Ephesians Pt. 7. 5: 1-17
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1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children
2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
8 This is why it says: “When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.”
9 (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?
We’re going to spend some time talking through the first half of chapter 5 in Ephesians this morning, and I want to emphasize some of what we talked about last week. We had a great time last week talking about what it looks like to follow Jesus. We had some practical examples. Can you guys say PRACTICAL? It means, we have specific examples that we can put into practice.
Last week, here are the things Paul told us to practice:
REPLACE:
Lying with truth-telling
Unrighteous anger with righteous anger.
Stealing with work.
Corrupt talk with edifying talk.
Bitterness and rage with kindness and forgiveness.
If you want to get good at something, you need to practice it. What is something you want to get good at? playing an instrument? Maybe you want to increase you’re reading speed? maybe you want to get good at soccer, football, or video games. Well, the best way to get good at it, is to practice it.
That looks different for every person right? I want to get better at playing a sport, so I go out and exercise, and I spend some time working really hard at running drills. I want to practice playing an instrument, so that means I have to spend some time practicing on my own in my room with no distractions. Maybe you want to get better at communicating with the people you live with, your siblings, house parents or spouse. So what do you do? You practice those things. Trying to be the best can be hard, and honestly probably impossible. There will always be someone better at certain things than you, but you can always practice to be good at what you do.
This week, Paul wants to encourage you and I to practice something else, so that we can get good at it. Let’s take a look at the first 2 verses:
1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children
2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Paul says something super special:
Love like the Father and Love like the Son.
Who’s the Father? God. Who’s the Son? Jesus. And I know what you’re thinking, I thought they were the same person? And you’d be right… sorta. Jesus is God, and the Father is God. But God has chosen to reveal Himself to you and me in 2 different ways.
There was a disciple that asked Jesus a very important questions once:
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
See, you and I have learned through coming to church, through Sunday School, and through listening to the preacher talk all day that Jesus is God and that God has revealed himself to us through Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. But This disciple, named Philip, didn’t know that.
Can you guys say: Come on Philip?
If you notice, Philip had been walking with Jesus, but he still didn’t know who he was. And it even seems like Jesus gets offended at the question and says: How can you say “show us the father”
like, come on Philip.
I think it may have been hard for Philip to understand, but if you walk with Jesus, but you don’t what He does, then you will have a hard time understanding Him. God will ask something from you and instead of saying Yes Lord, you’ll say something like:
Why? Or for what?
Paul says:
Follow God’s example, and walk in the way of Love, the same way Jesus did. How did Jesus do it?
2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Jesus gave himself up for us. I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who will give themselves up for you. What does that mean? It might be hard for you to find someone who would die for you. You might find one or two people that would die for you. Especially if they loved you. But now imagine this, think of the person that you hate the most. that when you start thinking about them, your stomach starts turning. That when you think of this person, you feel like throwing up.
Would you die for that person? You might say yes, but if you can’t be nice to them, then you definitely won’t die for them. Well, when we sinned against God, humanity as a whole told God that we hated Him. But even though we were God’s enemies, He still sent His son Jesus to die on the cross for us. Jesus loved us even when we hated him. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.
And Paul says, you should love everyone so much, you should be willing to sacrifice some things for them. You may not have to die for them, but you might have to give up your seat for them, because you love them, you might have to share some kind words with your enemies, because you love them. You may have to invite them church, because even though they make you mad, you love them.
It doesn’t make sense does it? To love people that don’t deserve it, or to be kind to people you don’t like. But that’s what it means to follow God’s example.
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light
9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)
10 and find out what pleases the Lord.
These verses explain what we talked about earlier. We we’re not friends with God. Our sin separates us from God. And God is light, so when the world rejected God, God had to get away and that made this world dark.
But when Jesus saved us, He began to light us up like little candles so that we could get together and start putting a light in this world. It is our job to go out there and practice shining God’s like on people. To love people, to provide for people, to care for people, to encourage people to follow Jesus.
I know that it’s hard. We might not have enemies that want to hurt us, but we do have people in our life we probably don’t like. It is our job to shine the light of Jesus on the world. But did you know we can mess it up? Did you know, you can do the opposite? and turn off that light?
15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,
16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
We need to be careful. It’s hard to be good. Why? Because it’s not in our nature. Some of us, don’t want to be good. But to follow Jesus is to be wise. The world is evil, especially by God’s standards. So how can I know what I’m supposed to do? Verse 17 says, don’t be dumb, follow God’s will.
What is His will? His will is that He wants the world to be saved, He wants the world to turn away from their sin and follow Him, He wants you to confess your sins, recognize that you aren’t perfect and that you need Him. God wants to use you, to share the gospel with the people you live with and hang out with.
God wants you to go to school and invite your friends, teachers, family and enemies to come to church.
God wants the world to know that He is there and He loves them. God wants you to know that He sees you, listens to you, and loves you.
But we can mess it up. How?
18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,
Sure, this verse talks about getting drunk, and we should not get drunk. But It’s hard for us in here when all we do is drink soda and eat ice cream after baptisms. But the heart of this verse is something else. When we live like we want to do other things rather than follow Jesus, the world won’t see God’s light through you. Instead of getting drunk on wine, or video games, or lies, or greed, or lust, we should pursue God.
We should also, point the people in this room, in your church and in your household to God. How?
19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord,
20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Do we sing about God together? Do we read the Bible together? That will point us to God. And when you do that, you point the people in this room to God. Do we give God thanks for everything? for everything??? Let me ask one more time, do we thank God for EVERYTHING? Not everything good, or just the things I like. Do you give thanks to God for everything? for wining? what about loosing? What about the hard parts of life?
We need to learn to give God thanks for everything, even the things we don’t like too much. Bot because God gives you bad things, but because God allows hard things in our life to make us stronger and better people. I’m not saying go home and pray to God:
“Thank you Jesus for letting me get a 0 on mu last test. Thank you God for putting a bully in my school who just bothers me every day. Thank you Jesus for the chores my house parents make me do every day”
Instead, learn to give thanks to God for the good things, even when there’s bad things.
Finally, I want to encourage our married friends in the room to go home and read the rest of chapter 5. But I also want to go back and highlight verse 2.
2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Remember we said, Jesus gave Himself up for us. Some of us in here are Christians. But for those of us who are not, remember that sin is the only thing that gets in the way between you and a relationship with God. And while it may seem small and insignificant, the only way to pay for sin is through blood. It is with your life. God does not want you to pay for it that way so He sent His Son Jesus to take your place. To die on your behalf. And He offers you salvation from sin. But you have to take Him up on His offer. So if you haven’t done it I want to ask you a question, what’s holding you back? What’s stopping you from following Jesus? Is it the sin in your life that makes you feel unworthy? You feel like maybe you need to put your sin away before you come to God. Guy’s it doesn’t work like that .
Imagine sin is like dirt, and stink, and a musty smell. And salvation is like a warm hot shower with your favorite bath and body works products. Saying that you can’t follow Jesus because you’re a sinner is like saying I can’t get into the shower until I’m clean.
That doesn’t make any sense. The shower is supposed to make you clean. And in the same way, you can’t get rid of your sin, God wants to make you clean. He is the only one who can.
If you don’t know what any of this means, please reach out to me or an adult in the room.