Imitation
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Introduction
Introduction
Welcome and good morning. It is so good to come and see you all. Welcome to you online as well. We are glad you are here with us today.
We have been going through Ephesians and learning about Practical Advice for Christian Living. The last couple of weeks Paul has been teaching about this new life we have in Christ and that we are to put off our old self and to put on our new self. He described a list of things that we are supposed put off an put on.
We are supposed to put off lying and put on speaking truth, to control our anger, not to steal but to do honest work, keep foul language from coming from our mouth but only what builds up others. We are not to grieve the Spirit and to let all bitterness, anger, wrath, shouting, slander, and malice be removed from us.
Wouldn’t that be nice. To have all of that junk removed from our lives. He also taught us to be kind, compassionate and forgiving to each other just as God forgave us in Christ. We are to remove these unity killers as Pastor Chris put it and to be kind, compassionate, and forgiving. Shout amen if you would like our lives to be filled with more kindness, how about compassion, or forgiveness. This where we ended last week.
Turn to Ephesians 5:1 Paul continues.
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.
Paul is linking these two sections together with the therefore. He tells us to be imitators of God to walk in love and will continue for the majority of the rest of the book to teach the things we should not do and the things we should do. He will teach on walking in the light, living a consistent life, proper roles for husbands and wives, children and parents.
Let me ask you and honest question. Do any of you disagree with the lists of standards that Paul provides? How many of you have heard these before? Of course we have. They haven’t changed in 2000 plus years. Why have we not figured this out yet?
Last weekend I spent 24 hours at Cocolalla bible camp with 96 students who studied the book of Malachi in 24 hours. They studied for over 8 hours with only 1 total hour of free time other than meals and bed time. I really encourage you to go and study it yourselves but in the 1st chapter God is warning the priests that they despise his name by bringing defiled sacrifices to the alter. The priests were not performing the sacrifices they way God wanted them to. The priests were mediators for God’s people and they new better. In Leviticus 10 Aaron's sons brought unauthorized fire to the alter and they were consumed by fire from God. From the first moment God established the priests man failed to obey. Aaron’s sons paid the ultimate price. But over 1000 years later to the end of the old testament time period, after having so much evidence on God following through with his promises. The priest still were not able to follow God’s commands.
Here we sit 2000 years after Paul’s teaching and guess what the church as a whole is still struggling. We still see the evil things written in Ephesians as alive and even thriving in churches. Anger, greed, immorality, selfishness, and more. False teaching abounds and probably more prevalent is false learning or understanding. We hear the Word of God and make unbiblical conclusions but more common is people are not in the Word but hear ideas from many different places and then combine them into their own god and faith.
I see this reality in the church, in church leaders, in families, in marriages, and in our children.
So, Kyle are telling me there is no hope. That after all of this time nothing has changed. From Adam and Eve to today we just cannot be anything more than biblical failures? Is that what your are saying?
My answer is that depends on each individual person in this room and how the next verse applies to your life. My hope today is that you will be encouraged, that you will find hope, and you will understand how you can practically live out a life that is biblically validating.
Let us Glory God this morning as we study his Word today. Let us pray.
I will be teaching on Eph 5:1 I brought granola bars for anyone who get hungry as this verse is going to take awhile to dig through. Thatcher come here. Give this to Urie.
The State of Imitation
The State of Imitation
1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children,
This verse ties the preceeding section and the next section together. First notice that Paul ended the last section with be kind, and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you. We are loved. This is a special particular love. Everything we talk about today must be under the umbrella of the fact that we are dearly loved and as we look at what it means as a Christian to imitate God we must do it from a point of a loved child not as a hated enemy.
Be … Imitators of God. Does this sound optional? Does this sound like a suggestion? Is it just a good idea? No we are to be imitators of God.
The word “Be” also translates to “to Become”
Be: To Become. To enter or assume a certain state or condition.
We are not just supposed to copy God we are supposed to assume a state of imitation. Look at an artist. There is a difference in someone who takes art from a certain artist and analyses it and then copies each stroke so exactly that you cannot tell the difference from the original. This is different from someone who understands how the artist sees the world. What is behind the painting. Why they paint the way they do. Then then the artist assumes a state of imitation and then produces art that looks like it comes from the original. It is more than copying it is becoming a person who is in a state of imitation. There re many Christians that act like Jesus but do not know him. There are entire religions that have perfected the brush strokes but do not know the artist.
