The Imitation of Love

One of my mentors said 15 years ago, or maybe more, “I think the church should be more like AA. Those people only come because the know they need help or they’ll die. And they want to change. They start their day and end their day with prayer and giving thanks. They listen to each other and don’t try to fix each other, but help when someone needs it.”

That conversation is happening more and more now with many more people. Some of us are reading John Ortberg’s new book, “Steps”, which is about understanding the twelve steps of AA as a pattern for discipleship and knowing God more deeply. He quotes Philip Yancy who says that an AA meeting feels like a New Testament church. “Millionaires and celebrities mix freely with unemployed dropouts and needle-marked gang members. Radical honesty, welcome, and dependency seemed to rule the day.”

Ortberg says, “Over the years, this observation has been made by too many Christian writers and preachers to count. One book even has this question as a title, Why Can’t the Church Be More like an AA Meeting? The short answer is that it can, as long as the people who attend it are willing to be more like alcoholics. Too desperate to hide, too humbled to judge; too weak to solo, too needy to skip.”

How can we become that kind of a church? Paul will give us steps. We will become a healthier, more loving, more life-giving church as we imitate our Heavenly Father and walk with Jesus through three steps:

Walk in love

Walk as children of light

Walk in wisdom

Imitate Your Father

All of these steps must be taken in reference to God. Step one is admitting that without God, I am powerless and my life is unmanageable. I need a total transformation. I need to become a new human. If that’s not why you came to church, you’re here for the wrong reason. We come to learn a new way to walk.

My second step is to recognize that only God can teach me how to walk. We all learn from our parents the same way, we start with imitation. I will need to imitate Him if I am going to learn how to live this life.

Ephesians 5:1–2 ESV

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Step three is to turn my life and will over to the care of God. Not just one thing in my life. The whole show. Would it help to know that God is a loving Father? Would it further help to know you are a beloved child of God? This is your core identity.

Do you know God’s love for you? Not just as an idea in your mind, but do you know it in the deepest place where your affections are formed? Does His love change your heart and fill you with a love that will motivate you to love Him and others with the same love?

That’s what Paul is talking about here. Imitate God our Father. What are our next steps? It starts with the imitation of His love.

Walk in Love

Ephesians 5:1–2 ESV

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

What kind of love is this? It’s the Jesus kind of love that loves even the unlovable people when they are at their most unlovable. Love that prays for the forgiveness of enemies and traitors and people who slander you. It is love that’s not just words, but actions and truth. It is a generous, giving love. Paul says, this love should define your new lifestyle as a new human in Christ.

If I am going to walk in the love of God, I need Him to change me. My old human loves all the wrong things.

Ephesians 5:3 ESV

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.

These are all really forms of self-love. How can I get what I want when I want it for myself, and decide for myself what my best life is? My words are an overflow of my heart.

Ephesians 5:4 ESV

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

That last one could be translated, “a good come-back”. We go for the crude one liner that gets the easy laugh, rather than “only speaking words that are good for building up”. If I love as God loves, I won’t give in to the earthy wit that puts others down and objectifies women or people of other colors or disabilities. Is my heart filled with self love, or thanksgiving to God for the love He demonstrated in Christ? Worship takes my focus off of myself and increases my love for God.

Ephesians 5:5–6 ESV

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

If you are in Christ, you are not an idolater any more. You are not a son of disobedience any more.

Ephesians 5:7 ESV

Therefore do not become partners with them;

Verses 1-7 are all about recognizing that if I am going to imitate my Father and walk in the love of Christ, I’m going to need to become a new person. While I need God to do that, are there active steps I can take in that process? Step one: I have to admit that I am powerless over my self-love and that makes my life unmanageable. Step two is to believe that God can change me. Step three is to turn my will and life over to the care of God. Let Him start running the show.

As it turns out these align with the first three step of AA:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

The next step in imitating our Father is to walk as children of the light.

Walk as Light

Verse 7 starts a new sentence that takes us through verse 11. But the main imperatives come in verses 8 and 10.

