A Fragrant Offering and Sacrifice to God.

Imitate God.

Now we all like to think we are original. And from time to time yes we probably are. However the vast majority of our lives we are, in some or other form imitating someone. The majority, if not all, of our behaviour is learnt.

Is there anyone better to imitate than God?

We are all in some form or another reproducing learnt behaviour.

Is there anyone better to imitate than God?

As beloved Children - Not in order to become His children.

This is already our identity, it is the base we work from, not what we work for.

We don’t become imitators in order to become children. We ARE children, and because we are already God’s children we become imitators.

But how do you do that?

Well how do you imitate your earthly parents?

You study their ways, you observe, you watch how they act, and how they react.

Robbie story (talking on the phone… using objects as microphones after watching worship videos)

We have that, we have that in the Bible. We can observe Him, we can read and study about God. We can see how acts and how he reacts. How He loves.

And then we imitate.

So let me ask you this. Who or what are you imitating? Are spending time in the Bible? Are you spending time reading about, learning about “observing” God?

I hear so many people say that they don’t understand ...

how could God do… what is God’s will for my life … how do I do that?!

But they’re not spending time in their Bible, they’re not spending time learning about and observing God.

You cannot imitate someone if you are not doing anything. You cannot imitate someone if you know nothing about them. Imitation requires action. Imitation requires knowledge of the one we imitate.

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.

Imitation requires action. Love too requires action. Jesus’ love was expressed in action.

Ephesians 5:1

He did sit in heaven as say, “oh I’m so moved by the desperate state of these humans. I see them, they have such need, they can’t help themselves… if only someone would help them.”

He acted. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…

9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

This instruction to imitate God, and to walk in love requires action.

Love carried out through action requires that we sacrifice some of our own desires. That like Christ, we give ourselves up for the benefit of others.

This love is simply not possible if you are the most important person in your world.

Paul tells us what this love looks like

Ephesians 5:3 ESV

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

Ephesians 5:

Sexual Immorality - Pornea

Same word that we get pornography from.

Means

Stats released by the US government on child births in 2015

40% of the children born in America were born into families where dad was already gone. That’s not divorce, that’s not that he was not present or away often - Gone. Had sex to fulfil his selfish desires, did not want to deal with the consequences, GONE!

Time Magazine said this - “There is no other single force causing as much measurable hardship and human misery as the collapse of marriage. On every single significant outcome related to short term wellbeing and long term success, children from in tact two parent families outperform those from single parent households every time.

When you look at the selfish way in which sex

Instead of doing what is best for them under God, you look at them and think “I need to use them right now.”

Marriage is a dying institution. Forbes magazine put out an article where they interviewed millennials on marriage, and one of the questions was whether or not they actually wanted to get married. And you know the percentage of millennials that wanted to get married was the same number as when they asked that same question to people in the 1970’s. The reality is that people still want to enjoy sex and intimacy in a committed married relationship, but as we grow up using and being used by other people something changes.

The UN released these stats

1 out of 3 women on the planet today are sexually abused.

number of girls in porn who were sexually molested as children - almost 100%.

Verse 4&5

- We don’t do sexual imorality, and we don’t even make jokes about it.

Verse 17 - Foolish

This word can be literally translated as idiot. “Don’t be an idiot”. The only other place in the Bilbe where this word is used is .

A fool in the Bible - someone who tries to live this life of love, this life of purity, this life of light that we are called to in their own strength. Paul would say - “You idiot!”

The opposite - Be filled with the spirit!

Ephesians 5: