Ephesians chapter 5, and let's
read what will be our text for this Bible study, verses 1 and
2. 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 savor." Don't turn, but in the first
chapter of this letter, the Apostle Paul said that all of God's people
were chosen and predestinated. All of them were selected, chosen,
and predestinated to be adopted into the family of God. If our minds could get a hold
of that, all of God's people were hand-selected and predestinated. Nothing with God is by chance.
He's not surprised by anybody who ends up in his family. Every
soul was hand-selected and predestinated to be adopted. Adopted into the
family of God. And the Apostle Paul said that
adoption took place in, by and through the person and the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said that we were adopted
in the Beloved. It was by Jesus Christ through
His blood. That's how it happened. The Apostle
Paul told the Romans, he said to the Romans, that the Spirit
itself, the Spirit of God, bears witness to our spirit. The Spirit of God tells us And
He does. He tells us. He speaks to us. He speaks to our heart. And He
tells us that we are the children of God, having been made to be
joint heirs with Christ. Get a hold of that. Joint heirs
with Christ. He said, we've received the Spirit
of Adoption. He said that in Romans 8. The Spirit of Adoption. And the
Apostle Paul told the Galatians that that Spirit is the Spirit
of Christ Himself. When we talk about the Spirit
of God, it's the Spirit of Christ Himself in our hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. Christ in us. And he goes a little
further right here to say to the Ephesians in chapter 5 verse
1, not only are we adopted children, he said we're dear children. Dear children. Verse 1, He said,
Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. Dear children. The word dear
means loved. It means well loved. Be ye therefore followers of
God as well loved children. The word actually translates,
and this is glorious, This is glorious. The word translates
favorite. Favorite. Favorite children.
Be ye followers of God as favorite children. Let me show you something
in John 17. John 17, our Lord said in verse 20, Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word. He's referring to all of His
people. He's saying all of My people
out of every generation, tribe, kindred, tongue, nation, all
of My people. Verse 21, that they all may be
one as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also
may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent
me, and the glory which thou gavest me I have given them,
that they may be one even as we are one. I in them, and thou
in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the
world may know that thou hast sent me, and watch this part
right here, and hast loved them, and the word I want to emphasize
is as. and has loved them as Thou hast
loved me." Is that not precious? Is that not wonderful? As Thou
hast loved me. The very love and affection and
desire that the Father has for Christ That is the very same love and
affection and desire that the Father has for every adopted
child in Christ. What is the Father's love for
Christ? What does the Father say concerning Christ His Son? He said, He's my favorite. He's my favorite. He is my well-beloved. Well-beloved. Well, as He is
to the Father, in Him, so are we. Dearly, dearly, dearly beloved
children. Well-loved, favorite children. So Paul said back in our text,
if you go with me back to Ephesians 5, verse 1, Be ye therefore followers of
God as dear children. The word followers means imitators. Imitators. Be ye therefore imitators
of God as dear children. That's what children usually
do. Whether they want to or not, that's what children usually
do. They imitate their parents. They look to their parents. They
follow, they learn from their parents. They desire to be like
their parents. Well, in order for us to be imitators
of God, what did the Apostle Paul tell us to do? Verse 2,
he said, walk in love. Be ye therefore followers of
God as dear children, and walk in love. The word walk means
live. Live in love. That's what a child
of God wants to do. That is exactly what a child
of God wants to do. That's the desire of the new
heart that has been given to the child of God. That's the
heart of Christ in the child of the Father. Look with me at
a few scriptures here. Go to Matthew 22. Matthew 22, verse 36. Master, which is the great commandment
in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets." That is the great desire of every
child of God. That's the desire. The brand
new heart of Christ wants to love God and love the brethren. And that's
just the truth. A child of God, he wants to do
two things. He wants to love the true and living God. And
he wants to love his brethren. Turn over to John 13. John 13
verse 31. Therefore, when He was gone out,
Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified
in Him. And He's talking about the cross.
He's telling them, I'm headed to the cross. It's time. The time has come. He said in
verse 32, If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify
Him in Himself. and shall straightway glorify
him. Little children, yet a little
while I'm with you. You shall seek me, and as I said
unto the Jews, whither I go, you cannot come. So now I say
to you, a new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. that you love one another. He
said, this is, I'm going, and this is the commandment I'm giving
to you, that you love one another. He said, as I have loved you,
that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that
you're my disciples, if you have love one to another. What he just said was, I'm going
to take care of everything. I'm about to go take care of
everything. I love hearing that. Don't you love it when you have
a problem and somebody says, I'll take care of it. Yeah, but,
but, I'll take care of it. I got it. I'll take care of it.
Okay. Especially if you can trust them.
