Sermon preached on Sunday, January 19, 2014 at Garden Valley Chapel during our morning worship service based on 1 Thess 4:3-7.

As believers our spiritual condition has been changed forever more.

This was Paul’s message to the Ephesians. He says in Eph 2:1-3 –

1…you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air…
3…we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

For Christians, both intellectual and moral darkness are a thing of the past.

But now, as Paul puts it in Eph 5:8 –

8for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light

This is NOW our spiritual condition – in contrast to what we were before trusting Christ. Christ has, as Colossians 1:13 states –

13…rescued us [past tense] from the domain of darkness, and transferred [past tense] us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,

Peter adds this in 1 Pet 2:9 –

9[He] has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

Jesus Himself said to his disciples in Matt 5:14 –

14“You are the light of the world…

Because we now share Christ’s own nature we share in His light. Just as He is the “light of the world” (Jn 8:12), His people are also “the light of the world” (Matt 5:14).

Because we are in the Lord, we who were once children of darkness are now children of light, and as such we should walk a certain way.

Paul tells us what our focus ought to be now that we are children of light.

Look at what he says in the latter part of Eph 5:10 –

10trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

The primary focus is to be a concern about continually trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. “Trying” is to test or scrutinize.

It is all about testing everything in life to what would please the Lord.

And the best way to know what pleases the Lord is to search the Scriptures.

Illustration: After the completion of the OT, there were 400 years of silence, during which God did not speak or inspire any Scripture.

Q: If you wanted to know God’s will during these 400 years, where would you go?
A: You would go to the OT.

But now we have the entire canon of Scripture – in its entirety.

I want to give you six principles to know God’s Will for your life.