Ephesians 5:1-2

If you’ve been part of our church for a while, you probably know that I don’t preach Mother’s Day sermons typically. I have come to realize in the years I’ve been in pastoral ministry that Mother’s Day is a tough day for many. Obviously, we celebrate our mothers and the ladies in our lives that have meant so much to us.

But for some, they’ve lost their mother. For some women they’ve battled infertility being unable to conceive. For others they have had multiple miscarriages. And for them, Mother’s Day is one of the harder holidays.

So, what I’ve chosen to do in the past is thank God for our moms. And show that video of kids talking about their moms. And then preach a message that is generally not related to the holiday. And so, today I want us to take a week off of our Mark study. And I want to think through what it means to live for Jesus no matter the calling He has placed on our life.

All Christians have callings on their lives. For some it is motherhood or fatherhood. And for some it is not. But we’ve all been called to be Godly friends. We’ve all been called to be good Christian neighbors. We’ve all been called to be ministry minded Christians living on mission for Jesus. But no matter the calling, we are to conduct ourselves as ambassadors for Jesus.

Some of the clearest pictures of love can be seen in faithful, Godly mothers. But what we are going to study today isn’t just a call for mothers, although it is. But it is a call for all Christians.

What I want to talk about today is what it means to imitate God and to walk in love. I preached through Ephesians back in 2021-2022. And I want us to turn to Ephesians 5:1-2 this morning.

I’m not going to get into a lot of background for time’s sake. But the Christians living in Ephesus lived in a pagan, sinful city with an incredible amount of temptation and idolatry.

And in a setting like that, trying to live for Jesus, what they really needed more than anything else was a deep understanding of who God is and how they could know Him more deeply. So, Paul wrote this letter that is full of theological truths about God AND….about how man can have a relationship with Him.

--Now, theology is the study of God. It is what we should believe about God based on what the bible reveals to us about God. But here is something that we must not forget. The goal of theology is not just an educational pursuit. It is not just that we have all of these facts about God rolling around in our heads. But the goal of theology is the knowledge of God that leads us somewhere! Theology should lead us to the destination of worshiping and loving God more passionately. In the way that we think, the way we talk, the way we act, we way we live our lives in this world.

The first half of the book is what we must believe about God and the second half of the book is how we must live based on what we know about God.

Now, the truth that theology should lead to doxology is a great segue into chapter 5 and the verses we are going to study today. So, lets read 5:1-2

Verse 1: Now, I will say this almost anytime we come to the word therefore in a passage. When you see the word therefore in the bible you should always ask the question, “what is the therefore, there for?” It is a transitional word that is referring back to something or somethings that were written earlier in the text.

So, back to chapter 4, Paul wrote about a lot of practical things that we should characterize Christians. And if you go read chapter 4 later, you might feel a little overwhelmed. And then, obviously, as we come to chapter 5, we read something else that seems, at first glance, to be an even more daunting task for the Christian.

Look at 5:1: Therefore, be imitators of God!

Given what we find in chapter 4 and then here in 5:1, how in the world can the Christian ever possibly hope to live according to the calls of chapter 4 and then 5:1?

2 things I want to share from verse 1.

--The word for imitator is the Gr word mimaytays, where we get our English word mimic from. Now sometimes when we mimic someone it is for the goal of mocking them. Obviously, that is not what this kind of mimicry is. This is mimicking in the sense of imitating because we want to be like the person we are imitating, in this case, our Lord.

Now one other thing that is important here is that this phrase, be imitators of God, is a command. The verb is an imperative and in the construction of this phrase, it is to be ongoing. In other words, the way Paul wrote this, under the inspiration of the HS…..this is commanded by God that we seek to continually imitate Him. Which is a noble and lofty command, but it is also one that seems so difficult….unless we really dig into what this means.

So, first of all, what is our motivation behind imitating God? It is one thing to say ok, I want to imitate God. But we know that in life in general, the motivation behind anything we do is going to be the key driver to why we do something and how excellently we do something or if we do something. So, what should be the motivation behind the Christian desiring to imitate Christ?

·One of the motivations for imitating God is found right here in this verse. We must remember His love for us (verse 1)

--It says to be imitators of God as beloved children of God.

When people trust in Jesus for their salvation, they are adopted into God’s family. And when people understand the price that has been paid for their adoption, the death of Christ in their place, that drives them to love and worship God! And a child of God should desire to imitate their Lord more and more throughout their life as they pursue God and as they realize His love for them.

So, first and foremost, foundationally, to imitate God we must know and love God, as His beloved children.

The motivation to imitating God is love for God because of Who He is and what He has done for us.

Now, obviously there are some things about God that we simply can’t imitate. For example, we can’t imitate God’s omniscience. We can’t imitate His omnipresence. But there are many areas where we can imitate Him. We can love others. We can serve others. We can look at the example of Christ and desire to imitate Him in many areas.

So, here is how we should view this phrase, “be imitators of God.” This is a command, be imitators of God….but it is a command that is so much more than just a command; within this command is a favored invitation from God to His children.

In fact, whenever we find a command in the bible from God to us that seems impossible, we should get excited, not overwhelmed. Because whenever we find a command from God to us that seems impossible, we should know that it is an invitation to see God’s power at work in our lives, doing through us what we could never do alone.

This is not a call that adds more to our spiritual plate. This is not a call to harness our own power to try to live like Him. To the contrary, this is a call for us to rely on Him. This is a call for us to rest in His power, not ours. This is not a command that is to be riddled with guilt when we fall short. This is an invitation from God to His people to experience His mercy, grace, love and presence even in the midst of our inadequacies and shortcomings.

