568 Family Resemblance
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
I’ve told this story many times so I’ll ask for your patience. I come back to it because it permanently changed the way I see the world. Tracey and I first traveled to Russia in 2002. I knew we would experience some culture shock. Russia hadn't really westernized yet. The Soviet Union still lingered like a dark cloud over that massive country.
I expected culture shock.
But there was something I didn't expect.
Everywhere I went, people knew I wasn't Russian.
Before I ever spoke.
It was simply obvious.
I tried to dress like everyone else.
It didn't matter.
The way I walked. My expressions. Even my smile.
Everything about me seemed to whisper, “I’m not from here."
I couldn't hide it. There was something about me that resembled somewhere else.
I wondered: What is it? What do they recognize before I ever say a word?
In Ephesians 5, Paul leads us to ask a remarkably similar question.
But notice what he's not asking:
Not "How do you become one of God's children?" (That's already settled—adoption isn't in question.)
Not "What does the wardrobe of God's children look like?" (We covered that last week.)
Instead, he asks: "If God is your Father, what's going to be unmistakable about his children?" In other words: What should people recognize about you before you ever open your mouth?
1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. 3 But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. 4 Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks. 5 For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty arguments, for God’s wrath is coming on the disobedient because of these things. 7 Therefore, do not become their partners.
Paul has spent three chapters telling us what God has done.
He chose us.
Adopted us.
Redeemed us.
Reconciled us.
United us.
Now comes the "therefore."
"Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children..."
Religion says, “Live this way so God will accept you.” But Paul says, 'Because God has already adopted you and you are dearly loved children, now resemble your Father.'
For some, the family image brings painful memories. Scripture doesn't ignore that. It points us to the Father every earthly father was meant to reflect—perfectly good, perfectly faithful, perfectly present.
Paul reminds us that we are in fact children of God. In a world that tries to define us by every imaginable measure, Paul goes to the sub-structure—our relationship with our Heavenly Father. We are his children.
How do children learn?
By imitation. The word translated imitate is the source of our word mimic.
Before children can explain why their parents do what they do, they imitate them. They pick up expressions.
Habits.
Gestures.
Values.
Years ago Tracey pointed out something I had never noticed. Whenever something inappropriate came on television, I instinctively turned my head. Before long our seven or eight-year-old son began doing the same thing. He wasn't making a moral decision. He was simply becoming like his father.
The Christian life is no different.
But here's the deeper question for the church: since we as people naturally imitate, who are imitating? Who are we becoming like?
We are imitators by nature. We imitate our parents, our culture, and the voices we listen to most. Paul isn't asking whether we're imitating someone. He's asking who we're imitating. If God is truly our Father, his likeness should increasingly become visible in us.
His image becomes visible in Paul’s simple command: "Walk in love."
Paul doesn't begin with religious activity or theological knowledge. He begins with love.
Over the course of the book of Ephesians, Paul keeps using one simple picture—the Christian life is a walk. Not one big leap, but thousands of ordinary steps. Hundreds and hundreds of simple acts of love.
Not sentimental love.
Not emotional love.
But cross-shaped love.
Biblical love is seeking another person's good at personal cost.
How does the Apostle John put it?
9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
Every step we take in love is an echo of the greater love that first came toward us. Verse 2 says, “Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.” We never outgrow verse 2. The Christian life begins there, grows there, and ends there.
Pause
To help us understand Christ's love, Paul reaches back into the Old Testament. The sacrifices that were offered to God were called "a fragrant offering." When those sacrifices were offered according to God's command, they were accepted by Him.
Paul says that's exactly what Jesus did.
At the cross, Christ offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice. The Father received his offering with complete satisfaction. The cross wasn't merely something done for us—it was first an offering to the Father.
Adam failed to obey.
Israel failed to obey.
We have failed to obey.
But Jesus obeyed perfectly.
Where humanity brought rebellion, Christ brought perfect worship.
Where we offered sin, Christ offered Himself.
He gave the Father the obedience and devotion that we never could.
And because we belong to Him, Paul says our lives now become a pleasing aroma to God as we walk in the same kind of sacrificial love.
Love gives itself away.
That's the direction love always moves — outward, toward another person's good, even at cost to ourselves.
But sin in moves the opposite direction.
Sin doesn't give. Sin takes.
It takes another person's body for pleasure.
It takes another person's resources for security.
It takes and takes, and calls it living.
So when Paul moves from "walk in love" to "sexual immorality, any impurity or greed," he isn't changing subjects. He's naming love's opposite — not just bad behavior, but a completely different posture toward other people.
Love asks, "What can I give?" Sin asks, "What can I get?"
That's why Paul puts these sins together, even though we instinctively separate them. Both are rooted in the same heart. Paul refuses to let us domesticate sin.
Greed and sexual immorality use people like commodities.
See, this is much more than the difference between good behavior and bad behavior.
This is the difference between children who resemble their Father...and people who still belong to another kingdom.
Up to this point Paul has described what God's children look like. Now he explains why they can actually live this way.
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light—9 for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth—10 testing what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret. 13 Everything exposed by the light is made visible, 14 for what makes everything visible is light. Therefore it is said: Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord."
There it is. “you were…but now.” Everything changes.
He doesn't say,
"You once lived in darkness."
He says,
"You were darkness."
he doesn't say “You have light."
He says”, “You are light.
