Godly Teens in a Godless Nation

Andrew is only eleven, but he has already learned what it costs to follow Christ in California. When a classmate announced he was “transitioning” from boy to girl and asked Andrew for support, Andrew gently replied, “God made you a boy, and I can’t pretend otherwise.” By the end of the school day the teachers were applauding the transition, the students were cheering it on, and Andrew—the quiet kid who brings his Bible to class—was labeled a hater and cut off from every friend he thought he had.

Stories like Andrew’s land in my inbox often. Parents wonder, How does my child stay faithful in a classroom that punishes biblical conviction? Singles ask, How do I shine at a workplace that celebrates every sin except the sin of saying sin is sin? Grandparents sigh, How long, O Lord?

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians supplies ballast for times like these. In 5:1-11 the apostle sketches a strategy for believers living under hostile skies—a four-part game plan that keeps our hearts soft, our witness bright, and our eyes fixed on Christ. Let’s walk through it together and let the Spirit do His steadying work.

1. Avoid the Darkness (Eph 5:3-5)

Paul begins with a call to distance: “Do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among saints.” He is not promoting a new legalism but reminding us that God’s children carry the spiritual DNA of their Father, and family resemblance matters. We are fueled by love, not lust; by generosity, not greed.

Notice the breadth of his warning. Sexual immorality, coveting, manipulation, filthy talk, crude humor. Paul ropes them all together and nails a sign on the pile: “Hazardous waste. Keep back ten feet.” Even a hint of these things corrodes our witness.

Why the stern tone? Because compromise always starts small. A late-night Instagram scroll, a flirtatious joke in the break room, a Netflix series everyone swears is “mostly fine.” Before long the line between holy and unholy is blurry, and the church begins to look more like the world than the Savior. 

Statisticians tell us 65 percent of Christian men admit a pornography addiction. Entire congregations laugh at vulgarity from the pulpit. Scandals involving high-profile pastors have become monthly headlines. Paul would shake our shoulders and say, “Beloved, that’s not who you are. Shut the laptop, bite your tongue, walk away. You’re saints—live like it.”

2. Beware the Darkness (Eph 5:6-7)

Avoidance is not enough; discernment must grow alongside it. “Let no one deceive you with empty words,” Paul warns, “for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” Our culture is an advertising agency for sin, selling emptiness as fulfillment and rebellion as freedom. The slogans vary, but the pitch is always the same: God is a killjoy. Follow your feelings. Truth is whatever you need it to be today.

Paul exposes three dangers. Propaganda—the glossy billboards, TikTok reels, and campus seminars that baptize lust and mock purity. Penalty—the coming wrath of God, which will one day crash down on all who refuse to repent, and the painful consequences we taste even now when we believe sin’s lies. Partners—the “just friends” who become soul-shapers, dragging us toward their destiny. Scripture is plain: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” You will resemble the people you run with, for better or for worse.

So test every voice. Weigh every message. And choose your traveling companions wisely. A few godly friends who tell you the hard truth are worth more than a stadium cheering you over a cliff.

3. Contrast the Darkness (Eph 5:8-10)

The Christian life is not merely defensive. Paul turns the corner: “You were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.” He doesn’t say we’re in the light (as though light were a location) he says we are light (a transformation). Jesus, the Light of the World, has taken up residence, and now His children carry His glow into grocery stores, gym lockers, baseball fields, coffee shops, and work cubicles.

What does that glow look like? Paul highlights three beams:

• Goodness – a moral excellence that spends itself for others. While the world grabs, Christians give. We pay for the coffee of the customer behind us, we volunteer for the unglamorous shift, we babysit the single mom’s kids so she can breathe.
  

• Righteousness – honorable behavior with our bodies. The unbelieving world treats the body as a toy or a billboard; saints treat it as a temple. Purity in dating, fidelity in marriage, integrity in business—these shine like neon in a fog bank.
  

• Truth – courageous honesty. We say what is right, even when it costs a promotion, a scholarship, or the applause of the crowd. Truth spoken in love may sting, but it also heals.

When that trifecta shows up (goodness, righteousness, truth) the gospel gains traction. Neighbors notice. Conversations open.

4. Expose the Darkness (Eph 5:11)

Some believers prefer to stop at step three. I want to be a quiet light so I’ll do my thing, keep the peace, let people draw their own conclusions. But Paul presses further: “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.” The word expose means to bring into the light, to reprove, to call sin what it is so that repentance becomes possible.

John the Baptist confronted Herod’s adultery and lost his head. William Wilberforce exposed the barbarity of the slave trade and changed the course of nations. Even today, high-school students graciously refusing to share locker rooms with the opposite sex, teachers declining to use false pronouns, and nurses who won’t administer abortifacients are all performing an act of holy exposure. They risk jobs, scholarships, and social standing, but in so doing they bear witness to the Judge who sees.

This is not cantankerous activism; it is courageous love. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. To remain silent while a friend barrels toward a cliff is not compassion, it is complicity. Better an awkward conversation now than eternal regret later.

Standing Firm at Midnight

American believers increasingly find themselves hauled before HR directors, school boards, and social-media mobs. A music teacher in Indiana lost his job for declining to use invented pronouns. A pastor in Montana spent a night in jail after witnessing to a homosexual at a gas station. California’s AB 329 mandates explicit sexual curriculum for elementary students, while corporate boardrooms decorate the rainbow and scorn the cross.

Red vs. Blue is no longer the issue; light vs. darkness is. Yet nothing we face is new under the sun. The gadgets have changed, but the heart of man has not—and neither has the gospel. Christ still saves, the Spirit still sanctifies, the Word still stands.

So shine, Christian. Avoid the darkness with no compromise in the private places. Beware the darkness with no gullibility toward culture’s lies. Contrast the darkness by displaying goodness, righteousness, and truth in every hallway of life. And when called upon, expose the darkness by speaking with grace, yet with backbone.

Andrew may eat alone at lunch for a season, but he is not alone in heaven’s ledger. His quiet courage testifies to classmates and angels alike that Jesus is better than popularity, better than comfort, better than life itself. And one day, when the King returns and darkness is swallowed up in an unending dawn, the children who walked in His light will hear the only verdict that counts: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”