Do not be a partaker with your former life in Adam
Ephesians 5:6-10 · Roger Henderson · Oct 7, 2018
Ephesians (2018-19), No. 37
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261912187138

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, today we're going to continue on in chapter 5. We're going to do verses 6 through 10. These labels I put together months in advance. Do not be partakers with your former life. It's partially true, but there's actually so much more in this. This is a pretty cool section. Before I do that, let's look at the outline here. This is Macaulay's outline, which I've kind of adjusted.

This outline is back in Chapter 4, our relationship with one another. into chapter 5, being imitators, our relationship to morality, we talked about last week, our conduct and speech, and then our inheritance in the kingdom of God. We talked about that. Those who don't know Christ, they don't have an inheritance in the kingdom of God. He points out how some of you were that way, some of you were outside of Christ.

So now we come into this section, which Macaulay is has called our relationship to mockers. But if you look at the context, it talks about the sons of disobedience. So I would kind of scratch out mockers and put our relationship to the sons of disobedience. Because Paul is going to tell us that we should not be part of their fallen activities, the activities of the flesh. And basically let no one deceive you, speaking of those sons of disobedience. do not be partakers with them.

So the first two verses are going to be kind of warnings if you will. The next verse is this section 8-10 is just dynamite. You once were darkness but now you are light. There's just some wonderful truths in that. And then actually next week Bob's going to teach I'm pretty sure. And he's going to cover about participation with them. So Paul kind of goes through and he talks about What we say would be encouraging verses, we're imitators, and then we have the ones that talk about don't be partakers with the sons of disobedience, and then we have these wonderful verses about the fact that you're now light in the Lord. Okay, so that's from Macaulay. So could someone read these five verses, five through ten, or actually six if you count the ends. So five through ten? Yes.

For this ye know that no whoremonger, no unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers of them, for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.

Okay, great, thank you. Okay, so this starts out, I put verse 5 in there because it talks about the things that, you know, for this you know with certainty, that no immoral, and actually I was asked after class, immoral, you know, a lot of translations, that's translated It's actually the word that's sometimes translated for fornication or fornicator. It's actually the word, that's the word, ponia, thank you, thank you. Like from pornography.

No immoral or impure or covetous man who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of God. So that's speaking of a person outside of Christ. So this verse starts off Let no one deceive you, verse 6 where we're starting, let no one deceive you with empty words. And because of these things, I think it kind of points back to the basically immoral, no immoral, or covetous, or idolatry.

It points back to that. So first of all, let no one deceive you. And then it talks about how the wrath of God will come on the sons of disobedience. Then it says, Besides don't let them deceive you, don't be partakers with them. Don't join in to their sinful activities.

And then it starts talking about the believer. It says, you were formerly darkness, but now you're light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light consists of all goodness and righteousness and truth. Trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

So there's just some really, really cool things in the last part about that. Hi, Andrew. There's a handout over there if you want. Okay, so let's just go on. We'll look at the first verse. So basically we have the warnings and then we have the wonderful news about who we are in Christ. Okay, let no one deceive you with empty words. So deceive is the idea to beguile, to seduce into error. So there's a couple of verses I wanted to kind of parallel with that in Timothy there.

Could someone read 1 Timothy 2.14? This is kind of a backup for this word deceive.

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. OK. All right. So basically, it talks about the fact that it's interesting. If you go back and look at Genesis, Adam wasn't deceived. But Eve was deceived. So you could say, well, wow. Anyway, that's another lesson. But it's interesting. It's very interesting.

So deception or being deceived, he's warning against that. And then James talks about that. I'm talking about a person bridling his tongue but deceives his own heart. So he's warning you against deception here. So Ouisse has this, let no one keep on deceiving you. So this is present tense. Paul's concerned about you being continually deceived. And it's with these empty words. And empty is the idea of hollow, meaning false words.

So someone read Colossians 2.8? Seem to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. Okay, so there are several levels of learning about philosophy, about empty deception. So Paul doesn't want you to be taken in by that. And basically, Macaulay points out that the U is emphatic. It could be rendered, you of all people, you being a believer in the Lord Jesus, should not allow yourselves to become victims of deceit, of these hollow or empty words.

