There's nothing bad wrong with
me. I just worked out on Friday and I can't hardly walk now. Alright, let's turn to Ephesians
chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. I'm going to read the first two
verses. Be ye therefore followers of
God as dear children and walk in love, as Christ also hath
loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet-smelling savour." Now it begins here and it says,
Be ye therefore followers of God. Followers of God. I don't speak Greek, I can't
read Greek or Hebrew, but I do look the words up. And what I
find very often is, especially with the Greek, is that the word
pronounced is often exactly where we get our words from. And this
word follow, the Greek word is mimitates. Mimitates. It's where we get the word imitate.
Imitate. He's saying, be ye therefore
imitators of God. imitators of God. That's the
whole purpose for which God created this world. He's going to have
a people conformed to the image of His Son, conformed to His
image. Now, whenever God in eternity
chose His people in Christ Jesus, when He chose us in Christ Jesus,
He created us as it were in the mind and purpose of God. We were
created in His purpose. and His elect were conformed
to the image of His Son. And that's why when you read
Romans 8, 29, there are some italicized words put in there,
too big. You take those words out, this
is true. Whom He did foreknow, He also
did predestinate, conformed to the image of His Son, that He
might be the firstborn among many brethren. We were conformed
to His image in eternity. All His elect were. And then
when He made Adam, when God created Adam in the garden, God said,
let us make man in our image. The triune God. God the Father,
God the Son and the Holy Spirit said, let us make man in our
own image. So God created man in His own
image. In the image of God created He
Him. Male and female created He them. But then we fell in Adam. And
when we fell in Adam, We became legally guilty before God, but
also Adam's nature was transferred to us in our natural conception
by his corrupt seed. So we became sinners in our nature,
in our thought, and therefore in our acts and in our words
we became sinners. And so the image of God, of His
Son, must be recreated within His people. We must be created
again. This is a spiritual creation.
We must be created again to have the image of God. So it's true
as well, those whom he foreknew, he also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his son, because God knew we'd fall
in at him. And he predestinated, he determined
beforehand, we're going to be conformed to the image of his
son. That was the whole purpose of this thing, of creating this
world and allowing Adam to sin, is that God might show his glory
in recreating his people in his own image. And he gave that work
to his son, for his son to do it. And so then in the end, in
the end brethren, Well, let me say this, in regeneration, when
He comes to us in the Spirit, through this Gospel, in regeneration,
He recreates us. Look back there at Ephesians
4.24. Put on the new man. This is a new man. We weren't
born with this man the first time. Put on the new man, which
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. That's the
image of God, righteousness and true holiness. And this new man's
created. That's why Paul said it's not
circumcision or uncircumcision that avails. It's not, as we
saw this morning, it's not whether you have the law or you don't
have the law that's going to avail. What's going to avail?
A new creation, being created anew in righteousness and holiness. And God grows us in this new
man. When we're born, we're babies,
but He grows us and He continues to grow us and transform us into
His image. That's what he means in Colossians
3. He says, you've put on the new man. You have put on the
new man. That new man's already been created
after the image of him. He's speaking through believers.
He said, you've already put on the new man. And he says of that
new man, he's renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him. So as we hear this gospel, Paul says, my inward man's renewed
day by day and my outward man perishes day by day. So He's
growing the inward man, God is. And that's what He says over
in 2 Corinthians 3.18. Look over there with me, to your
left. 2 Corinthians 3 and verse 18. We all, 2 Corinthians 3.18,
we all, speaking of believers, with open face, that means it's
not hidden like it was in Moses' day. We have a full revelation,
more full than Moses had. We with open face, beholding
as in a glass. That's what the gospel is, it's
like a mirror. Beholding is in a glass the glory of the Lord. We behold the glory of the Lord
Jesus. We behold the glory of God, the
face of Christ Jesus. And as we do, this is what happens,
we're changed. The word is metamorphosed. We're
metamorphosed, we're transformed into the same image, to Christ's
image. From glory to glory. You see,
we're growing. We're continually being transformed
in His image. From one glory to the next, we're
transformed into His image. And this is done by the Spirit
of the Lord. It's the Spirit of the Lord that
makes this work effectual. And now this Holy Spirit does
this work as we behold Christ in the Gospel. He strengthens
you. He grows you. This is the food.