When we read a text like this and we get to a point of understanding that God is calling me to do something that I cannot do….that is when we are reading the bible correctly. Because this command is not about us; it is about God’s power working in us who are surrendered to Him and longing to imitate Him, driven by love for Him. That is what the whole bible is about, in fact. What we couldn’t and can’t do, God did for us!

That’s what this call, to imitate God, as beloved children is all about. A recognition that God is inviting us to allow His power to be at work within us, His children.

Ephesians 3:16: that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,

It is not about what you and I can do, it is about what Christ has done for us. It is about surrendering to Him to let His life live through us.

What is a practical example of what this looks like to imitate God? Look at verse 2.

Walk in love. How does the Christian walk in love? What does that mean? Well, just like a baby watches his or her parents in order to learn how to physically walk, so we are to watch our Lord to find out what love is and what it means to walk in love.

It says, walk in love…..just as (or in the same way that) Christ has also loved you and gave Himself up for us.

--I John 3:16-18: We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. ¹⁷ But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his ^[g]heart ^[h]against him, how does the love of God abide in him? ¹⁸ Little children, let us not love with word or with speech, but in deed and truth.

The call to be a disciple of Jesus is a call to lay down our own desires for the benefit of others. Like Godly mothers do, like Godly dads do, like Godly friends do and so forth.

Now, what does that look like practically, day in and day out in the life of a Christian? Well, really quickly, let’s go back to the end of chapter 4 where we find a few characteristics that are the opposite of what walking in love looks like. And we also find a few things that characterize what love does look like. Look at verses 31-32.

--Those things, bitterness, wrath, anger, slander, malice….those things are definitely not the fruit that love grows in a person’s life. Love doesn’t produce bitterness. It doesn’t produce sinful anger or malice. It doesn’t produce slander.

· Love doesn’t produce unloving behavior. Never! Now, that doesn’t mean that love overlooks sin or that love never confronts. That is part of what love is. Love guards against those things in verse 31, in fact.

Here is what love does…..love produces, verse 32 tells us, things like kindness toward others, a tender heart toward others, and it produces forgiveness.

We find a lack of love in verse 31 revealed by the fruit of evil action and intentions. And then in verse 32 we find examples of what love looks like….kindness, tenderness, forgiveness.

--What undergirds all of our actions and intentions in life is either love for God and consequently people or a lack of love for God and people.

And sometimes walking in love means radically denying oneself for the benefit of others. Which is what Jesus did.

Notice, what Paul wrote in verse 2: walk in love, just as Christ also loved ^[a]you and gave Himself up for us

God’s love is revealed to us through His sacrificial offer of forgiveness. And in order for forgiveness to be possible, God’s love led to His Son, Jesus, to come to the earth to die in our place to offer us forgiveness and reconciliation to God. If God’s love was non-existent toward us, then forgiveness would not be possible. But since God does love us, Christ did lay down His life for us, so that we could experience His forgiveness as we partake of His life.

Therefore, part of imitating Christ means extending love to others as an offering to God.

Listen to this:

·Forgiveness ends where our love ends.

--One theologian said it this way, Unforgiveness is the measure of self-righteousness just as forgiveness is the measure of love.

--Sacrificial love. In fact, the word used for love, walk in love, is the word agape, which is a love of the will….it is choosing to be sacrificial, giving of oneself for the benefit of another. The idea is walking in selfless, sacrificial love toward others just as Christ did for us.

And this is all a choice that we have to make as Christians.

--Walking in love isn’t something that we naturally drift toward in life.

--When someone cuts you off in traffic, our fleshly inclination isn’t to have a deep love for that person well up in our hearts. Our inclination is to call that person names and think all sorts of nasty thoughts and give them some hand gestures.

--When someone says or does something hurtful that cuts us deeply, our natural inclination isn’t to want to do things to serve and help them. Our natural tendency is to cut back, to get even. To wound them back.

Loving others is a choice of the will. And it is a Spirit empowered choice.

·Romans 5:5: the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

·II Cor 5:14: For the love of Christ controls us,

·I Thes 3:12: and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people

·--Gal 5:22: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, (again, this command to love isn’t all about us gritting our teeth. It is about dependency on our Lord).

--This is all about surrender. I like the word surrender better than commitment related to God. When a person commits, they are still in control. But when a person surrenders, they are not in control. This is all about surrender. God, here is my life. Live your love through me.

--And at the heart of choosing to love others is a recognition of the love that we have experienced from God.

·Love that has been experienced should lead to love that is extended to others.

4. The goal of our love is the glory of God.

Look at verse 2. Just as Christ gave Himself up for us….as an offering and sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

We have experienced God’s love, if indeed we know Christ. We have, as the Psalmist wrote, tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

--The driving force behind our love for others is our love for God.

--And our ambition now, our goal, should be to bring glory to God as we mimic him as we live a life of love extended to others.

It’s all about His glory!

Living the Christian life is not about trying harder to become people of love. It is about living close to the God who has loved us in Christ. And the more deeply we experience His love, the more deeply we will begin to show love to others. And we will do this for the glory of the great God who has saved us.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?

In closing,

1.Do I know God?

2.If Christ is my example, am I pursuing Him to know Him better in order to imitate Him?

3.Am I walking in love toward others? Am I sacrificial in my love for others?