And this is not the only place. Scripture has a lot to say about being taken in by the schemes of man, other places. So this starts off with that. And then we're going to get pretty somber. He's going to say that Because of these false and empty deceptions, the person that is outside of Christ has a terrible future in store for him. The things, I believe, refer back to the previous verses that we taught last week in three and four.

He lists a bunch of those. He lists, I mentioned immorality or fornication, impurity, greed. And then he has several lists of those in terms of sins of talking, filthiness, coarse jesting, and silly talk, which is more than just kind of, it's more serious than that.

And he says the wrath of God, The wrath in scripture talks about God, His abhorrence for sin, but longing with grief for those who live in it. There is a verse in John that talks about the contrast between the believer and the unbeliever and their fate. He who believes in the Son of God has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, for the wrath of God abides on him. So by the very fact that you're outside of Christ, it's not like that encourages God's wrath.

We kind of think, man this world thinks, well if I do pretty good, I can kind of not be noticed by God. People aren't very wise, so they don't know scripture. They think, well, I can kind of be unnoticed. I'll just go and I'll never be noticed. Well, no. Scripture says you already, the wrath of God is already, you already incurred that by not believing in Him, by not trusting Him. We're going to see a really cool thing at the very end of this, where it talks about disobedience. I'm getting ahead of myself here. I'll save that. If you have a question. I have a question.

So when we talk about the wrath of God, though, this is not necessarily the present tense. I mean, I think a lot of unbelievers probably suffer, but don't think it's any sort of wrath of God. Well, that's not part of my point. My point out is... We don't have consequences yet. Right.

The wrath of God is not going to live with him forever. That's God's wrath. That's what these verses kind of talk. That's God's wrath. We kind of think, well, I did something wrong. From human standards, it's future. Well, you're under God's wrath when you're outside of Christ. I guess I'd say it that way.

And it's not something that, oh, I do something wrong and then a bolt of lightning strikes me and now I'm under God's wrath. No. No, it says, but the wrath of God abides on Him. God's wrath is upon all those who haven't trusted Him as their Savior, hasn't trusted Christ as their Savior. Now, Romans 8 says...

Romans 1.18.

Okay, let's go to Romans 1.18. This will help clarify it a little bit more, I think. The wrath of God.

Romans 1.18.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Okay, so the wrath of God is revealed. ungodliness and unrighteousness, and talks about men who suppress the truth, the fact that they are unrighteous, they incur God's wrath. It's not like you're waiting to incur God's wrath. They already are. It's already in action.

God is opposed to all unrighteousness and ungodliness. But the important thing to realize, God's wrath never comes on those in Christ. And you probably can quote this one, right? Tom, can you quote it for us? Okay, that's good. I figured you'd know this one. And you can sing it for us too.

Alright, so basically, once we're in Christ, God's wrath is not in the picture, it never is in the picture. So I think that's another reason not to, so as a believer, when we feel that maybe God has, I don't want to say, we've gotten short-changed, or God hasn't noticed what's happening, or whatever, we're never to think, well, God's wrath never is upon you. By definition it cannot be. It's only upon those who are unrighteous by the fact that they have not trusted Christ. I could sing verse 2, but I'm not going to get that. Verse 1 was sufficient. That was good.

So now we've gotten through, because of these things, all the sinful speech that we saw in verses 3 and 4, and the sinful activities, the wrath of God has come upon, and now we're going to talk about who these people are. comes upon the sons of disobedience. The word comes is in the present tense. I'll check that too. McCauley said that's right. The God's wrath showing that God's wrath on these things is already on the way. I couldn't exactly totally verify this, but anyway, it's interesting.

And it kind of fits in with the other verses we talked about. It's already on the way and will continue until the offender has been dealt with. So I guess you could look at the fact, and we know that a person who hasn't trusted Christ, the ultimate wrath of God is when he's judged and thrown into the lake of fire with all unbelievers.

So, from God's perspective, it comes as a present tense and it shows that wrath is upon those people. It doesn't say that He wants them to do that, but it shows that His wrath is not just spiking up at different times. His wrath is continually upon those outside of Christ.

