Imitate God

If you had to guess, what would you say is the most popular tourist destination in the United States? The top 6 go in this order: 6- Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. 5- Yellowstone National Park. 4- The White House. 3- The Statue of Liberty. 2- Niagara Falls. 1- The Grand Canyon. Our nation is full of some remarkable places and attractions! Having been to Walt Disney World, I can tell you that it truly is one of the most happy places in the world (even whenever the Florida sun is beating down on your skin). Having seen pictures of the Grand Canyon and how breathtaking it is. These places are magical and majestic. They truly show us the might and power of our God. With that said, we can experience part of what these places have to offer but we cannot experience everything. You can stand on the top of the Grand Canyon, but you can’t truly understand how massive it is and how miniscule you are. You can go to Disney World and ride the rides and watch the shows, but you can’t truly understand the things that are going on behind the scenes. As fun and as breathtaking as these places are, the reason that they are so fun is because of the relationships that we have with the people that we experience them with. These places are awesome, but they lack a personal aspect by themselves.

What we see in Scripture is that we are able to have a personal relationship with the creator of these breathtaking destinations. The creator of our planet and the entire universe! We should feel loved by Him today because He is a personal God. Not only is He the creator and designer behind everything we see, but He is also intimately associated with His creation. As Paul shows us in , The life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me [me, personally], and gave himself for me.

This is great news! As we looked at in last week and in in general, we have seen how we are supposed to live a radically different life because of what Christ has done on our behalf. Because of our identity in Jesus Christ we are supposed to live for Him rather than for ourselves. Our text this morning continues that theme, but it is very heavy. This is a text that hits us in the gut time after time, but it is most definitely a message that our church and the world needs to hear in our current day and age: That Christians are called to Imitate God. Let’s see what Paul has to say in !

Ephesians 5:1–2 NASB95

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; 2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Ephesians 5:15–21 NASB95

15 Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, 16 making the most of your time, because the days are evil. 17 So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; 20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; 21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

Ephesians 5:15–21 NASB95

Ephesians 5:15-20

You might be wondering why we skipped over . We will be looking at that section next week (too much to get through in 1 sermon!). Today we will be looking at how Paul calls Christians to Imitate God and Walk in Wisdom.

Imitate God (1-2)

Did you know that this generation has been called the “Fatherless generation”? Many children are growing up in our country and around the world without a Father or with a Father who does not act as a Father should. According to a recent study done by the US Department of Education, 39% of students in grades 1-12 are fatherless. To make matters worse, a child is 4 times more likely to be poor if their father is absent. Fatherless students are twice as likely to drop out versus a student with a father present. We are facing an epidemic of fatherlessness in our world today, yet the call from Paul is to imitate our heavenly Father in verse 1 of . Paul has done a very good job of showing us who our heavenly Father is throughout Ephesians, but now he is calling his audience to imitate Him in the way that they live their lives.

You’re probably thinking, how is this possible? God created the world in 6 days, I can’t do that. God knows everything, I barely know some things. You’re exactly right, we cannot do everything that God does and we can’t know everything that He does, however we can reflect His character. In Paul calls his audience to put on the new self according to God’s likeness” we are to live a holy and compassionate life just like our God. In the book of Romans, Paul says that God’s love has been poured out on us by His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit allows us to love others like the Father.

Paul opens up verse 1 by saying that we are to imitate God as His dear children. How is someone considered a child of God? We have to go back to where Paul stated that we were adopted through Jesus Christ. God adopted us. He not only made us, but He adopted us into His family. We spent a lot of time talking about the Biblical picture of Adoption and showed how adoption was completely different back then than it is today in many ways. Back in biblical times, the adopted individual was in some ways more favored than a biological child because this individual was chosen by the parents. That sounds really harsh to our ears today, but think of the basic idea in this world: you want to leave a legacy and have someone mighty continue it after you pass away. We see this especially in the lives of the Roman Emperors who were notorious for adopting a worthy successor to assume the throne after their death. Just as children were not consulted before their adoption, neither were we. says that we were adopted according to God’s will. This means that it’s not about our works. There was nothing special inside of us that made God choose us. If you are a Christian this morning, you were just as much dead in your sins as your brothers and sisters were, however we were adopted into God’s family. This is a tremendous blessing! Even for people who did not grow up with a Father, every Christian gets to call God their “Father”.