And you eat the food. And what happens when you eat
the food? You grow. And that's what He's doing here. He's feeding
us. And when that inner man's growing, we grow in that inner
man. Now this is not growing more holy. This is growing in
grace and in the knowledge of the Son of God. We're holy when
we're born the first time. But we grow in that state of
holiness in grace and in the knowledge of Him. And then finally,
look at 1 John 3. Finally, we're going to see Christ
as He is. And when we see Christ as He
is, with no unobstructed view of Him, right now as we see Him
through faith, it transforms us in our inner man. But just
think when we see Him face to face. This is some look now. Let me show you what this look's
going to do. Look here, 1 John 3, 2. Beloved, now are we the
sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.
But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is. And when we see Him as He is,
we're going to be conformed to His image. Come perfectly, inwardly
and outwardly, as we were in eternity in the mind and purpose
of God. This is what God's predestinated His people unto. Now, verse 3,
1 John 3, 3 says, And every man that hath this hope in himself,
what does he do? Now get this now, that man himself
purifies himself. That man himself purifies himself
when he has this hope in himself. Even as he is pure. Now he's
purified. He's purified his heart pure
through faith. Do you know what he does? He
purifies himself. He separates himself from anything
that defiles. That's what he does. That's what
a believer does. That's what he does. This is
the work of the Spirit in us. It gives us a heart to do this.
We do this. He says he purifies himself.
That man purifies himself. He doesn't want to be around
defiled things. The believer doesn't expect we're
going to be made perfectly pure. We don't expect we're going to
be without sin. We know sin is going to be mixed with everything
we do. But the believer wants to walk after Christ. He wants
to imitate Christ. He wants to be like his master. That's what John said. He that's
born of him ought to also walk like him. And we want to walk
after him. We want to imitate him. And Christ
is the pattern we study. He's the pattern we study. We
seek to walk as Christ walked, putting off the old man, putting
on the new man. Our motivation. What's our motivation?
We're sons of God. We're sons of God, saved by His
grace. So having been recreated after
the image of God and having been made the righteousness of God
by the work of Christ for us, now he says to you and I, in
verse 32, Ephesians 4.32, he says, even as God for Christ's
sake has forgiven you, Ephesians 5.1, he says, be ye therefore
followers of God as dear children. Be imitators of God. Now, hearing
the gospel, that's what we're doing right now. And it's good
to hear the gospel. Because when we hear the gospel,
that's sitting at the table eating. That's what we're doing. We're
sitting at the table eating. And when you sit at the table
and eat, the food you eat, that food grows you. It strengthens
you. It nourishes you. And that's
needful. That's needful. We must come
hear the gospel priest. This is how God's pleased to
feed us. But imitating God, imitating God, following God, that's getting
up from the table and using the strength God's given you to put
it into practice. We don't just sit at the table
all the time, do we? At home and eat. We don't just sit there
all the time and eat every day. We'd be big as a house. We get
up, put to use what God's given us, how he's nourished us and
strengthened us. We put it to use. And that's what he's saying
here. That's what he said. Be followers of God. Now here's
the second thing. We're to be followers of God
as dear children. As dear children. This is so
important. As dear children. It's a privilege. It's a great
love of God toward us to make us children of God. That's an
amazing thing, brethren. Amazing thing. He says do this
as children chosen of God our Father. That's what it is. The
word dear means beloved. Loved before. love beforehand,
beloved children, dear children, particularly loved children,
children chosen of God before the foundation of the world.
That's why He said that in the first chapter. He's showing us
the great love, the great blessings God gave to us as children of
God before the foundation of the world. He blessed us with
all spiritual blessings that could be had according as He
chose us in Christ. Because there was no possibility,
having chosen us in Christ and having put this work in Christ's
hand, there's no possibility we won't receive every one of
those blessings. And they're all in Him. He's the treasure
house, the storehouse, the fountain of all blessings. And so He says,
as dear children chosen of God, adopted by God the Father into
His family, as dear children of our everlasting Father, of
Christ, the last Adam, who will be our Father forever, forever
lasting, forevermore, the last Adam, Christ. And as children
born of the Holy Spirit, a child's got to be born, doesn't he? As
children born of God, born of the Holy Spirit, born of incorruptible
seed. The Scripture says, as many as
received the hymn, to them gave he power to become sons of God. The word means privilege. He
gave them the privilege to become the sons of God. This is a great
privilege to be a son of God. You know, there's some people
whose children, these families you read about, you know, who
were great people in England or what have you and their children
and if they had their name and they walked around with that
name, they had a responsibility to live up to that name because
it was a great name. Brethren, we got a greater privilege
than anybody in the world. We carry the name of God our
Father, of Christ Jesus our Redeemer. This is a great, great, great
privilege and with a great privilege comes a great responsibility.