Ephesians 5:8–10 ESV

Walk as children of light... and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

Here are steps four through seven of AA

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Doesn’t this look a lot like Ephesians 5:8-10? I admit,

Ephesians 5:8 ESV

for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light

at one time I was darkness, from the deepest desires of my heart, to the actions and words that came out of me. I was blind to God, to my true identity, to the image of God in others. I brought that darkness everywhere I went. I need to examine all of my actions and my defects of character and admit them to God, to myself, and to another human being, and ask God to remove them.

That’s really scary. But you aren’t alone. You are in the Lord, who is our light. So, when you walk with Him, you are light in this world. Walk as light. Walk as children of light. (Whichever you prefer.) As we exchange our darkness for the light of Christ, our life in Christ will bear good fruit.

Ephesians 5:9–10 ESV

(for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

This lines up with steps eight and nine of AA.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

I want to do good to others and make things right by telling the truth to as many people that I have wronged as I can. And just think about the freedom and joy of this way of life! (Go back to verses 9-10.) You are more satisfied with wholesome gifts God has provided in this world, more filled with joy and peace, more content. You are doing the next right thing more often as you let Jesus lead. And you become more radically honest because you love the truth, because Jesus is the truth.

What if the church was a place where I could confess my defects of character and my shortcomings with you and instead of condemning me, you would pray with me that God would remove them?

Our motive is not to glorify shameful things. Paul makes a distinction in verses 11-14 about how we use this process. I’m indebted to a brother who is in recovery for teaching me these verses in a whole new way.

Ephesians 5:11–14 ESV

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

When you awake from your unfruitful works of darkness and let Christ shine on you, He can redeem even your unspeakable actions and make them light. When I am radically honest and make my failures visible to you in the light of Christ, we both learn more about the grace of God for sinners. Those sins we name have less power over us. And it might help you to know you’re not alone. It might give you courage to expose your heart to the light of Christ. We are both powerless over our sin, but we can go to Jesus together.

When was the last time you were this intentional about asking God to purify your life? Have you ever taken specific steps toward this end?

The final step Paul gives us is in verses 15-21,

Walk as Wise

Ephesians 5:15–16 ESV

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

Look carefully, examine your walk. Step ten in AA is to continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong, promptly admit it. “Make the best use of the time” is literally, “redeem the time”. Step ten is a daily action. Redeem some appointed time during your day to examine your walk. We seek to understand the will of the Lord for our lives.

Ephesians 5:17 ESV

Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

How will we do that? We seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 5:18 ESV

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,

This lines up with step eleven,

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

that knowledge and power come from the Holy Spirit.

And we serve others. Step twelve of AA is,

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

In other words, we share our hope through our words and our actions with others. The way Paul describes it is more poetic,

Ephesians 5:19–21 ESV

addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

As we bring worship into our relationships and our conversations, and as we fear Christ more than we fear anyone else, we become less self-consumed, less judgmental, less complaining, and more helpful to one another.

Would you like to be part of a church where you can be one hundred percent yourself and feel welcomed just as you are? Where you can really depend on one another because you know we’re all in this together and we won’t leave anyone behind? A church in which serving others is part of my recovery process? A church that gathers on Sunday morning because we are desperate for God? Can we give hope to others who are suffering apart from understanding the love of God for them in Christ?

Christ has given himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, so that we can be made new...communion

Questions for Discussion

Halfway through the summer, what have been some highlights, and what are you still looking forward to?

What’s making your life unmanageable this week?

Share your thoughts on this quote from John Ortberg, “Why Can’t the Church Be More like an AA Meeting? The short answer is that it can, as long as the people who attend it are willing to be more like alcoholics. Too desperate to hide, too humbled to judge; too weak to solo, too needy to skip.”

What do we learn about God in our passage?

If we were desperate for God, how would that change our church gatherings?

What do we learn about ourselves in our passage?

Can you give some practical examples of imitating God?

How does Paul define walking in love in verse 2, and what does that look like in our lives?

How does he clarify walking as children of light in verses 8-10? How do we discern what is pleasing to the Lord?

When Paul says “look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,” in verse 15, how do verses 16-21 help us understand how to do that?

How will you respond to this passage?

Who is someone with whom you can share this passage?