He has given us a family called the church. A family of likeminded brothers and sisters who do the work of the ministry together! This is a tremendous privilege, but it comes with some chores and instructions that we must do. Think of it like this in we are adopted into the family of God - this is great news and we should rejoice because of it, however we also have work to do because of . Again, our work does not stop with praying a prayer or getting baptized, that is where it starts! As verse 1 says, we must imitate God. The only way that we can imitate God is to know Him. The only way to know Him is to know His Word and have a relationship with Him. You might ask, how am I supposed to imitate God? Great question! We share the Father’s love and compassion for others. As Jesus said in

Luke 6:35–36 NASB95

35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. 36 “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

We are to live this way as well! As we have been studying on Wednesday nights in the book of James, we are supposed to live out our faith. We are not to strive for intellectual knowledge and leave it at that, we are supposed to be a people of righteous action! We should be known as a people who love others, who perform acts of mercy to the needy, care for orphans and widows as shows us. We should meet the needs of others in our congregation and in our community. As we saw last week in , we should be known as a forgiving and kind people. Why does this matter so much? Because we reflect our God to the world around us. We are the bride of Christ. For us to not be a kind and forgiving people tells the world that our God is not kind or forgiving. Certainly that is not the case. Because of that, we must imitate God and be kind and forgiving.

How do we live that way? By what we see in verse 2.

Walk in Love (2)

We are to live an obedient life. We see in that

Romans 5:8 NASB95

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

This is a powerful verse for Christians and one that we must understand fully in order to imitate God. We must understand the cross! What differentiates a Christian from a non-Christian? Among other things, a relationship with Jesus Christ and a command to love others like Christ. Everyone fails at this, though. There are no perfect Christians who do this. In the Greek language, “walk in love” is a command - not a suggestion. This means that we must daily strive to do this, even when we fall short. The thing that we must realize is that the type of love talked about in verse 2 by Paul is “Agape” love. We will talk about this a lot more when we get to the end of where Paul talks about mutual submission between Christians and how a husband loves his wife as Christ loved the church. Agape love can be defined as this: love (Christian) n. — a strong, non-sexual affection and regard for a person and their good as understood by God’s moral character; especially characterized by a willing forfeiture of rights or privileges in another person’s behalf.

Willingly forfeiting one’s rights in another person’s behalf. Is that easy to do? Of course not! Not only are we supposed to love others like this, we are to walk in love. This is supposed to be the way that we live our lives! Not just a mentality on Sunday mornings at church, but the way that we live our very lives. As showed us, we are literally a new creation. Because of this, we live a radically different life than we did before. We are to walk in love. We are to put the needs of others above the needs of ourselves. This means that we are careful of what we say around others. We are careful of what we wear around others. We are careful of what we do around others. Why? Because causing someone to stumble into sin is just as bad as sinning on our own. We are held to a higher standard, and if we truly are born again it’s not about what we can “get away with” or what we have the “right to do” it is instead about imitating God and living a lifestyle of agape love with those around us as Christ has loved us.

Does this mean that we have to be pushovers and cater to others 24/7? No. It means that we use our common sense and we genuinely put the needs of others above our own. If someone in our congregation struggles with alcoholism - it means that you don’t drink in front of that person. If someone struggles with lust - it means that try not to tempt them and cause them to stumble. Certainly we have responsibilities in this as well, however if we could get rid of the mentality that I have the “right” to do whatever I want, whenever I want to do it and replace it with a mentality and heart that wants to walk in love and imitate God, our pride and ego comes down a notch. We begin to look out for others and we build up the body of Christ as we are instructed to do! We will fail at this frequently, however we have grace for those moments. We need a Savior who forgives us and we need the Holy Spirit to empower us to love the world and demonstrate the fruit of salvation - guess what, this is exactly what you have if you are a child of God this morning! Praise God that Jesus loved the Father and others perfectly and that He died in the place of sinners like you and I. Hallelujah, what a Savior we serve!