The word sons is is who Yas. And it's the idea of the quality of some of that quality. So that's a son of disobedience, a son of that quality and disobedience. It's literally. Oh yeah. This is the one. This is really cool. Actually, I shouldn't let me go back. Oops. Yikes. Do that. What did I do? There we go. OK. OK. I want to do that. All right.

So what do you think, you probably saw it there looking at your paper, so what do you think, what's your first thought, if I say sons of disobedience, what do you think, what does that say to you? If I say, take it in terms of maybe your children or your, sons of disobedience, what do you think about that? Yeah, well, okay, that's right. In terms of disobedience, how would you define disobedience? I gave you a definition here. I'm trying to contrast this with what the Greek says. Go ahead, Tom.

Locked in attitude that puts you first and the chief decider of all moves and anything to do with God is secondary. I feel like it too could just be really simple. Just disobey God by not acknowledging him, believing him. It doesn't have to be this great act. Right, right.

What occurred to me was, if I typically disobedience, let's just take it like with my grandkids. If I tell my grandson, and this is a futile thing, Don't touch that scone until it cools. That's a futile activity, first of all, to say that, because he really desires that. Usually it's crossing over a boundary, right?

You've told him not to do this, and he crosses over that, and you say, well, you disobeyed me. That's not right. Well, that's not the meaning of this word in scripture. And this is the condition of being unpersuadable. Wow, that's a disobedience I didn't even think. So, the sons of disobedience, what is their disobedience? It's being unpersuadable. I'm not going to believe in you. I will not have this man over me in New Testament times. And we can look at Romans here in just a second.

But disobedience, according to this particular Greek word, is a condition of being unpersuadable. And isn't that, in a way, just tragic? A man is so proud that he won't be persuaded of his need for Christ. That's the sons of disobedience that the wrath of God is coming on. I just thought, man, that is so different than I felt about my little grandson.

He did something, I asked him, don't do that, and he did that. Well, that's one thing. But being unpersuadable about your sins, and being so proud that you don't do that. And of course, I was there too, like everyone else. At a point in time, I didn't know Christ, and I was unpersuadable. I thought I knew everything. I'm thankful that the Lord did persuade me.

Okay, so let's look at, can someone read Romans 11, 30 to 32. For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, So these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you, they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience, so that He may show mercy to all. I'm not sure I have studied all that out, but it's interesting. In seeing man's disobedience, he wants to show mercy to all. And it says, you once were disobedient. So you could say, some might take that, well, once I did this action and that action. Well, no, he's talking about being unpersuadable. You once were unpersuadable, but now you're persuadable.

Anyway, so there's a lot more that could be studied out in that. So then here's a kind of a parallel verse. For this is because of these things. These things are back in verse, let's just look, Colossians. Let me look at that, what I'm talking about here. Colossians 3. OK, 3 and verse 5. Verse 5 has a list, if I remember. Yeah.

Yes, therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passions, evil desires, greed, which amount to idolatry. For it is on this account of these things that the wrath of God will come upon you. So basically it's who you are in Adam, right? All those things in Adam encourage the wrath of God.

So now he says, therefore do not be partakers with them. So it's this word genomai coming into a state of being to become. Partaking together with them, joint partakers. Don't be joint partakers with them. So this word denotes casting a one's lot with someone to fellowship with them, to participate in their sins and the punishment connected with it. So Paul's saying, don't participate in the sins of the sons of disobedience.

And actually, if you take the, it's a little stronger. It assumes that you, you know, Paul's warning him that it already is going on. So it's stopped, therefore, becoming joint partakers with him. It could be rendered that way. So it actually looks to the fact that it's already in motion. OK, so that's the somber news. All right, so now the wonderful news.

So for, a little gar, expressing the reason for what has gone before in the sense of because or for. For, you were, and this is one of these neat words, ami, the state in which something continuously exists. You were formerly continually existing in darkness in past times. Formerly is once or at one time. So that's where you were. You formerly were in darkness.

And darkness is speaking of spiritual darkness, I think. And let's see here. OK, so let's look at Someone read Colossians 1.13, kind of speaking of this darkness, that the believer was informally.

Colossians 1.13. Who have delivered us from the power of darkness and have translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. Yeah. So he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. Okay. So this is saying a very similar thing.