Paul says be in a state of imitation of God. Pause for a minute and let that sink in. Our God, the author of our faith, the creator of all, the one who is love, the one who is perfect, the blameless, flawless lamb of God. Perfection. Who are we? We are the fallen, depraved, enemies of God, we are the selfish, corrupt, and sinful. No matter how well we clean up we cannot stand before God on our own merit and be justified. God through the words of Paul just said that you can be in a state of imitation of God. That you do not have to be trapped by the ways of the world but can live the life that Paul is describing in Ephesians. You can walk in love, kindness, compassion and forgiveness.
Does that give you hope? It does me?
So the next question we must ask is, What should we be imitating?
In Leviticus 11 God commands Isreal to be holy as he is holy. When we imitate God we will look different than the rest of the world. What does this look like? It looks like Jesus he is our example.
15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done for you.
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,
21 For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
10 This is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister.
I cannot go through all of the ways that we can imitate Jesus because I would have to start in Genesis 1:1 and continue to the end of Revelation. There are many ways to classify the attributes or characteristics of Jesus and it would be hard to cover them here but it is worth saying that there are some characteristics of Jesus that we can imitate and there are others that we cannot. We cannot imitate his divine attributes. Some of these are:
Eternality - Timeless, Immutability - Unchanging, Omnipotence - All powerful, Omnipresence - Everywhere at once, Omniscience - All knowing.
The only way fully explore the attributes of Jesus that we can imitate is through self study and group study. Behold your God is a great place to learn some of these.
Here are some of the ways we can imitate Jesus:
Self-denial
Philippians 2:4–5 (CSB)
4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. 5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,
Endurance in suffering
21 For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 22 He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth; 23 when he was insulted, he did not insult in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.
Service
13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are speaking rightly, since that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done for you.
16 “Truly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master, and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
Faithfulness
1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was in all God’s household.
Patience
16 But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in him for eternal life.
Forgiveness of Others
32 And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.
13 bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive.
Gentleness and Humility
29 Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Purity
3 And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.
Love
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.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her
16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
34 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.
That was a lot of scripture. Sometimes we do not realize how much the bible speaks on the topics that impact us. There are many more and we will dig into some of these over the next week.
Our God has commanded us to be imitator of himself and he gave us an example and his Word to follow. Jesus was born and lived as a man an taught his disciples and provided his word so that we could know the artist. So how do we become imitators of God?
The Fruit of Imitation (Outer Man)
The Fruit of Imitation (Outer Man)
A life that is in a state of imitation will display different fruit in their lives. How many of you have heard of the fruit of the spirit? Most of us have. We create fruit every day and in every situation. Some fruit Glories God and the rest does not.
Proverbs 1:29–31 (CSB)
29 Because they hated knowledge, didn’t choose to fear the Lord, 30 were not interested in my counsel, and rejected all my correction, 31 they will eat the fruit of their way and be glutted with their own schemes.
A person will never produce fruit from a state of imitation with out Salvation.
8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast.
Without salvation a person may be able to copy the painting. There is nothing a lost soul can do to produce good fruit with out the saving grace of Jesus. We are saved by grace through faith.
5 For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit. 6 Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace.
They can behave in a way that makes fruit that looks like the real fruit but it is fake and deceptive. What do I mean by that? Dating… But eventually it doesn’t look like good fruit any more. We are saved not based on our own works but by grace and faith in Jesus and he gives us the Holy Spirit to give us new desires. To counter act the our own inability to do anything that pleases God.
16 I say, then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I am warning you about these things—as I warned you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
The only way to be imitators of God is by having God’s Spirit in you and walking with and in the Spirits guidance. You see it is only by God that we can imitate God. It still isn’t about us. It is about him and his Glory. The fruit of our lives will be rotten if it comes from the flesh or it will be sweet and God honoring if it comes from the Spirit.
7 and you once walked in these things when you were living in them. 8 But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.
This should be encouraging and convicting. Can God please God? Yes. That means can your actions please God? It depends on whether you are following the Spirit or your own self. And what areas of our life should will have fruit if we are imitating God. All of them. I really like the list in the book biblical doctrine by Macaurther and Mayhue.