Have you ever been told that assumptions are dangerous? In preparing for this sermon I came across a story about a Jewish student at a local university who met a Christian on his campus. The Christian told the Jewish student, “I’m sure that you know that one of the key teachings in Christianity is that Jesus Christ died for us, right?” The Jewish student, who grew up in the Bible belt, was shocked and said that he had never heard that. The Jewish student had a good conversation with the Christian and began to attend Bible study at his church. One night at Bible study a student said, “Man, I just wish Jesus would come back!” The Jewish student was confused and asked, “Wait, Jesus is coming back?” Assumptions are dangerous when it comes to our faith. To walk in love as Christ loved us, we must be faithful to share the message of Jesus with those around us and make no assumptions!

I do not want to make any assumptions this morning: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came down from heaven and was born as a baby boy in Bethlehem. He lived a perfect life without sin. He died a sinners death that you and I deserved. He was dead but He defeated death and rose after 3 days. If you believe in the name of Jesus Christ then He will receive you. He will save you! Only once you come to know Jesus Christ personally will you receive the Holy Spirit and only when you receive Him will you be able to love your enemies as yourself as we are commanded to do!

So, how did Jesus love others? He gave Himself up for us! Love is not thinking that someone is cute or that they make you feel special, true, Biblical love is so much deeper than that. True love involves giving ourselves away for the good of another.

John 15:13 NASB95

13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

That is the kind of love that Christ Jesus displayed for us on the cross. Love is not just a feeling or an emotion, it is not feeling sorry for others. It involves action! We are supposed to love one another (), forgive one another (), give financially (), spread the Gospel (), be a patient people (), love those who drive us crazy () and aid those who are in need (). How are we to love others? We think of Jesus’ love for us. We look to the Cross! Rather than building up walls and declaring war, we are to build bridges and proclaim peace. We are to look out for one another rather than live a selfish life as we did as an old creation. Whenever we think of what Christ has done for us, everything changes!

Finally, we see at the end of verse 2 that Paul talks about this sacrifice to God was a fragrant aroma. In the Old Testament we know that there were many different sacrifices done. This “fragrant odor” was used to describe a sacrifice that was accepted by God. We see it used of burnt-offerings (), meal offerings (), peace offerings () and sin offerings (). These good aromas were good things. Here in , we see that Christ’s sacrifice of Himself to God was accepted. What Paul is saying here is that the death of Christ satisfied the holy law of God. Paul only uses this type of language in one other place () where he uses it of the gift which his friends in Philippi had given him: “A fragrant odor, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.”

Walk in Wisdom (15-20)

Christ gave Himself up for us, but Paul says that it was an offering to God. This is how we should love other people. We will never be able to love like Christ in the sense that we cannot take away the sins of others! But, there should be a holy fragrance of love in our lives whenever we care for others practically, genuinely and consistently for the glory of God. That is what it all comes down to, is it not? We are called to be a people of love not to look good in the eyes of others but so that our God might be glorified. The example in of an offering given to Paul was a “fragrant offering to God”. Giving is an act of worship! We give our lives to Christ whenever we accept Him to be our Savior and Lord. We give our time to Christ daily as we seek to live a life that points others to Him. We give our resources to Him whenever we give to our local church and we give to those who are in need around us. Giving is an act of worship and there is no greater lie to buy into than the one that says that giving does not matter - that you can sit on your blessed assurance!