You were formerly darkness and that's a state. You didn't jump around. You weren't going to have light and darkness. You weren't in light for a while and you were in darkness. The unbeliever, whether he realizes it or not, is continuously in darkness. He's incapable of changing that.

Okay, this is really cool. Paul doesn't say, that they lived in darkness, he says they were darkness. And that's what's going to make this so huge. Because we're going to see the contrast of this. You were in this state. You weren't just living in darkness. You were darkness. And that's a hard pill to swallow. It's a hard pill to swallow when you think about the lost world. They don't see how dire a condition they're in. And actually, I would say In my experience, I was almost 40 years old before I became a believer. It never occurred to me.

I lived a pretty good life. I was a pretty good person. I was thinking all the years before that and all the years after that. I was formerly darkness. I lived in darkness, but I thought I lived in the light. I thought it was pretty cool. I have an engineering degree. I'm like your dad there. I have an engineering degree. I'm a smart guy. I can do all these cool stuff. But I didn't know Christ. That's the most important thing. The key to see is not just living in darkness, but that you were darkness. Now we're going to see the contrast, which is neat. You were at one time darkness.

But now, on the contrary, at this time, and actually that's used in Ephesians, but now is kind of a strong contrast, the idea of, but now in Christ Jesus, in Ephesians 2.13, you formerly were far off, but now you've been made near by the blood of Christ.

So what I found was, I actually didn't, I kind of stumbled through this a little bit. I kept looking for the, well, where's the Greek word for you are? And there's really no Greek word behind that. So the best I could see is what the translators did, which is typically what they do. This is an implied verb. But you are, it's an implied verb. And it's a form of ami, the state in which something continually exists. But now you are light. The metaphor of light, like of the Lord Jesus as the illuminator of men. And light modifies the subject. You are in light. You are continuously in light. And so let's just look at a couple of verses here.

So actually, someone quote 1 John 1.5.

I'll read first John 1.5. Great, thank you. Okay, so basically, God is, one of his attributes is light. He is continually light. He is light. So what this verse is saying, but now, you are light. You have an attribute that only God has. You are light. which is just, you know, it's mind-boggling.

And then actually there's another verse, could someone read 1 Timothy 6.16? This talks about God, but this is, since we are now, we now have Christ in us, we are now light because we have Christ in us. Who only hath immortality dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.

Okay. I haven't, see I didn't actually turn to that. Let me see. Okay, so I think you're the right one. So actually mine has a little phrase, dwells in unapproachable light. Does someone else have something like that in 1st Timothy? So read yours for me. I'm reading the one from the congregation. I'm sorry. I was trying to find the one that read it. I'm looking for my little phrase. I'm sorry. I apologize. Who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unpromptable life. I'm sorry. Stop it. So what did yours have? Just read the first part of you. I thought yours had something like that.

Here it says, who only has immortality. Dwelling in the light which no man can imagine. It just says dwelling in the light. That's the interlinearity. Oh, I see. So you're doing it. Interlinearity is that they don't It's not really a version, it's just kind of taking the Greek words. They put basically the English word over every Greek word, so it won't read, it won't have, like here, the translator helped us out, that UR is not in there, so you would read that, but now, light in the Lord. From the Greek, if I read your Greek for this one, in fact actually you could do that, your Greek says, but now, light in the Lord. So the translator said, hey, well wait a minute, We're trying to make this English understandable.

Let's make that you are, and it kind of matches the verb you were, so they try to make it a little more reasonable. The indicative, that's a mood, right? It's a statement of fact. Or the reality? Statement of reality, yes. Yeah, no, that's all. I'm certainly not, you know, a Greek geek, as they say. I'm not my... I'm a Greek geek, so... There's a couple of neat words, you know, the state of being verbs and stuff like that.

They're really cool. So basically, you were formally darkness, but now you are in, you are light, you are the thing light, just like God is light. What's amazing is, He says you are light too. I mean, that's just, to my mind, that's huge. You say, well, wait a minute, I know who I am. I don't feel like I'm light at all. And you're not. I mean, you are and you aren't.

And this is where position and condition comes in. This is exactly where you you're led to the place where, OK, if he says I'm in light, but wait a minute, I also have another aspect of me that I can sin. So we're going to see a couple aspects here. OK, let me just go ahead here. OK, this is good.

