripture. In the Lord, light in the Lord, we see in him or in Christ. That's common phraseology and actually there's one that I think Stan kind of referred to.

So let's look at, I think it really fits in here well, 2 Corinthians 5.17. It's a pretty familiar verse. Can I get someone to read that? even though I have a hard time getting to it.

Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. If you will think fast and wait, you will have all things in the kingdom. Right. So there it says, if any man is in Christ, which I think is equivalent to being light in the Lord, is in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. So this really speaks of the work that happens to a believer when he trusts Christ as his Savior. He is now a new creation and he is light in the Lord. I kind of looked through, there are several other passages that talk about in Christ that we have redemption in Christ, we have eternal life in Christ, we've been made complete in Him.

So there's just a whole, in fact if you go and you have a computer and you search out those two phrases, in Him and in Christ, you'll find that maybe there's 50, 60, 70 of those? I did that once, and I don't recall the number, but it's between 145 and 160 times, and for Christ is in Scripture three times. That's good. That's good. Excellent. We're well positioned. Right. What's good is, here's another one to add to the list. It's the same concept.

Another attribute of God which the believer possesses as a result of his trust and faith in the Lord Jesus. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6, is what God who commended the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Excellent, excellent. in the original language, the word but is an incredible word because it's a conjunction of contrasts. In Ephesians, like in Ephesians 2, he says, but and you have, you will be made alive or dead and trespassed in the sins. For in times past you walked according to the course of this age, according to the power of the air, the spirit that now works in children of disobedience or mature in disobedience, among whom also we all had our manner of living in times past in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature objects of God's wrath."

And then the first chorus, this made us alive. Yeah, well that's one of the things you kind of keep your eye open for. You'll see he makes one statement, you form over darkness, but now that's a contrast. But now, just like you mentioned... The contrast is in Adam as compared to in Christ. Exactly. And that's what Paul always brings out.

He says you were in Adam in 1st Corinthians. In Adam all died. Right. In Romans 5, in Adam we have death. In Adam So a contrast is in Adam as compared to being in Christ. Exactly. And so a position change, we have a position change from in Adam to in Christ. Yeah. Well if the contrast is is in Adam. That's great. I just love Mike Doyle. You have a change of address, right? Absolutely. Our address is now in Christ. We were in Adam and now we're in Christ.

I found this is another just total parallel. Look at that, but looking in light and darkness. So here he says, for the believer, you formerly were darkness, you formerly were in Adam, but now you're in Christ or in the Lord. So now that's a positional aspect. But now we're going to get the practical aspect. He's going to tell us something that he desires us to do.

Walk as children of light. So he wants us to walk in accordance with who we are. Don't confuse people. Walk in accordance with who you are. So you walk, you as implied, you walk as children of light. And walk is this word peripateo, I think it's pronounced. And it's basically walk walk can be walk. You can walk and describe walking in scripture. It also can be walk. Walk can describe a conduct or a state, a conduct of your life.

Conduct your life as children of light. And we're going to see this children of light is another one of these terms that, and I thought this was a cool lesson because I got to see some connectivity. We've got children of light, sons of light, children of God. They all are conveying the same information that we are God is our Father. We're a new creation in Him. And we can be declared as sons of light, children of God, children of light. They all are the same concept. We are God's possession. He owns us.

And so he's saying, basically, walk in accordance with that. Conduct your life in accordance with that. And I have a couple of verses here, like the sons of light. Let's look at John John 12 Gospel John 12 And verse 36 Well, let me go back to 35 Jesus said to them for a little while longer the light is among you walk while you have the light, that darkness may not overtake you. He who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light.

In order that, or with a purpose that, you may become sons of light. So to become a son of light, to become a child of light, a child of God, requires our belief, our faith in what Christ has done. And then in Romans 8.16, and this is a pretty familiar passage, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. The Spirit of God is bearing witness or testifying in our hearts that we are children of God, children of light. This is a really wonderful passage.

Now what's going to happen is we're going to go on to the last part and it's going to talk about some of the attributes of this light, if you will, or the fruit of the light. For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Fruit of light. What comes to your mind when you hear fruit of light? Is there another phrase that we talk about in scripture? Actually, what we'll see here is that goodness, if you go to Galatians, That's one of the fruits of the Spirit. So what's being said here is that this walk as children of light, goodness is one of the fruits that comes from God by the Holy Spirit.

And then the next one is righteousness. And I'll just go on. The next one is truth. And the bottom two, at first I said, oh great, they're all going to be, my first thought, they're all going to map right to the fruits of the Spirit. Well, they didn't. So I said, well, That's interesting. So what else is here? So then I said, well, let's look a little closer.

Let's look at the attributes of God, which basically are who he is. So the attributes of God, and this is how Malloy is listed. I always liked it. He had a little acronym for this, but holy, This is a whole study unto itself. You can go through scripture and look at the attributes of God.

And righteousness is one of those. Under holiness, righteousness is one of those. And then we have infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, self-existent, love, grace, and mercy, immutable. And then we have truth. So two of the ones that are mentioned here as a fruit of light are righteousness and truth. God is a triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I have no problem with the Lord, if you will. He could have picked all of them, really. Some of them you cannot pick. Obviously, the believer, there are some aspects of God which the believer does not share. We're not omniscient, omnipresent, non-potent. Some aspects we share, some aspects we do not share.

But righteousness, we have his righteousness, the very righteousness of Christ. And truth, God is truth, and that's an aspect that is a fruit that the believer can have. Truth. So the three I mentioned are goodness, righteousness, and truth. So those are the three fruits that are mentioned in terms of the walk of the believer.