Does God need our money to accomplish His will? You’d better say no to that statement. God doesn’t need anything from us. He is all-powerful and His will is going to be accomplished one way or another, but if we fail to do our part as Christians then we miss out on the blessing of being used by God and we will be held accountable for our action or inaction one day. We should desire to give to God as Christ has given to us. We should give Him our entire lives and we should walk in love as Christ has loved us.

Conclusion

How many of you have heard the story of Adoniram Judson? Judson was born in 1788 to a Christian family (in fact, his father was a pastor!) however he nearly walked away from his faith in his youth. Due to some tragic life experiences, and being pursued by God wherever he went, he decided to attend seminary to pursue being a full-time missionary. In 1812, Judson graduated from seminary and married his wife, Ann in February. 2 weeks later, the couple would set sail for Burma - a country that had never been reached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Judson wrote a letter to his father-in-law asking him if he would consent to their marriage knowing full and well that being a missionary in this day and age would mean that they would probably never see one another again this side of heaven. Judson asked if he could consent of this for the sake of the Glory of God? He and Ann would leave everything behind and 2 weeks after joining one another in marriage, they set sail for India. I love my wife and we are celebrating our 1st year of marriage today, but I cannot imagine leaving everything behind including our families 2 weeks into our marriage, yet this is exactly what Judson and his wife did.

Whenever they arrived in Burma they met opposition. It took them over 3 years of practicing 12 hours a day for them to even learn the native language. Whenever they finally learned the language, though, they met more opposition because the people did not want to convert from the native Buddhism because the natives could be put to death for converting to Christianity. Because of this, only 18 natives converted during their first 12 years of ministry. This was not the only threat that Judson and his wife faced though, as there was a constant threat of sickness, disease and military force. Judson was imprisoned and spend 17 months behind bars because he was suspected of being a spy. During this time he was nearly killed due to being tortured and forced to work grueling hours consistently.

Even after his release, though, the losses were not finished. Judson’s wife, Ann, who had fought for his release consistently would pass away 2 months after his release from prison. All in all, Judson would lose 24 relatives/associates during his time in Burma (including several children). To the standards of the world, Judson’s time here was wasted. He had wasted his life! He had moved away from a place of comfort to a place where there was sickness and disease. His audience didn’t even care for his message! He was a failure.

Judson worked diligently to evangelize these people and to translate God’s Word into their language. By the time Judson passed away in 1850 the Bible was translated into their language, 100 churches were planted in the country and more than 8,000 Burmese had professed faith in Christ! Judson and his family made extreme sacrifices for the sake of the Gospel. That should be our testimony as well. We should be a people who make extreme sacrifices for the sake of the Gospel not so that we are known in the history books but because our God is worthy and He demands that we walk in love and live as a new creation.

Conclusion

Imitate God and walk in love as Christ has loved you. These are simple words and they are very easy to say, however they are extremely difficult to live out. They take everything we have and then some. We must rely on the Holy Spirit in order to do this. Mimicking others is something that children love to do. They love to act like mom or dad whenever they do something like drive a car or throw a baseball. We like to imitate people who we look up to whenever we are growing up, but there comes a time whenever we stop doing that and we can become very inward focused. We stop looking to imitate mom and dad and we start to live for ourselves. We can do the same in our walk with Christ. We might start out wanting to do whatever it is that He is calling us to do, however we eventually revert back to our old nature if we are not careful. The call from Paul is a bold one, it requires everything that we have, but the great news is that we have the ability to do this because we are adopted into the family of God and we have the Holy Spirit inside of us to give us the power to live this way.

We are called to walk in purity. To be holy because the Lord our God is holy. We do not do this so that we can leave a legacy behind of our own lives but we strive to live this type of life so that people can see our Father and how He is holy. We imitate our Father so that the Gospel would be advanced and the Glory of our God would be increased. There is no greater calling than to play a role in the advancement of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Let our testimony be that of the Judson’s and Carey’s of the world, not that the credit might come to us, but that we might reach the ends of the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That we might imitate God at church, in our homes and in our daily lives with whoever we’d come in contact with.