Because we were born not of blood, not of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man. We were born of God. Born of
God. You have God's Spirit dwelling
in you who know Him. We didn't do anything. We were
dead. We couldn't do anything. We were born not of blood, not
of the will of man, but of the will of God. Not of the will
of man, but of the will of God. We were born. And so He says,
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us
that we should be called the sons of God. The sons of God. That's why the world don't know
you, he said. Because it didn't know him. It didn't know our
Father. It don't know you. Now, when the precept says this,
dear children, the point I'm trying to get to you is it means
this is done from a spirit of grace and love, not of law. Not of law. That word, dear children,
means a lot. You children, do you do what
you do? in the house obeying your mother
and father simply because it's law. If it is, that's not love. That's not love. As soon as you
get out from under that law, you'll dishonor them and kick
up your heels and show that you hated them all along. But if
you love them, if you really love them, you'll honor them.
You'll honor them. Because you want to. You want
to. The child who most loves his
father and mother will seek most to honor his father and mother.
And in terms of grace and spiritual matters, you know who that's
going to be? You remember that woman with the alabaster box
of ointment? She came to the Lord, she had this box of ointment
that in our time, this would be equivalent to, some of you
fellows, it would be equivalent to your whole year's worth of
earnings. And she comes there with this
box of ointment and breaks that ointment open and pours it on
the Lord to anoint Him for burial so that He would smell good when
His Spirit left His body. And you know what Christ said
about her? He said, I say unto thee, her sins which are many,
He said her sins were many, they are many. And He said, and they're
forgiven. And he said, for, and what he
said is, because of that, because her sins are many, and all of
them have been forgiven, she loved much. She loved much. And he said, but to whom little
is forgiven, the same loveth little. You see, the more you're
forgiven, the greater you see yourself as a sinner, the greater
that you've been forgiven, the more you'll love your Redeemer,
and you'll seek to honor Him in your walk. That's what our
motivation is. But if we hadn't been forgiven
much, we didn't really need him all that much, well, we probably
hadn't been forgiven. And we won't love him much either.
I'm going to tell on myself. When I was down in Rocky Mount
last week, I went down to my father-in-law's house Sunday
night because he lives an hour closer to the airport. And I
spent the night with him. And I got up that morning and
took off to the airport. I thought my flight left at 7
and I thought I was close to the airport and I hit this next
little branch of the interstate and it said I had 25 more miles
to go. It was 6 o'clock and I thought my flight left at 7 and I had
to take the rental car back, get a shuttle and take the shuttle
over to the airport and all this stuff so I was, I stepped on
the gas and next thing I know I looked in my rear view mirror
and there was flashing lights and I got pulled over. and officer
walked up on the passenger side and I'm sure he figured it all
out by the time he walked up there because he saw I was driving
a rental and I was 25 miles from the airport. He walked up on
the passenger side and asked for my driver's license and I
gave it to him. He said, where are you going? I said, I'm going
to try to get to the airport. He said, what time is your flight?
I said, 7. He said, you got to take this rental car back? I
said, yep. He said, well, take off. He said, slow it down. And
told me what speed I was doing. It would have been a hefty ticket.
He said, slow it down, and I hope you make it. And I left. I drove away from there thinking,
mercy is a wonderful thing. Mercy is a wonderful thing. If he would have given me a ticket,
I would have drove away from there, justified myself, angry,
even though I was guilty. But he showed mercy on me. You
know what I did? I did a speed limit. And when
I got back to New Jersey, and I took off driving, I looked
down, and I was getting over the speed limit. I slowed down
to the speed limit. And I thought, I'm going to honor that man.
