Imitation is Dependence

Introduction

We are continuing our journey through the book of Ephesians today. We’re in this stage of Paul’s letter where the church is being encouraged to start walking out the new reality of their life in Christ. And that word walk is kind of important. A little earlier in chapter 4, Paul talks about how as believers we are being raised up into maturity. We use words from Jesus like being born again, meaning that the life you have from Jesus is something altogether new and different. God is called our Heavenly Father, and you are his heavenly child. And that means that he is raising you up spiritually, bringing you up through infancy, through that awkward adolescent rebellious phase, and into mature adulthood.

Now, I’m a dad, and I’m watching my children learn to walk, both literally and figuratively. I’ve seen my children take their first steps; in fact, I have a video of it here. They are pained and difficult and frankly kind of dangerous at first. And then my kids grow and become more coordinated and comfortable, and they become natural and even skillful walkers. And that same concept of walking overflows into their emotional lives, and into their relational lives, and their intellectual lives, and yeah, into their spiritual lives. Maturity is learning how to walk without strife.

Now, as a parent, I know that my kids are getting older and are preparing for a time in their life where they are going to become adults, like me, with freedom and opportunity and possibility. And with freedom comes the possibility for error, and I want my kids to be ready for that. So I give them parameters to start living out their freedoms early. When they are little, those parameters are pretty simple; the boundaries are really tight. You can play in my back yard under my supervision. As they get older, maybe they can hang out in the driveway a little bit, or even cross the street when they know how to watch out for cars. Now my son is almost 14 and he’s talking about driving cars. Parameters start to change as you get older, and that comes with maturity, the ability to walk without strife. As a parent, the most loving thing I can do for my kids is to give them safe spaces to learn how to walk so that when the times comes, they‘ll know how to navigate what lies before them.

This is what Paul means when he encourages us to start walking. He’s going to point us to these parameters. God doesn’t just save us and then say, sit tight and wait here until I come back for you. God didn’t set you free from slavery to sin and death for you to do nothing. You are free! You get to live free! But he also knows that our freedom is new and a bit dangerous, and so as we learn how to walk without strife, we need boundaries, safe spaces to learn and grow.

That’s what our passage is all about. Let’s pray and jump in.

PRAY

You are a Loved Children, so Walk in Love

Ephesians 5:1–2 CSB

Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.

The first point Paul makes here is that you are a loved children, so walk in love.

Imitate God, like a loved child imitates her mom and dad. For the first several years of a child’s life, all they do is learn from the model their parents provide them. I read this week that the average rate of blinking in adults is 10-15 times a minute. But babies blink less than twice per minute, and that gradually increases until they reach about 14 or 15 years old (Try to win a staring contest with a baby, I dare you). The theory behind this is that babies are in sensory overload with this unbelievably new world they‘ve just entered into and they are soaking up all the visual information they can. They are learning how things work. Children are master observers. And the observe their parents most of all. How they speak, how they interact, how they work and play. And they mature by imitating their parents. In everything.

Bring this back to Paul’s words here. The way in which you learn how to live a “Christian” life is through imitation. And that imitation signals a dependency on another to show you the way.

Loved children reveal loving parents. Think about that for a moment. If you are loved, that means someone else loves you. And so your understanding of love, and how to love another, comes directly from your own experience of being loved. You are formed by God’s love, and those who are formed by God’s love, function in God’s love. It’s the only way.

You are loved, so walk in love, as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for you, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.

How do you walk in love? It’s a natural question, especially for many who have grown up in the church and religion has taken shape more than relationship. And by that, I mean we learn to walk in fear more than we walk in love. We try to do all the Christian, “churchy“ things to win God’s approval and worry about disappointing him when we mess up. And that works for a little bit. I’ve found that I can motivate my kids to do something I need them to do by using fear. If you don’t brush your teeth, sugar bugs will come in the night and eat your molars while you sleep! It’s a short term gain, but long-term it does little to form healthy habits. A lot of Christians are motivated by fear rather than love, and that creates this scenario where we tend to walk by the boundaries instead of toward the center. We want to define whose worthy of love and what qualifies as loving actions because love does not drive us, but fear of falling short and experiencing wrath and judgment. But to be driven by love means we know what it means to be loved, without merit or cause, as children dependent on a good and loving parent, who will do anything and sacrifice everything for the sake of their kids.

That’s what it means to walk in love. It means to walk the way of Jesus. The example we have of Jesus loving us includes his feeding and teaching and healing, but it is most exemplified in the cross. He willingly gave up everything so you could experience true joy and peace. Notice here also, it’s for us and to God. Christ’s act of love benefits us, but it’s also an act of worship and honor and glory.