Fruit of attitudes, Fruit of actions, Fruit of Worship, Fruit of Gospel telling, Fruit of Truth telling, and the fruit of abundant giving.
This is the outer man. What the world sees. What our actions, attitudes and behaviors are. The issue is that in my experience we usually stop here. We are told what good behavior and what bad behavior is. And we say go be like that. Then people go home and feel like failures because we continue produce the same rotten fruit that we always do. We are angry, selfish, unkind, unhappy, hopeless. We continue to struggle with self control and motivation. We know what we want to do but cannot bring ourselves to do it. Can anyone relate to that?
I will be really honest here. I believe many of us have been taught behavior modification not spiritual transformation. We carry guilt that we don’t read enough, we don’t pray enough, we are not seeing God at work in our lives, our marriages struggle, are families struggle. Statistically marriages in the church divorce as much as those outside and Children flee from the church when they leave the home, why. Why do so many people know what the right answers are, know what they are supposed to be doing but do not. Why is sin acceptable in our lives.
We get tried of trying to make copies of a masters painting. We sit there with him saying let me help and we slap his hand away and he says son I know you think you can do it but you are not capable of it. Let me do it through you. Because as a christian when we paint he holds our hand and he paints through us. The world is his canvas and we keep trying to do it ourselves instead of letting him do it.
So what is missing what is the answer? That my friends comes from the heart.
The Challenge of Imitation (Inner Man)
The Challenge of Imitation (Inner Man)
As Galatians says, there are two forces at work in the heart of man. The flesh and the Spirit.
16 I say, then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
This is the daily battle that wages war in our inner being. The bible teaches that what is in our heart is what comes out in our actions, attitudes, worship. A biblical councilor friend of mine says what we want creates what we think and what we think is what we do. The heart is where our desires, motives, goals, thoughts all come from.
11 Dear friends, I urge you as strangers and exiles to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against the soul.
20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
If we want to become in a state of imitating God then we must deal with what is in our heart. Our Heart leads to our actions or our fruit. The Influence of the flesh leads to the following:
19 For from the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slander.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.
Are you glad that we do not have to be controlled by our sin anymore and that we have a savior the died on the cross as the perfect sacrifice that atones for our sins.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!
We must search our heart and discern what is driving our actions and decisions. We have been looking at heart issues in the youth group since the beginning of the year. I have been asking them what they are dealing with and then we look to see what God says about that. So far they have picked Laziness, Sarchasim, Worry and anxiety, and Fear. It is amazing to see how much scripture is available for these issues. We sifted through hundreds of verses on language. There is so much at our fingertips and it so clearly explains how sin works in our heart and in the influence of the Spirit.
The bible teaches that the heart is the center of a person. It is where our motives, desires, dreams, thoughts all come from. It is influenced by two forces. The influence of flesh, to sinful self loving part of every person who is born. The other influence is the Holy Spirit. When we come to a decision point in life where our heart is at will determine what out outer person does. When you child disobey or breaks you favorite vase how do you respond? Do you imitate Jesus? When no one is around and you have access to the internet or TV what do you do? Do you imitate Jesus? When you go to work with abrasive people, how do you treat them? Do you imitate Jesus. When you hang out with people as work or school who do not have appropriate language, how do you participate? Do you imitate Jesus. Our outer decisions reveal what is going on inside of us. It would be wise to be sensitive to what is driving them.
The most amazing thing is that God gives us everything we need.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As I conclude. The issues of the heart have become a burden on my mind. I am constantly talking to christians who are struggling in areas of their life. There are usually two things that become very apparent. The do not know yet what they must do. They are unwise or have rejected the call of wisdom.
Or they know what are supposed to be doing and are choosing not to do it.
People will say “I don’t see God at work in my life?” The question is when did you stop praying. How did you know? I am struggling with sin? When did you stop reading your bible? How did you know.
When ever I do premarital counseling I am always surprised at how much people learn about God in that process. That is great but it is a little late many times.
What can we do? First we must know that this transformation is a process. It will take work and time to become an imitator of God and the process never ends.
18 We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.
We must be intentional as individuals and in the church. We need to start earlier. We need to be doing marriage training before kids are dating. We need to be helping marriages before they are falling apart. We need to be helping couplels grow before they have children. And we must do it together, with kindness, compassion and forgiveness. Walking in love as imitators of God.
2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.