That's what mercy does. Mercy makes you want to honor
God. And the more mercy you've gotten, the more you want to
honor Him. Not as slaves, not as those whipped by the law and
compelled by law, as sons, as daughters, as dear children. Dear children. This will be natural
to a child that's born of God. Look at 1 John 3. Look at 1 John
3. Give verse 6. Whosoever abideth
in him sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen
him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive
you. Don't be fooled about this. He that does righteousness is
righteous, even as Christ is righteous. And he that commiteth
sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might
destroy the works of the devil. And whosoever is born of God
doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he
cannot sin because he is born of God. This means two things,
brethren. In that inner man that God has
created, there is no sin. It's created of God. And the
second meaning is this. Because you have a new man that's
born of God that does not sin, in which Christ abides, you cannot
just sin with a high hand and say, I'm going to live in this
sin and just rebel against God. It hurts you to do that. You
don't want it. You want to be freed from it
and you don't want it. You can't do it. He said because
that's what Christ came for to deliver us from. He saves us
not only from the from the laws penalty against us. He saves
us from the sin that's in us brethren. The sin is in us. Look
here. He says, Whosoever is born of
God does not commit sin, and sin remaineth in him. He cannot
sin because he is born of God. In this the children of God are
manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his
brother. He is saying to you, brethren, this is going to be
natural in a child of God. It's going to be a natural thing,
I shout to God. He's going to want to obey His Father, want
to obey Christ, and seek to live and walk after Christ. It'll
be a natural thing. And the man that's not bored
of Him, it'll be just as natural for him to say, he'll say things
like this, Well, I'm born of God, I'm saved by His grace,
so it don't matter how I live. I'm just going to go on and do
this like I want to. You just imagine that. Imagine if you
said, well, my mother and father provided everything for me, and
they paid for everything for me growing up, and they kept
me saved from poverty and all these things, and they paid for
my college, and they did all this for me all my life. So they
don't care if I just live like hell and dishonor their name.
Really? Really? You see how ignorant
that is? The child of God is going to
say, I want to honor him. I want to honor him. He may fail,
And he will. But his heart and his desire
and his growth is going to be more and more to desire. I want
to honor him. I want to honor him. And a father loves to see
his child imitating him, don't you? They get to a certain point
and you start watching and they're imitating you. You can see they're
doing what you're doing. Boy, that's convicting, isn't
it? It makes you want to make sure, I've got to be careful
what I'm teaching them. But don't you love that when you see your
children imitate you? And what do you do? It endears
that child to you and you want to help them. You want to do
everything you can for them and encourage them in that walk.
And that's what God does for His child. He does the same thing.
Here's the third thing. Here's the third thing. He gives
us the copy we are to follow. Look at verse 2. Ephesians 5,
2. He says, Walk in love as Christ
also hath loved us. and hath given himself for us
an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor."
Now we can't imitate God our Redeemer in everything about
Him. He's omniscient, He's omnipresent,
He's all-powerful, He's perfectly righteous, He's holy, He's just,
He's without sin. We can't imitate Him in that.
It's humbling for God to even say to you and me, us worms,
imitate God, follow God. That's humbling. Because we can't
do, we can't be as our father. But here's what he tells us to
imitate him in, love. Love. That's what he said, Christ
loved us and gave himself. Now to give yourself, for him
to give himself meant he gave his heart, that is his will,
to do the will of his father. Repeatedly, when he walked this
earth, he said, I came down from heaven not to do my own will,
but the will of Him that sent me. And the reason he was an
exact copy of the Father, the reason he could say, if you've
seen me, you've seen the Father, is because he was doing exactly
what the will of the Father was. That's what he was doing when
he walked this earth. And Christ recognized His true family as
being those who did His will, who do His will. You remember
when He was sitting there that day and He was preaching and
there was a crowd of folks in front of Him and He was preaching
the gospel to them. And His mother and His family,
some other members, came up on the outside. And the people came
to Him and they said, Your mother is on the outside. She desires
to talk to you. And He said, Who is my mother
and who is my brother? And he raised his arms to those
people that were gathered there listening to his gospel. That's
where they were. His physical, fleshly family,
they were out there. And he looked at these people
gathered around here in the gospel and he said, these are the ones
that are my brethren right here. These are the ones that are doing
the will of my Father. They're my brethren. And that's
who he recognized as his children. Remember the scripture, to obey
is better than sacrifice. Men will go out and do all these
wonderful works in the world and never come into God's house,
never open His book, never seek to worship Him, never seek to
honor Him, never rest in His righteousness alone and think
God's going to receive them. And they hadn't obeyed God. They
hadn't obeyed God. Yeah, they sacrificed a lot,
but they hadn't obeyed God. They haven't bowed and submitted
to Christ, the righteousness of God, and rested all their
hope in Him. They haven't done so. Those that
resign their will to God, they give to God everything because
they give themselves. And that's what the Lord means
when he says in Proverbs 23, 26, My son, give me thy heart. You've got to have a new heart
first. Because he don't want that old polluted corrupt thing
called our sin nature. But when he gives a new heart
and he makes us willing in the day of his power, he says to
us, give me your heart, give me yourself, give me your will,
give me your all. Resign yourself to my will. That's what he says. Let me ask
you something, parents. What would you do What would
you do if your child came to you and said, Mom, Dad, I'm resigning
my will to your will. I'm not going to do what I want
to do anymore. Whatever you want me to do, that's what I'm going
to do. I tell you, I know which one
will be your favorite. That's what He's saying here.