You are formed by love to function in love. Christ loved you by giving you life. We are being formed to walk the same path, to bring life to others and to worship our God. Now, that may seem frightening and impossible, but the good news here is that you were never meant to walk alone. We God invites you to walk with him, he doesn’t shove you out the door. He walks with you. He slows down so that you can meet his stride. That’s what loving parents do. They don’t drag their kids by the arm or race ahead of them through the busy streets. They slow down, gently take them by the hand, and patiently help them along. And as loved children, we eagerly learn from our parents and match their stride. So when you are called to love others, to bring life to their lives, you don’t do this out of fear or approval. You do this alongside a loving dad.

You are a Holy People, so Walk in Holiness

Ephesians 5:3–4 CSB

But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks.

You are loved children, so walk in love. Second, you are holy people, so walk holy.

Any holiness that we have is a direct gift of Christ’s holiness in our lives. Many of us define holiness as separation from sin. But holiness in the Bible is dedication to God. Not quantitative, but qualitative. God’s judgement on us will not be based on the perimeter of our lives, but on the center of our lives. And God is forming you into a holy people, set apart for him. Devoted to him with everything. Holiness is like this burning core that heats up from the center and radiates outward. Devotion starts in your heart and works it way out into the rest of your life. And that grows over time. Until then, God graciously puts parameters on our lives, boundary markers, so we can practice walking devoted lives.

Paul gives a few parameters here. He starts with three things. Sexual immorality, impurity, greed. These things don’t suit a person named after Jesus. Jesus gave life, but these things take life. I’ll explain.

Sexual immorality is is a love that takes; it is self-centered love. When the early church heard that world (porneia), they knew exactly what that meant. Today, we’ve gotten around these things by redefining it as something else. The BIble simply states that sexual immorality is any sexual interaction outside of God’s good design of marriage between one man and one woman. We are offended by that socially. We are too sensible, too modern. Sex today is driven by what you want, not by what is best for you. It’s about what you can take for yourself.

Now, hear me out: God is not a cosmic killjoy; he created sex, and he created it for joy, but in it’s proper place. Every good pleasure is created by God for our joy, in it’s proper place.

C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters: Satan is not capable of creating any new pleasures, he’s just really good at taking God’s good pleasures and getting us to use them in the wrong way at the wrong time in the wrong place.

That’s what sexual immorality is. It takes a good pleasure and moves it from something that unifies two people in relational and emotional and physical oneness, and it makes about about something I take for myself at the expense of another. I mentioned this last week, but the pornography industry—a business that specializes in twisting sex into a destructive force—brings in over $12 billion dollars a year, and the average age men are introduced to this version of sex? 11 years old. It is rampant in our society, and it is rampant because men have found ways to excuse their pornography usage. Here’s another statistic for you: 65% percent of women between the ages of 25-45 report having eating disorders. The reasons for this are many, but a primary reason stems from the twisted body image perpetuated by a sexual ethic that treats women like objects to be used and abused instead of as honored co-heirs of life. Sexual brokenness saturates our society. And in this society, you had better know who you are dedicated to.

Paul goes on from there. It’s not just sexual immorality, but any impurity, a darkness from within. The word here in Greek just means “not clear.”

One of the marks of the kingdom is to be “pure of heart,” those who are wholly given to Christ. To have an impure heart to be divided, split between two kingdoms, a mix of light and dark. It’s to serve God and something else. God and your sexuality. God and money. God and America. God and work. God and your family. God and guns. When God says he wants your whole heart, he means it. And divide your loves and your trust means giving less to God in the end. God knows when your attention lies elsewhere. He knows when you are with him and you are secretly devoted to another. That breaks his heart.

Paul also mentions greed. Greed is a self-centered selfishness that treats life as something meant to serve you. Greed is driven by the idea that everything I have is mine, and I will keep it for myself. It’s about having more than I am due, and loving what I can get more than what I can give.

Remember, we’re talking boundary markers here for being a holy people walking in holiness. But we’re also loved people walking in love. And in both of these realities, out activity flows out from a God-given identity; to be loved, to be holy, is not something we attain for ourselves, but it by the grace and compassion and love of God. But what happens is that we live in a broken world that keeps pulling our gaze out to the boundary lines. We are walking in freedom, within the safe spaces that God has given us to walk, and yet the world keeps calling us out to the border, daring us to risk our citizenship with God’s kingdom, where are free from destructive desires that enslave us, so that we might somehow get more than is actually good for us.