So Macaulay points out again, conversely, he says, Paul does not say, now live in the light, but they are light. Now, I want to point out is, Scripture also says, as the rest of this verse says, You are light. Walk in the light. We are light in the Lord. That's exactly what it says here. We're not light in ourselves. Let's go on. I'm getting ahead of myself here. We're light in the Lord. It's not our light, but Christ's light. We have Christ dwelling in us, and it's His light that allows us to be called light in the Lord. It's not our light.

That's going to be reinforced by the fact that if we could just stop and pass a semicolon, we wouldn't need the rest of that. We'd say, you are a light in the Lord in the topic. You'd be perfect, right? And we're not perfect. Conditionally, we sin and we do things we shouldn't. And that's where fellowship comes into play. But positionally, this is where position and condition are critical. Positionally, I'm light in the Lord. But then he comes right back and says, based upon that, I want you to walk in who you are. Walk in your position.

That little realization, boy, is just super helpful. If you don't kind of see that in scripture, it's going to be tough. You're going to make all kinds... You're going to... He says, well, I've got to get busy being light. You're never going to make it.

Go ahead. It's neat. I was just reading this morning. I know you all are reading. It's the same thing about the light. It's kind of neat how God brings that. It was talking about the illustration of a star. A star doesn't have to put out light. is light, but because we are in Christ, Christ is light. Exactly, exactly.

This makes this series of verses just so, and it's actually almost, it's counterintuitive because you, since we have, and this is where two natures comes into play, there's so many things that fall out of this. that you have to understand, or should understand, that it's just, you know... Well, and I feel like the world has a general understanding of this, because you see it, like light and dark, good and bad, yin and yang, and yet they take it away from being God, you know, God versus non-God, you know what I mean? But there is a concept of this everywhere. No, but people will, you know, I agree with you.

Evil is recognized, and you know, Alright, cool. So now we've learned that you formerly were darkness, you were the thing darkness, but now you're the thing light, and this wonderful light, and this light in the Lord. And another key, it's this key that it's in the Lord. If you said you're light, without saying that little part of it, and so many things, like in Christ is so important too, if you study through scripture.

So walk is this figurative term. It's a round of all your activities in an individual's life. And it's present tense, continuous, that you walk. Continue to walk. Walk is who you are. And those Ephesians verses, they talk about, in Ephesians, basically implore you to walk in a manner worthy. It's used other places in Ephesians too. So we say, as children of light, be habitually conducting yourselves.

And this is really cool. I pulled this out of Macaulay. I just thought this was really important. Religion says, or I would say many Christian denominations might say, do this in order to become. But Christianity says, do because who you are. Walk in the light because you are light. Let your position be your practice. Or as we say, be your condition. But it says it's not law. Right, exactly. It's not law.

So we realize that we have this position in Christ who is light and as we walk in Him, we're going to walk in the light. We can do nothing else. Or you can say as we walk by faith, Faith and walk and trust are all kind of similar concepts, basically. Trusting, that's your action of your life. You walk in Christ, you walk in the light. So you walk because that's who you are, not to become that.

For the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness and truth. So actually some translations have, for the fruit of the Holy Spirit, And some have fruit of light. And there's some discussion about that. I'm not sure I'm able to do that.

But what I noticed was that fruit of light, it reminds me of Galatians 5.22.

So could someone read Galatians 5.22? Actually, how about 5.22 and 5.23?

That the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no wrong. Okay, good, thank you. So we're going to see here that, so this says, for the fruit of the light consists, and it's not, that's been added by the translators, or it could be in the sphere of, for the fruit of the light consists of, And he's going to list three things.

And Macaulay just points out that light is known by its effect. Like, you can't see light, right? But you can see the effect of light, right? It reveals things. It can be blinding. I was trying to think of other things. It's an unseen force, unseen. I'm searching for the right word. You can't see it, but you can see its effect. OK. So he gives three, whoops. He gives three fruits, if you will.

Goodness, righteousness, and truth. The word all could be translated as every or every form. Every form of goodness, every form of righteousness, every form of truth. What I notice here is that goodness, from what was read in Galatians 5.22, is one of the fruits of the Spirit. So the idea of benevolence.