Resign your will to His will. Christ gave Himself. He gave
Himself. He says here, and walk in love. He loved us and He gave Himself
for us. He loved us and He gave Himself
for us. To walk in love is not merely
to talk about it, it's to exercise it. It's to do it and to do it
from a heart of love. That's what we're talking about
here. We ought to seek to advance in it too. You know how many
times Paul says that? Listen to this. Philippians 1.9,
This I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
and all judgment. That means grow. I want you to
grow in love. And the first Thessalonians 4
1. Furthermore, then we beseech you, brethren, exhort you by
the Lord Jesus that as you've received of us how you ought
to walk and to please God, so you would abound more and more. More and more. This is the same
man that said it's not of him that willeth nor of him that
runneth, but of God that shows mercy. He said, I pray you abound
in your walk more and more. He said, we beseech you, brethren,
that you increase more and more. You see, what he's saying is,
it's good for you to be innocent and be without blame. That's
good. The Scripture says, we're to be blameless, harmless, the
sons of God, and without rebuke. That's fine. That's good. But
God's more than that. God did more than that for us.
He came and gave Himself for us. And so he says here, following
him is following him to be more than to be just blameless before
him, to not be out sinning and carousing and with a high hand,
but it's to actually love one another too, to do it, to give
ourselves. Look here, he gave himself, verse
2 says, for us. Now this is important. This puts
a whole different shade on this thing, because who were we? We
were unlovable, we were unkind, we were hard-hearted, we hated
God, and we wouldn't do anything far toward God but spew out our
hatred toward God. But Christ loved us and gave
Himself for us. He came to where His elect are
and gave Himself for us. When we were enemies in our minds
by wicked works, we considered Him our enemy. Here's the point. Those that Christ has yet to
give life, Those who live in this world that Christ is yet
to give life, they're just like we were. They're in that same
state that we were in. They appear to be the biggest
haters of God. They appear to be, and they might
be your greatest persecutor. They might be causing you great
pain and injury, and yet be a child of God and not even know it.
Be redeemed by Christ's blood and not even know it yet. We
don't ever know. We don't ever know. That's why
he tells us this. Look at Luke 6. That's why he
tells us this. Look here, Luke 6. This is what
we were and this is what he did for us. So he says, now you do
this to others. Look at this, Luke 6, 31. As you would that men should
do to you, do you also to them likewise. For if you love them
which love you, what thank have you? Now you hear that? If you love them that love you,
big deal. Big deal. For sinners also love
those that love them. Unregenerate sinners, that's
who they love. Look at this. And if you do good to them which
do good to you, what thank have you? For sinners also do the
same. And if you lend to them of whom
you hope to receive, what thank have you? Sinners lend to sinners
to receive as much again. You see there, sinners lend to
others and they hope to get a little extra on the return. He says,
but love your enemies. and do good, and lend, hoping
for nothing again. Is that not what Christ did for
us? That's who we were. We were His enemies. And He loved
us anyway. And He gave. And He expected
nothing in return. And it says, and you shall be
the children of the highest. This is what He's teaching us.