Implied in all of these ”unfitting” things are the redeemed versions, things that fit us as a wholly devoted, holy people of God. Flee from sexual immorality, and instead, treat others as made in the image of God and value and honored and loved by him. Enjoy sex as something God made to join men and women together and give life and encouragement to your spouse. It’s not for you, it‘s for your spouse, and it’s act of worship to God, because he made it for you to enjoy in that way.

Flee from impurity, a division in your heart, and instead pursue the joy of living in God’s kingdom. Be wholly devoted to him. Make your thoughts about him. Make your joys about him. Make your security and your peace all about him. Be pure in heart. One God, one king, one savior.

Flee from greed and pursue generosity. Make your live about what you can give instead of what you can take. And make your giving about how you can bless instead of how your return on investment is going to pan out. What might that generosity look like? Would it look like blessing parents by taking a week a month to love and serve their kids? Would it look like giving regularly to the church or to the poor without thinking about where it would go? Would you bless others through your gifts, even if it doesn’t go as far as you might want it to? It’s about blessing others, not about your account balance.

What if we blessed other so abundantly that they could only think of themselves as blessed people? What if we loved and cared for others so generously that they could only think of themselves a loved and cared for people? That’s when we start walking out the way of Jesus. And again, that overflow comes as we look to the center of our lives, not the perimeter. Our imitation of Jesus starts first and foremost with our dependency on him.

Paul keeps going on here and he mentions obscene and foolish talking and course joking that should have no part of our patterns of speech, but give thanks instead. What is Paul saying here? Is Paul saying I can’t have a sense of humor? I can’t say bad words if I stub my toe? That I just have to speak in Christian platitudes all the time, like ”have a Jesus-filled day!” Or “bless your heart” and I have to say amen after everything? As long it’s “the Lord’s will?” Do I just need to “let go and let God?”

Remember, what’s at the center, not the margins? The center is our devotion to God (our holiness) and our giving life to others (our love). That’s the corrective for our speech, that’s the freedom we get to walk in; but until we can reach maturity, we get guardrails to help us out. Paul says here that when you speak, you have the power to either build up or tear down. If you litter your speech about or toward someone else—or even yourself—with obscenity, you tear theIr humanity away and replace with dishonor. If you make jokes about people being dumb or fat or hot, you distort the image of God and take life rather than give it. If you engage in “foolish talk”—the word here is morologos, literally, you say dumb things—it means your probably stuck thinking selfishly about things that aren’t God’s good ways that bless instead of curse.

So don’t destroy with your words. Don’t speak to please yourself at the expense of others. Instead, give thanks. The word here is eucharisto, which literally means good grace. Use your words to impart grace to others. Offer help, encourage, point to the love of Jesus, be thankful, be humble, be thoughtful, be kind. Our speech is the key: the good news is proclaimed by the gospel. You came to faith because you confessed with your lips that Jesus is Lord. Our speech is meant to be life-giving, rather than life-taking.

Where’s your freedom found?

Paul wraps all this by by saying that those who make the stuff of the margins the center of who they are—those live to take instead of to bless—are living for a kingdom that is not God’s.

Ephesians 5:5 CSB

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.

You might be reading this thinking that you can lose the kingdom of God by messing up. I looked at porn, that means God hates me now and I’m kicked out of heaven. I told that cruel joke yesterday and now I’m doomed for hell. I got a bit greedy with my money and I stopped giving to the church; is God angry with me?

The question is, what’s your center? Is your center sexual fulfillment at the expense of others? Is it divided loyalties? Is it about getting all you can get in this life and having it all? If the center isn’t the kingdom of God, than maybe you’ve never received the inheritance Paul’s talking about. Because that inheritance comes first, not later. You don’t live a holy loving life in order to receive the inheritance of eternal life. You’ve received that life, you have been made holy and you are loved, and now you walk that out, and yeah, sometimes you’ll trip up and skin your knee. Freedom takes time to steward well. We’ve lived for ourselves for a long time, and it takes some adjustment to live for others instead. So don’t take Paul’s words as a warning here, take them as a promise. When you come to faith in Jesus, you are not longer defined by your sexual brokenness, by your false idols, by your greed. You are known by Christ, the kingdom of God has drawn near to you, and you are free citizen under God’s reign and rule. The promise here is that light will overtake darkness love will overcome hate, blessings will overwhelm curses, and life will triumph over death. So take heart, and cling to your father’s leg as he gently and wisely shows you the way.