Sermon Tone Analysis

Ephesians 4:31 - 5:2

 

! Introduction

            We have friends who are missionaries in Africa.

They are in a very remote village.

It takes them a whole day to get to the major city where they need to conduct business.

They have five children and they need to home school their children while they carry on a ministry of discipleship.

It is hard work and often discouraging, but they continue to do so faithfully.

What an amazing love they have for the people of that land as they learn their language, live among them and serve them.

We have friends who have a severely handicapped daughter.

She cannot walk and has limited mobility and can only move her arms a little bit.

The parents, particularly the mother needs to do almost everything for her.

She is in her early 20's and her mother has been doing this for her whole life.

What an amazing love they have for their daughter.

In October 2006 near Lancaster, Pennsylvania a gunman walked into an Amish school and killed several girls.

Francis Chan reminds us of that incident in his book "Crazy Love" and writes, "Amish people visited the shooter's family to say they had forgiven him.

That sort of forgiveness is incomprehensible to the world."

Frederick Buechner writes, "The love for equals is a human thing…The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing…The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing…And then there is the love for the enemy…This is God's love.

It conquers the world."

These kinds of love seem unusual and amazing, but for those who belong to Christ it is valid to ask, "Is this extraordinary or expected?"

A moment ago we read in Scripture, "…be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us…" When we read that we must realize that these kinds of love are not to be the exception, but the norm among those who have given their lives to Jesus.

If we are to make the gospel of Christ known in the world, we have already talked about the fact that we need to be imitators of the holiness of Jesus.

This portion of the text indicates that we must also be imitators of the love of Christ.

Are you seeking to learn what it means to imitate the love of Christ?

!

I.       We Are God's Beloved Children

            There is only one reason why we can even entertain the notion that we are to imitate the love of Christ and that is because, as the text says, we are God's "beloved children."

!! A.   We Are Children of God

            How can we dare to claim to be the children of God?

The truth is that we do not dare to claim to be the children of God.

It is God Himself who declares that we are His children.

When we stop fighting God and rest in Him by faith, He makes us His children.

The thing that prevents us from being His children is sin but because Jesus died on the cross, our sins have been removed.

Just as we did not become children to our parents by obeying them, but by birth, so we do not become God's children by obedience, we become God's children by a new birth.

When we put our trust in Jesus, we are welcomed into the family of God and God calls us His children.

Because we are His children, we are given permission to call Him "Dad."

Because we are His children, He comes to live within us by His Spirit.

When we die, we are invited to go home and live in His house for all the rest of eternity.

!! B.   We Are Dearly Loved

            As children of God, we are loved by Him.

I like the New International Version translation of this verse which says that we are "dearly loved children."

We know that the love God has for us is amazing because it pre-dates our relationship to Him.

In fact, John 3:16 and Romans 5:8 both tell us that love was the foundation which caused God to reach out to us with salvation.

When I was in boys club we took an outing to the Whiteshell.

On the way home, we were fooling around in the back seat of the car of whoever was driving us home.

One of the older boys who was a junior leader was funny and I liked him.

I remember thinking, I am going to be funny so that people will like me.

We all have a need to be loved and if we do not feel loved, we do different things to try to get people to like us, some of them are not very good.

However, the need to do that disappears when we understand how much we are loved by God.

One of the lies which Satan tells us is that we are not loved.

The truth which will set us free is the truth that God already loves us.

He loved us before we knew Him.

He loved us enough to send His only Son into the world to die for us.

He loves us enough to forgive our sins.

He loves us enough to call us His children.

He loves us enough to live within us.

The love God has for us is incredible and we need to know that, understand it deeply and rest in it.

The instruction in this passage to imitate God in loving is only possible when we know how much we are loved by God.

Unless we understand the depth of His love for us we will continue in self centeredness.

When we know that we are loved, we can give up self centeredness, grasping for attention and seeking for affirmation because we know we are loved by the creator of the world.

This gives us the freedom to give away love because we understand that we have everything we need.

Francis Chan writes, "The very fact that a holy, eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, merciful, fair, and just God loves you and me is nothing short of astonishing."

!

II.

How Christ Loves

            If we would each take a quarter out of our pocket and compare them, we would find that they are almost exactly the same.

The reason they are the same is that they were all impressed by the same master.

As Christians, we also ought to look the same as every other Christian because we also have been impressed by the same master.

Of course a coin has no choice in the matter, but we do.

Therefore, the text calls us to imitation.

Yet we are all called to imitate the same thing.

We are called to imitate God and to love as Christ loved us.

So if we are to understand how we are to imitate God's love, we need to know how that love works and what it is like.

The master we are to imitate is none other than Christ Himself and Paul tells us exactly what that love looks like.

So let us take a careful look at the love which Christ has demonstrated for us.

!! A.   He Gave Himself for Us

            The text says that "Christ loved us and gave himself up for us."

Philippians 2:6 says, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited," or NIV has "something to be grasped."

There was a time when Jesus made a decision and the decision was to offer Himself in order to come to the earth and to make the sacrifice that was necessary in order to redeem people from their sins.

He was in heaven reigning with God as His Son, but made the choice to give up all that power and position in order to come to this earth on our behalf.

That is what it means that He gave Himself for us.

When Jesus was about to be put to death, he was in the Garden of Gethsemane and was fully aware that his life was about to end in a terrible way.

He was about to be hung on a cross, but not only that, He was about to be held guilty for the sins of the whole world.

At that moment, he once again had to make a choice.

His prayer to the Father at that moment was one in which he sought a way out of the terrible suffering He was about to endure.

This tells us that it was terrible indeed, more terrible than we can imagine.

Yet at that time Jesus said, "Not my will, but yours be done."

That is what it means that He gave Himself for us.

The love of Jesus was self giving and sacrificial.

Wood says, "The model of love is Christ himself.

It is because he laid down his life for us that we are to love others to the point of sacrifice."

Therefore, when we consider how we are to imitate the love of Christ, we understand that imitation of love involves sacrifice.

We must learn what it means to give our life for the sake of another.

!! B.   He Gave Himself to God

            The other phrase we notice here is that Jesus "gave Himself up…a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

The sacrifice which Jesus made to show His love was not only "for us," but also "to God." Jesus didn't only offer Himself on our behalf.

He offered Himself to His Father.

His death on the cross was God's idea and He loved God so much that He trusted that God's plan was the right one and the one which He should follow.

Therefore, because He loved and trusted God, He was willing to give Himself to God.

The direction of His life was towards God.

The direction of His sacrifice was towards God.

He gave who He was and what He had to God.

The language used here, "offering and sacrifice" comes from the language of Old Testament offerings.