Spiritual sleepwalking is the path to forfeiting the life and vitality that Jesus offers. Today’s passage is a divine invitation to wake up from your spiritual sleep and walk as the child of light that you are in the Lord.

Tyler’s Main Points

• You are now light in the Lord, so walk as children of light.
• You will expose deeds of darkness when you walk as children of light
• Wake up and enjoy the light of Christ shining on you.
  

Key Takeaways

• Oftentimes, Christians can drift into spiritual sleepwalking. Although we may be busy with Christian activity, we have closed our eyes to Christ and forfeit the joy, peace, and life He offers.
  
  
• Although Paul’s audience was surrounded by a city of darkness and were formerly darkness themselves, they have become children of light in Christ and called to walk as light.
  
  
• In the Scriptures, darkness can refer to spiritual deadness, intellectual ignorance, and morality depravity of all people apart from the light of Christ.
  
  
• We were not just guilty of deeds of darkness, but were darkness ourselves—cut off from God, lost, dead, and hopeless to save ourselves.
  
  
• We must remember the pain, despair, and destruction of our experience as darkness and remember the joy, peace, and life we’ve experienced in the light of Christ.

• The new life and light we’ve received is wholly by the grace and work of God in Jesus Christ.

• We can all “look the part”—engaging in Christian activity while lacking the substance and fruit of an abiding relationship with Christ. May we fix our eyes on Jesus and walk with Him.

• Secrecy and isolation serve as the breeding ground for unspeakable deeds of darkness.

• As we walk with Christ, He will sanctify His church and reach the lost through us.

• The blueprint for the body of Christ is life together. Darkness is exposed through community, connectedness, instruction, accountability, encouragement, and service.

• As preached by Tyler, “The right response to the light is not to run from it, but to run to it.”

• The action steps for those living in darkness:
  
  1) Admit/confess the specific nature of your darkness to God and one another.
  2) Remember the Gospel.
  3) Walk in repentance as a child of light.
  

Discussion Questions/Application

Personal application:

• Who were you as darkness and what was life like apart from Christ? What have you experienced as a child of light and what does Christ alone offer?
  
  
• What darkness and distractions most threaten your walk as light in the Lord?
  

Discuss with your community group:

• How can your group grow in sharing life together in 2022?
  
  
• Is there any unconfessed darkness in your life? Admit your sins to one another and pray for one another. Remind each other of the Gospel. Encourage one another to walk in repentance as children of light.

• Spiritual sleepwalking is the path to forfeiting the life and vitality that Jesus offers. Today’s passage is a divine invitation to wake up from your spiritual sleep and walk as the child of light that you are in the Lord.

Passages Referenced for Further Study
Ephesians 5:7-14; John 10:10; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Isaiah 42:3.