Lesson 23 – Walking In Light
Read Ephesians 5:1-33 – https://www.bible.com/bible/59/eph.5.esv

This way of walking – walking in light – is closely tied to walking in love. We start with verse 7 which tells us not to be partners with the people of verse 6 – those who deceive with empty words. We once walked in darkness, without the light that is God in our lives; but now since God is in our life, He is our light! It is our choice to continue walking in His light.

The first responsibility of walking in light is found in verse 8 – we must remember that we were once in darkness. Why are we to remember? It’s because we remember how desperate we were to get out, how we couldn’t do that on our own, how we had to trust Jesus to bring us that light. When we remember, we can also be patient and sympathetic to others who are still in darkness.

Our next responsibility is in verse 10 – we must understand what is pleasing to the Lord. How do we know what pleases the person we love? We watch, we listen, we pay attention to how they react to things. When we watch them eat, their face tells us if something tastes good or bad. When they’re telling us of something they received or that happened to them, their tone of voice tells us if this was a good thing or a bad thing for them. Just so, we read and listen to Jesus’ words to us from the Scripture. We pay attention to things He likes, stories He’s told of people who did what He liked or didn’t like.


We cannot, however lead someone to light if we are again walking in darkness ourselves – and this is the point verse 7 was making to us. I ask you to read Psalm 1 and look at the progression of our associations with people of darkness that Jesus doesn’t want us to follow. We are reminded of this danger to our own walk in verse 11 – take “no part” in their works of darkness at all, so you won’t be tempted to get in even further.

The last responsibility of walking in light is to BE light ourselves. What does light do? When we turn on a light in a dark room, that light exposes everything in that room to view. Jesus wants us to be that light in our world – when people do things that are of the darkness, our light should “expose” that to them as being something not pleasing to God. We don’t need to be unkind about this – simply our action of not joining in on that activity is sometimes enough to “expose” to them that God isn’t pleased.

Please don’t misunderstand – and this is why you must remember when you were still in darkness – being ashamed of what we have done usually makes us angry. They may very well be angry at you for bringing to their attention that God isn’t pleased. That’s when you can gently remind them of that deep desire in them to find God’s love and hope in their hearts – and lead them to the Light that is God.

In the end, walking in light means walking in fellowship with God – 1 John 1:6-7. But God also reminds us we cannot walk together with Him if we don’t agree with Him – Amos 3:3. Sin breaks our fellowship, and the only solution to our sin now is repentance and confession – 1 John 1:9.
*Who or what is our light?
*Who brought us this light?
*Walking in light means walking in fellowship with _____
*The only solution to sin is _____ and _____