He's teaching us how to be children of God. And He says, you do this,
you'll be the children of your Father. And he says, for he's
kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. That's who all his
elect are in our natural state. We're unthankful and we're evil.
Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful. Now
that was our case and that's what he did for us. See, I don't
want you to forget the context here. Remember, Paul's speaking
to the church at Ephesus. And what he's telling the church
at Ephesus is, is love each other, be kind to each other, be tender
hearted to each other, forgive each other in the church, so
that you can do the same towards your enemies outside by sending
this gospel to them. Because this is how God is going
to call out His people. He is going to send this word
to them. And so he is saying this has a purpose, brethren.
It is to be children of God as we serve our Father to promote
His gospel, to get this word to His people. It is a purpose.
Look at this now, back in our text, Ephesians 5, 2, it says,
Christ gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God. An offering and a sacrifice to
God. Christ offered himself up as
a propitiatory sacrifice to make satisfaction, to appease God. And He did it, brethren, to expiate
the sins of His people. He did it to make reconciliation
for the sins of His people. He went to that cross for a particular
people. He laid down His life for a particular
people. And He put away the sins of a
particular people. That meant... Now listen to me.
Here's the point of this, brethren. That meant Christ had to leave
where He was in His comfort and His ease and glory with the Father
and come to this cursed earth where we were, where everything
was uncomfortable and uneasy and persecution and hatred from
sinners like us. That meant Christ had to do for
us what we couldn't do for ourselves. Everything. That meant Christ
had to take our sins and bear our sins. That means Christ had
to bear the wrath and judgment of God for our sins. That means
He had to bear our shame. That means He had to bear our
death, brethren. But in that garden, when it got
time and His enemies were coming and the captors were coming to
capture Him and lead Him away to that cursed cross, you know
what He said? He said, but that the world may know that I love
the Father. Oh, I don't want to do anything
to make my work seem before me. And you don't want to do it for
that motive. No, you don't. But what did he say? That the
world might know that I love my father. And as the father has given me
commandment. There's a twofold purpose that the world might
know I love my father and because it's my father's will. He said,
Arise and let us go hence. So He tells us, brethren, what
does He tell us? He says, Bear one another's burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ, the law of love. This is how
you walk in love. Bear one another's burdens. Now,
that may mean we're going to have to go out of our way, just
like Christ did. It may mean we have to do for
others what they can't do for themselves. It may mean we have
to overlook their sins or bear them spewing out their hatred
against us. I have to bear that. It may mean
we have to bear shame. It may mean we have to die. But
regardless, it does mean this. We'll have to lose our life,
our ease, our comfort, and all the things that we enjoy. We haven't really served Him,
have we? I haven't done that. I look at my life and I think,
when have I ever served God? Left the things I love? Left
things that were dear to me to serve Him? You mothers and fathers do just
about everything you do for your children. Isn't that true? Almost everything you do, you
do it for your children. We all started out thinking,
you know, all these things we're going to do for ourselves. And
we started having a child. Didn't your priorities change
when you had a child? And then you had another one, and they
changed more. And they just keep on changing
until you realize this ain't about me anymore. It's about
them. And you do everything you do
for them. Well, you know, the child that loves his mother and
father is going to honor that. If you really love your mother
and father, you're going to honor that. Because your mother and father
are doing without for you. They're doing without for you.
Well, God our Father did this for His people. He gave His Son.
And His Son gave His life. And He's saying here, if you
love Me, this is what you're going to do. This is what you're
going to do. Isn't it true? It's true. Now look at this,
that which Christ did, that which Christ did, the end of verse
2, it was a sweet smelling savor. Christ is the burnt offering.
Remember the burnt offering we've been looking at in Leviticus?
It's the sweet smelling savor that goes up to God. Christ was
that offering, He was that sacrifice that answered all the demands
of God's justice for our sins, for the sins of His people. All
the demands of God's justice were satisfied. By one offering,
Christ put away our sins forever. By that one offering, He made
an end of our transgression. Isn't that amazing? All we see
is transgression in us and God says, it's ended. Your transgression
ended. When Christ died, it ended. It
ended. And He came and gave us life.
He perfected His people forever. You remember when God first made
you hear that news? Remember when you first heard
that? You all have experienced this recently. You've gone down
there to Danville and seen all these brethren down there. Didn't
that rejoice your heart? Didn't that make your heart full?