So one of the fruits of the light is goodness, and that's one of the fruits of the spirit. Then these last two, righteousness and truth, they kind of show up later on in Ephesians when it says, putting on the full armor of God, stand therefore having girded your loins with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness. Righteousness and truth, we see those later on in the armor of God. And so they're all characteristics of the believer in the Lord Jesus, either as the fruits of the Spirit or his armor. But they're all parts of what Paul tells us are that light consists of goodness, righteousness, and truth.

I forget where it is. 1st John doesn't say God is light. Yeah, I actually read that earlier. Oh, you did? Well, there you go. What verse is that? That is 1st John 1.5, I think.

Is that the same essence? It's the same essence. I didn't point that out. It's the same essence. It's not the plural. In ours, it says, God is, that God is truth. Ours says, you are truth. I mean, you are light. And why is it when people recite the essence of God, holy, they never...

Light in there? Light, yeah. But they could, right? They could. But I wonder, if you look at this little connection here, and I struggle with this, so it says there's a connection between, these are the fruits of light, goodness, righteousness, and these are some of the attributes of God, right? He's righteous, some of the ones we list all the time.

So I don't know, there's some things I'm kind of whirling around in my brain. This connection here, I haven't really thought through a lot, enough to really make any other observation. But that's right, the attributes of God, you don't see light. But he definitely says God is light. That is a characteristic of God. And us who are in him.

Okay, we're getting down to the end here. Alright, so this is interesting. So is this something... I'll try to do a mic. Or maybe your dad. Maybe Hal. Trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. So should we put this on our refrigerator and say, OK, I'm going to learn what's pleasing to the Lord today.

Once again, if you start looking at the original language, you come across, just like we found We found that the word disobedience was something different than what we thought. We found that was being unwilling to be persuaded. What we're going to see, trying, trying to learn, is actually a little bit different than what you might think. I'm not sure why they choose these as chosen, but let's just go on here.

Trying to learn is really literally proving, to test, prove, with an expectation of approval. So it's not like we're fulfilling, this is just like in James. This is proving your faith. This is the proof of your faith. When you act in faith, when you do something, that proves that you did have faith. And this is somewhat similar to that.

Okay, can someone read Romans 12.2?

How about reading Romans 12.1 and 2? I would teach you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is, that you, I'm sorry, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Good. Perfect. Okay. Thank you.

So in verse 2 there, notice it has the word prove there, right? It says, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is. So the renewing of your mind with a purpose that you may prove. As your mind is renewed, you prove what the will of God is. And that's what's pleasing to God.

It's not that you're... I don't know how to say this. It's the outcome. Yeah. It's not that you're... Well, I haven't learned this, I haven't learned that. No, you're showing, you're demonstrating, might be better, you're demonstrating, like in this verse, you're demonstrating the renewing of your mind. When you're becoming your new creation. Exactly, exactly. Right. Okay, so that's what I'm trying to get across here, I apologize.

What is pleasing the Lord, pleasing is acceptable, with reference to God, and actually it shows up it shows up twice in what we just read what was just read here and it showed up in verse 1 I urge you therefore by the brethren by the mercy of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God and then down in 2 it says that you may prove what the will of God is which is good and acceptable. What kind of occurred to me is this is what is pleasing to God, not men. So it could be a situation where you always desire to please God.

But that may be contrary to what men say. Well, and that kind of goes back to the first thing we talked about. You know, don't hang around with people who don't believe. Because it's not accepting to them that God isn't accepting, so they're going to try and persuade you otherwise.

Right. So, here's resurrendering in this verse, putting to the test and then approving what is well pleasing to the Lord. Okay. Alright. Well, a lot of interesting things, a lot of interesting words today. Think about the, you know, God is light. Pretty amazing. And we are light. You are light in the Lord. You are light. Let me just read it right here again. You were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.

So basically, so many different attributes, so many different discussions in scripture start with, you are that. Live according to what you have, who you are. Trust God in accordance with what he said. Not trying to prove something. Not trying to prove it out. Okay. Alright. Let's close. We thank you, Father. We thank you for this day, Father. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior, Lord. In Christ's name, Amen.