Your salvation is bigger than forgiveness—it is new creation and with a new creation comes a new identity.
This is how it is possible for us to resemble the Father.
Our identity has changed.
We aren't pretending to be God's children—we are his children.
Think about what Paul is saying: the God who spoke galaxies into existence now calls us his children. The God whose holiness caused Isaiah to cry, 'Woe is me,' now says, 'Come imitate Me.' That's astonishing. Christianity isn't merely the forgiveness of sinners. It's the adoption of rebels into the family of God.
That also means;
Every refusal to forgive...
every act of selfishness...
every moment of greed...
every fruit of darkness…
is more than simply breaking a rule. It's living beneath our family name.
Paul isn't merely concerned that Christians avoid sin. He's concerned that God's children resemble their Father.
That raises a question:
What gives God’s children away?
Is it a bumper sticker?
Knowing the right Christian lingo?
Having the right Christian friends?
What increasingly gives God's children away is that the light of Christ has fundamentally changed them.
Notice what Paul does not say. He doesn't tell us to become light. He says, "You are light in the Lord." It’s just another reminder that the Christian life always begins with identity before activity. Christ has changed who you are. Now walk in a way that reflects who you already are.
New identity asks new questions:
If I really am God's child...
If I really am light...
What does that actually look like on Tuesday morning?
That's exactly where Paul goes next.
The problem is, we immediately start measuring.
How much obedience is enough?
How close to the line can I get?
What's the minimum?
Those are the wrong questions. Paul isn't interested in loopholes.
He doesn't answer, "Where's the line?"
Instead, he answers a much better question:
"What does a life filled with God's Spirit actually look like?"
15 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—16 making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17 So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit: 19 speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.
Notice the flow: here’s reality
the days are evil
don’t be foolish and waste the time
Here's what Spirit-filled people look like.
"...speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.
Singing.
Encouraging.
Thankfulness.
Submission.
These aren't responsibilities you grit your teeth and endure.
These are side effects. Evidence. The natural overflow of a life that's been transformed.
Paul is answering the right question: What does family resemblance actually look like in real life?
Not "How do I avoid being bad?"
But "What shows up when I've truly become light?"
This is a day-by-day continuous life lived under the Spirit's influence.
Then notice what follows. Paul never says you’ll
Speak in tongues.
Perform miracles.
Instead, the Spirit-filled life produces
worship
gratitude
mutual submission
Think about how ordinary that is.
Paul doesn't point us first to extraordinary experiences. He points us to ordinary relationships.
You know what that also tells us?
persistent ingratitude isn't just a personality trait.
Constant criticism isn't simply "how I'm wired."
Refusing to submit to one another isn't independence.
Paul says these ordinary attitudes reveal whose influence we're living under.
It’s all wonderfully ordinary.
Eventually, the Father's likeness becomes visible in His family.
There is no way to hide the family resemblance.
And people notice.
Pause
Not because the church is trying to attract attention. But because the family resemblance becomes difficult to miss.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Folks see and notice.
Our efforts aren’t spent trying to convince people that we belong to Christ.
Instead:
As we imitate our Father...
love like our Savior...
walk in His light...
and are continually filled with His Spirit...
the family resemblance becomes increasingly visible.
What does that kind of church look like?
Suppose someone spent six months with our church.
What family resemblance would they notice?
Would they recognize sacrificial love?
Gratitude?
Humility?
Joy?
Would they see a people who delight in pleasing their Father?
Or would they conclude we're simply another group with meetings, opinions, and programs?
Would they see anything that could only be explained by the family resemblance of our Father?
Perhaps the best family resemblance is seen not in what Christians say, but in how they treat one another.
Fred Craddock used to tell about a small country church in Eastern Tennessee he served as a student minister in the 1940’s. It was the custom in that church at Easter to have a baptismal service at sundown on Watts Bar Lake. Out on a sand bar, stood with the candidates for baptism. After they were immersed, the candidates moved out of the water, changed clothes in little booths constructed of hanging blankets, then went to the fire in the center where the little congregation was gathered, singing and cooking supper. Once they are all around the fire, the new people were introduced. He gave their names, where they lived and their work.
The next part of the ritual was that each person around the circle gave her or his name and said:
“My name is …and if you ever need somebody to do washing and ironing, call on me.”
“My name is …If you ever need anybody to chop wood, call on me.”
“My name is …If you ever need anybody to babysit, call on me.”
“My name is …If you ever need anybody to repair your house, call on me.”
“My name is …If you ever need anybody to sit with the sick, call on me.”
“My name is …If you ever need a ride to town, call on me.”
And around the circle we went.
In that little community, they have a name for that. I’ve heard it in other communities too. In that community, their name for that kind of ritual is “church.” They call that “church.”
Something about that resembles somewhere else.
You can almost here Paul say, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ."
Pause
When I walked through Russia, people recognized I belonged somewhere else before I ever spoke.
Thrive Church, our citizenship is in the new heaven and new earth.
We live in this world.
We love our neighbors in this world.
We serve Christ faithfully in this world.
We live under another King.
Pause
And every day, we learn to resemble our heavenly Father.
Jesus said,
"Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven."
My prayer is that people recognize that we belong to Him before we ever speak.
Not because of our politics.
Not because of our preferences.
Not because of our culture.
But because they see the unmistakable family resemblance of our Father.
There is simply something about us that resembles somewhere else.