I remember the first time I ever went, I was down in Arkansas,
and we didn't have but about 15 or so in our congregation,
and none of my friends believed the gospel. None of them, they
believed, you know, free will, whoever does his best, you know,
be saved, and this and that. And I didn't think anybody else
believed the gospel. And I went and saw these 350 plus people
there that believed the gospel, and I thought, My heart was just
overflowing. And you know what I said? I said,
as soon as I went back home, I was about 19 or 20, and I said,
as soon as I can, I'm getting close to that. I'm going to get
close to brethren somehow, some way. I've got to be close to
my brethren. Well, do you know how many times
the Apostle Paul speaks of love in this epistle? Love, love,
love. Go through and read it. It's
love over and over. Love over and over. Talking about family
over and over. Talking about what Christ has done to make
us family over and over and over and over. Do you remember what
the Lord's word was to the church at Ephesus when He wrote the
letter in Revelation? Years and years later. Do you
know what the word was? Let me read it to you. Revelation
2.2. He says, I know thy works and thy labor. in thy patience,
and how thou canst not bear them which are evil. And thou hast
tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast
found them liars, and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my
name's sake you've labored, and hast not fainted." You see, they
did all that. But here was a problem. Here
was a problem. He said, nevertheless I have
somewhat against thee, thou hast left thy first love. That first
love you had, you know what the first love that was? You were
a little child. Remember that? When God called
you by His grace and revealed it to you, you were like a little
child. Lord, whatever you tell me to do, what would you have
me to do? A little child. And now he said,
you're still doing, you're doing all the things, you're walking
in love, you're doing all the, you're giving yourself, you're
laboring, you don't, you can't stand to be with those that claim
they're apostles and they're not. You're doing that, that's
fine. But he says, he's showing us, but you can do all that and
leave that first love. You cannot have that first love
while you're doing it. And so I have no doubt the Holy
Spirit was giving Paul the words he's given him in this epistle
all these years before this over and over and over speaking of
love because this was already a problem in that church. These
are the men that laid on him and hugged Paul when he said
I'm going to Jerusalem and were crying their eyes out begging
him please don't go to Jerusalem. The Lord said you've left that
love, that first love you had. And what does He say to us to
do? That my point is, brethren, walk in love. Give yourself. Bear one another's burden. It'll
be a sweet smelling savor to God. But this is how to be a
sweet smelling savor to God. If our purpose and our motive
in doing it is because we're little children in love with
our Father. We're little children in love
with Christ our Redeemer. That's when it's a sweet smell
and savor to God. And God says this, if you've
left that, Christ said if you've left that love, He says this,
He says, Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent
and do the first works. The first works are go back to
Christ. That's what you did first, didn't
it? You ran to Christ and fell at His feet. Go back and fall
at His feet. Fall in love with him again.
That's what he said. And repent from doing these things.
You know what he says? If you've taken your gift to
the altar and your brother has aught against you, leave your
gift at the altar and you go first to your brother, fall at
his feet and ask for forgiveness. That brother who has aught against
us, if we've left our first love, is Christ our Redeemer. He said,
so leave off walking in love. Go to him first. Go to him first. Give yourself to him first. Be
in love with Him first, and then do these things and walk in love.
You see, then it will come up to God in Christ, a sweet smelling
savoring to God. Otherwise, it just works. It
just works. Now then, so we're going to copy
him. This is what Paul said. He said,
I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which
is your reasonable service. Isn't it reasonable, considering
what he did for us? Be not conformed to this world.
You know, especially when you go to college and stuff, you
see people doing things and you just start doing it because everybody
else is doing it. Well, God's word is don't do
it. Don't do it because everybody else is doing it. Don't be conformed
to this world. Be transformed. Be metamorphosed
into His image by the renewing of your mind. that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Well,
if I do that, folks are going to get, they're going to find
fault with me and it's going to be, I'm not going to get along
with folks in this world so well. If they find fault with our,
with us, they're going to find fault with our copy. If we're
copying Him, if we're walking after Him and they find fault
with us, they're just finding fault with our copy. That's fine
with me. Ain't it you? I pray God will
give us the heart to do this, to really do this. This is true. This is true. Amen. All right, Brother Eric.