Walking with Purpose

Educators have done studies on how children spend their days at school—how many minutes spent reading at their desks, how many minutes spent going to the restroom or the drinking fountain, how many minutes sharpening their pencils, and so on. Down to the minute. Blocks of time devoted to all the sorts of things you’d expect children to do in school. But there’s at least one category of activity that you might not expect: “walking with no purpose.” That’s right: “walking with no purpose.” Studies have found that in a normal day, a very normal child will spend a certain number of minutes simply walking from here to there for no good reason.

As children of God, and our lives as Christians are often described as a walk, as St. Paul does in our text today, our Epistle from Ephesians 5. Paul exhorts us in our text to walk as children of light—children with a purpose. But are we walking with no purpose?

We live in a world still entangled, deceived, and indeed, enslaved, by sin. For as many ways as people have tried to redefine it, excuse it, redecorate, or hide it, the fact is sin is at the bottom of what makes life and relationships difficult, breakable, sick, and dying. Paul describes all of these results of sin in the world as, “darkness.” Paul then says that anyone who tries to hide or deny the fact that we are living in a world of darkness—both outside us and inside ourselves—as acts of “deception” and speaking “empty words.” To have God call these denials of darkness “empty words” means that there is no good or positive purpose in speaking them. And while there are many types of deception involving empty or false words, Paul specifically cites empty words that condone sexual vices, filthiness, foolish talk, and crude joking—the kind of talk that is so common all around us. Empty words like these may be common, but they serve no purpose in God’s kingdom.

God doesn’t believe that we should continue walking in darkness and speaking empty words, and to help us find light and direction by knowing the truth about sin, He gave us His Law. The Ten Commandments reveal that because of sin, we become idolaters, counting other things as more important than the one true God. Because of sin, we use God’s name only to condemn others or justify ourselves. Because of sin, we ignore, even despise, God’s Word and do not worship Him. Because of sin, our relationships with others—mother and father, wife and husband, enemies and friends, co-workers and strangers—all these are disrupted or even destroyed.

And nothing that we do in disobeying God’s commandments serves any meaningful purpose. Paul says, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them” (v 11). Just as “empty words” means that the words spoken from the darkness have no purpose, “Unfruitful works” performed in the darkness serve no purpose either. But that is the way many people walk. And just like a child in elementary school who engages in “walking with no purpose,” we may be unconsciously imitating the ways of darkness by the purposeless habits that God has redeemed us from and which we are to leave behind.

We forget that, by nature, we’re children of darkness; we’re in the dark about God and his relationship to us, but God calls us to live in the light—to recognize sin’s power in us still and to daily put those ways behind us. Jesus says to His followers, “You are the light of the world” (Mt 5:14). By your Baptism into Christ, He lives in you, enlightening the eyes of our hearts, and awakening you to walk in newness of life. Because Christ’s life is now ours, Paul is able to say in our text, “Now you are light in the Lord . . . [you are] children of light” (v 8).

Suddenly, we see things in a whole new way. We see God for who He really is: not distant, way up in heaven, disinterested in or irrelevant to our lives, but here, present, eager to have a relationship with each one of us. That’s what Jesus lets us see in His light. God is not angry and keeping score on how well we keep His Commandments, but forgiving, not counting our sins against us, because Jesus took them upon Himself on the cross. That’s what we see as children of light.

In the light of Christ, we now have purpose—to walk in the world and proclaim the forgiveness of God in Jesus. We walk with purpose. St. Paul says. “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (vv 8b, 15–16). It’s the walk of repentance and faith. We live in the forgiveness of all our deeds done in darkness—done with no wholesome purpose—and with a clear sense of purpose—we invite the world to the glorious light of salvation in Jesus Christ.