If they've proven to you that you can trust them. And that's
what he said, I'm about to go take care of everything. I'm
going to take care of everything. And where I'm going right now,
you can't come with me. He knew they did not understand
and he said, you can't come with me. I must accomplish this alone. We were in him, we were with
him, in him, but he accomplished this alone. He, by himself, purged
our sins. And he said, you're going to
have to wait for my return. And until that time comes, love
each other. Love each other. Turn with me
to 1 John chapter 3. 1 John 3 verse 23 says, And this is His
commandment, Scripture talks about, we read
Scriptures and they say, whoever does the commandment of the Father,
you do my commandments. What are His commandments? It
says right here, this is His commandment. That we should believe
on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another
as He gave us commandment. And He that keepeth His commandments
dwelleth in Him, and He in Him, And hereby we know that he abideth
in us by the Spirit which he hath given us." He said, that's
how you'll know a follower of God. That's how you're going
to know. He will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He'll believe
on Christ and he will have love in his heart. Love for the true
and living God. The true God of heaven. and love
for God's people. Now, what motivates that? What
motivates a child of God to do that, this imitation? He said,
Be ye therefore imitators of God. What motivates a child of
God to be an imitator? Is it so we can secure our salvation,
put that final stamp of security on salvation? I'm almost there,
I don't want to mess it up. I better not mess it up. Is it so we can increase our
holiness before God? Now, yeah, He saved us, but we
now have to grow in holiness before Him. Is that the reason? Is this imitation so God will
be more pleased with us? In order for God to be more pleased,
we're going to have to... Is that the reason? The answer
is no to all of them. No to all of them. It's all because
of Christ. It's all for Christ's sake. Look
with me back at Ephesians 5. Verse 1 says, Be ye therefore. When you see the word therefore,
it means this was written because of what was just written before
it. Be ye therefore, chapter 4 verse 32 says, and be ye kind
one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as
God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Our motivation for every
exhortation from God is for Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. We desire
to be followers of God as dear children and walk in love for
Christ's sake. All because of what Christ did
for us. What did He do for us? Verse 2, chapter 5, verse 2. It says, 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 savor. Our Lord Jesus Christ saw us
in our sin. He saw us in our sin. Saw us
completely as we were by nature. He saw what was required to pay
our debt. He saw the hopeless condition
and what it would take to redeem us. He saw that we couldn't pay
it. No possible way to pay it. But
the scripture says, our time was a time of love. It was a
time of love. He loved us. He loved us. He came to us where we were. He relieved us of all of the
sin, all of His people, all of that sin that they accumulated. It doesn't fall off. Well, that's past sin. No, no,
no. It accumulates. And He relieved us of every bit
of it by making Himself to God and offering in a sacrifice for
sin. And when God the Father smelled
the incense, you know they had those sacrifices back in the
Old Testament and they offered the incense to God, the burning
of the sacrifice. When God smelled that, it was
a sweet, sweet smelling savor. God the Father smelled it. All of heaven smelled it. And
all of God's people smell it. All of God's people here on this
earth smell the sweet savor of the sacrifice of Christ. When
God smelled it, He said, that's it, I'm satisfied. They're redeemed. They're reinstated. They are
paid for. They're accepted. He loved us
and He gave Himself for us. I'm almost finished, but go with
me to John 15. John 15 verse 13 says, Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You love your friends. You love
your friends. He said in verse 12, this is
my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. How did He love us? He laid down
His life for His friends. He laid down His life for His
friends. What kind of friends were they to Him? Who exactly is He calling His
friend? Go over to Romans 5. Romans 5 verse 6, For when we,
you and I, were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. The ungodly. Don't you ever see
people and think that they're just ungodly? Well, that was
us. Verse 7 says, For scarcely for
a righteous man will one die. Yet peradventure for a good man
some would even dare to die, but God commended His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The Lord Jesus Christ took a
bunch of ungodly, unworthy, rebellious sinners against Him. And he made
them his friends. He called them his friends. He
said, you're my friend. As they stood there with their
fist in his face, he said, you're my friend. Look at Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10 verse 9 says, Then
said He, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the
first that He may establish the second, by the which will we
are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. And every priest standeth daily
ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can
never take away sins, But this man, after he had offered one
sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God,
from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool."
He offered himself expecting, and in result, what was it? His enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering He hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified." He made His enemies His friends. Hebrews 2, you can look or listen. Hebrews 2 verse 9 says, But we see Jesus, who was made
a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honor. that He, by the grace of God,
should taste death for every man. For it became Him for whom
are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many
sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect
through sufferings. For both He that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one, for the which cause
He is not ashamed to call them brethren." In verse 6, He said,
What is man that thou art mindful of him? What is man that you
would be mindful of him and do this for him? Not ashamed to
call them brethren. Because of that, they're not
ashamed to call Him Lord. They all now have one desire,
and that's to gather around His feet and hear Him, worship Him. For that reason, for Christ's
sake, because of everything he did for us. Don't turn back,
but our text says, 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
savor. Walk in love Because the sacrifice
of Christ is such a sweet smelling savor. We just said God the Father
smelled it. All of heaven smells it. All of God's people on this earth
smell it. They smell it right now. Every
child of God smells it right now. Now, what does it smell
like? What does it smell like? We'll
close with this. Go with me to Genesis 8. Genesis 8, if you have a center
margin in your Bible, you can read this definition with me.
If not, I'll read it to you. Genesis 8, verse 20, it says,
And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean
beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on
the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet
savor. You see the center margin for
that? A savor of rest. A savor of rest. That's what
the sacrifice of Christ smells like. It smells like rest. God
the Father smelled that rest. All of heaven smells that rest. Every child of God here on this
earth smells rest, smells it's finished. It's finished. It's finished. God is appeased. That's sweet. I was driving home
and I went past, I'm pretty sure it was a false house of worship. One of those little towns coming
back home. On their sign, it said, there's
not much sweet in the Bible. It's mostly salt. That's what
they had on their sign, I thought. I don't get that at all. Oh, it's sweet. David said, it's
so sweet. It's sweeter than honey to my
mouth. This is the sweetest thing I've
ever tasted in my life. If a sinner truly ever smells
the savor of Christ, if God opens the nose, we're always talking
about opening the eyes, opening the ears, opening the heart.
If God ever opens a nose, oh man, a sinner will walk in
love. He will. He'll follow Christ,
he'll want to imitate everything about Him. Because the sweetness
is just too much. It's too much. He just wants
to be like him. One day, we're going to be just
like him. Can't wait. All right, you're dismissed.