Okay, and I have one last verse here. Oops, I didn't get the rest of the attributes. I apologize. So actually what Hal did here, he took the first letter of holy, infinite, self-existent love, immutable spirit. Hislis, he found that that was some kind of, in old England there was some kind of fort. He had a neat picture, a neat graphic. I couldn't find it, so I apologize. But anyway, he made an acronym out of that, which I thought was a neat way to remember that. So my last verse here is kind of another verse which kind of has this contrast again.

In 1 Thessalonians, but you, brethren, are not in darkness. So we are not in darkness now. We are sons of light, that the day would overtake you. I think that's referring to the day of the Lord. This is speaking of the rapture. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day.

We are not of the night or of the darkness. You are not of darkness, same word that we've had before in those places. So actually I kind of had a little, so we have the contrast again. We're sons of light and sons of the day versus sons of darkness and sons of night. Scripture just uses that both in the holiness sense, in terms of our holiness as part of the Lord Jesus Christ, and also just the physical aspects of that. Light versus darkness, day versus night. So we have a wonderful aspect that we are to walk and to remember that we are light in the Lord, and we're to walk as children of light.

Any last thoughts or comments? I've been thinking here about light, and I'm sorry to go so far back. I'm still back there. It helps me to think of light in those three aspects that we have been revealed to know about it. It's physical, it's moral, and it's spiritual. And if we think of the physical and use that as an analogy to look at the other two, this light that we're looking at is emotional. And it comes from energy in an element up there that our eyes can detect. But light is not stationary. Light is moving. And it illuminates.

It reveals to us the words on the pages. And that's the way it is morally, too, and spiritually. The Holy Spirit produces by action these things. And we're children. We produce in action. We show Jesus Christ. It helps me to think of it that way. The light is really him. Exactly. The emotion. Right. In the world. Yeah. That's good.

Actually, when I was reading through in the previous verse about the fact that it doesn't say that we're, it says that we are light in the Lord. It doesn't say that we're trying to become light. It doesn't say we're working up to light. It just makes the statement Because of what Christ has done for us, we are light in the Lord. It's that present tense again, but it's interesting what it does not say. It does not say that you've been enlightened. We have been enlightened, but it says you are light.

That's a powerful statement, powerful declaration. Earlier you guys were talking about how the unbeliever can be light, but really he can't because he's not a child. he's not a person that is light. All he can do is reveal error. I like the idea that it talks about the prince of power of the air. He appears, but it's a lie. We see that in the world scene. We see people appearing to be one thing, but And we may have knowledge that other folks may not have, or whatever. But you know, first of all, you know if they aren't a believer, you know right there, you've got some question marks to start with right there.

Along with that, Roger, when you have the definition of walk on page two, you say, is sometimes used of the state in which one is living. Right. Not the actions, or the individual actions, but you're saying the state of. It can be actually, you know, if I have in brackets there or conduct, you know, it can be a state, you know, a believer can act contrary, right, to who he is. Condition.

Exactly. It's not, it's like Kay Arthur used to always say when she was talking about 1 John, that so many of those things were in present tense. And that's the state that one lives in, of who you really are. The truth of who you are. Right. But you go back to truth in here, which you define. Right. Satan, the truth of Satan is not life. Exactly. Right.

And the question is, are we acting in accordance with that or contrary to that? And that's a conduct. Are you conducting your life based upon what you know as a child of light by simple trust and faith in him or are you... Is that free will? Is that free will? The will is involved.

The term free will always bothers me a little bit. It's sort of like, we aren't free. We come from Adam. How free are we in Adam? We're free, as Michael Doyle would say, we're free to commit the next sin, right? So we're not free, but we do have a will. And we're free to do right with the way we are. That's a freedom we have in Christ Jesus, right? To live a life free and above sin, right? That's the new nature of life now. As an act of faith as much as getting saved. Right, exactly. Or being saved, kind of. Right.

It's not what we do, it's who we are. If you think about it, the Lord has only given us one thing. What am I to do in the Christian life? Believe. That's all. He doesn't ask us, why don't you just trust me? I declare who I am, what I've done for you. Believe that. Trust in that. Put your faith in that. What should we do to do the works that the father requires, right? Believe him.

So I guess it's a very simple, A very simple instruction. But our old fleshly nature confounds that and confuses that. And we get back into wanting to do something. It's got to be a metric here someplace. I've got to be able to show somebody I did something. But that's not what he asked. In fact, actually faith is harder. Because faith acts contrary to the situation many times.

Roger, there's a verse in Isaiah which tells where the light comes from. The deliverer out of Zion talks about a light shine for thy light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee. Where did the light come from? The Lord. Right, right. The deliverer out of Zion.

And I think that's why the translators capitalized light. In all those cases, they want to say, this attribute cannot be from man. And they don't want to confuse anybody. And I think that's a powerful thing. And I'm thankful they did that. Because it really helped me to start looking, wow, look at that, all those capitals in there. And at first, I was confused. But the more I looked, I said, wow, it's not apparent as in here. But back to the previous ones. We can go back for now. All the capitals are pretty incredible. Well, I think that's about it.

Thanks for your comments and questions. Safe travel. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for your word, Father. We thank you for the marvelous truths, Lord, that you've shown us in your word, marvelous truths that you've declared. Lord, you ask us simply to believe you and trust you. And many times trusting you and believing you seems contrary to what we see or contrary to our situation. We pray that we might act in accordance with who you are and what you've done for us and simply walk in those truths. And we're thankful that we have a savior who took our place. We ask it in his name. Amen.