Well, good morning to everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter
five. We continue our study in the
book of Ephesians beginning in chapter five this morning. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord and seek his blessing. Our Father, we bow before you
this morning, grateful and thankful hearts. How thankful we are that
out of your goodness and mercy and grace to your people, that
you've given us another opportunity to meet together, to open and
read and study your word, to seek our Lord Jesus Christ in
your word. Father, I pray that you would
bless us in our attempts to worship this morning, that you would
be pleased to meet with us in the person of your spirit and,
Father, enable us to worship. Take your word as it's preached
and apply your word to the hearts of your people. Give each one
of us here this morning that awesome gift of faith that we
might hear and believe on our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we
pray that you'd be with us in this class this morning, in our
children's classes, wherever your word might be being preached
this morning, Father. Bless it for your great namesake.
And bless it, Father, for our sake. The world in which we live is
such a dark, dark place. Father, we beg of you that you
cause the light of your glory to shine forth in the land by
the preaching of Christ our Savior. And Father, we pray a special
blessing for those who are in times of great trial, difficulty,
and sorrow. We pray a special blessing for
the family of our brother Cecil, Father, that you'd comfort their
hearts with your presence. All these things we ask and we
give thanks in that name which is above every name. It's the
precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For his sake and his
glory we pray, amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
Be an Imitator of God. Paul says in verse one of chapter
five, be ye therefore followers of God as dear children and walk
in love as Christ also has loved us and has given himself for
us in offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.
Paul says be a follower of God and that word follower means
imitator, be an imitator of God. And you notice he says therefore,
which that applies to the verse that is previous to that, since
God has, for Christ's sake, forgiven you of your sin, since Christ
has suffered and died to put your sin away, be an imitator
of God. Now that might sound strange
to some folks. There's obvious characteristics
of God we cannot imitate. We could never imitate God's
power, could we? God's omnipresence. I do good
to be in one place at one time, much less being everywhere at
the same time. We can't imitate that. We can't imitate God's
wisdom. How I pray for wisdom every day. Todd and I were talking about
it yesterday. I told him, you could write a great big book
about the stuff I don't understand. I pray for wisdom. We can't imitate
God's wisdom. We can't imitate God's immutability. I change from second to second,
you know. We can't imitate God's eternality. We're still just
a vapor. That's all we are. But I'll tell
you what we can do. We can imitate God's love. Now we can't imitate it perfectly,
but just because you can't imitate it perfectly, don't let that
stop you from trying. Don't let that stop you from
imitating God's love. I know we can't love sinners
like God loves them. We can't love our enemies like
God. loves his enemies. Christ loved
those who sinned against him, who were his enemies so much
that he suffered and died for them. Now this flesh finds that
impossible, doesn't it? But we can still make the effort.
We can make the effort to love our enemies and to pray for our
enemies as our Lord commanded us to do. And we can imitate
Christ's love to us by imitating that love and showing that love,
demonstrating that love to other people. especially to our brethren. And our text this morning gives
us two very good reasons to imitate Christ's love for us. Number
one is this, imitate Christ's love because of what Christ has
done for you. Paul tells us in verse two, 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 Savior.
Now the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself. Himself. He gave all that he is. He gave
body and soul to redeem his people from their sin. He gave his body,
didn't he? He gave his cheek to the smiters. He gave his back
to those that would beat him. He gave his body and he gave
his soul. He made his soul an offering
for sin. He gave himself. to save his
people from their sin. And I tell you why he did it.
It's for love's sake. Love always gives. You just can't
hold back something from someone that you love, can you? And we
can imitate Christ's love by giving, by giving to others,
giving of our time, giving of our care, giving to help God's
people, giving to support the ministry, so that the word of
the gospel might be preached. We can imitate Christ's love
by giving, because we love Christ, and because he first loved us.
You know, the sacrifice of Christ demonstrated his love, his love
for his people. Now Paul says, walk in love,
as Christ has loved you. Now the word loved, Paul uses
here, is different than the word love. The word love, he uses
walking in love. That's instruction to us. That's
talking about our love. That word love means love toward
God. And it means a brotherly love.
But the word loved is a different word. As Christ also hath loved
us, that word loved means to delight in. It means to prize. It means to exhibit goodwill.
You know why a believer walks in love toward God? Why we would
have any desire to walk in brotherly love? It's because God first
loved us. It's because God, this is amazing
capacity that God has to love sinners. He delighted in his
people. He prized his people. He calls
them my jewels. He prized those people so much
that he exhibited goodwill toward them. And you know how he exhibited
goodwill toward his people? By sending his son to be the
sacrifice for their sin. He did that so that the people
that he loved, the people that he prized, would be saved from
their sin. Look at 1 John chapter four.
If we ever get any taste of or sense of that love, that will
make us walk in love, in love toward God and make us walk in
brotherly love. Here's the love I'm talking about,
1 John 4 verse 9. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten son
into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love,
not that we love God, but that he loved us, and sent his son
to be the propitiation for our sin. Now, beloved, if God so
loved us, we ought also to love one another. This walking in
love toward God and brotherly love, that's verse 11, isn't
it? Well, verse 11 is the result of verses nine and 10, isn't
it? That God loved, he prized his people and demonstrated that
love by sacrificing his son for the sin of his people. Now, when it came time to redeem
God's people from their sin, The Lord Jesus Christ gave the
most precious gift that's ever been given. He gave himself. This amazes me every time I think
about it. I studied this this week and
it's just so amazing. He gave himself to be sacrificed
for the sin of his people. because he loved them. They're
an unlovable, vile, guilty people, yet he loved them so much, he
gave himself for them. And this giving of himself is
so encompassing. He gave himself, first of all,
to be made flesh, didn't he? And dwell among us. How he humbled
himself to be made flesh and dwell among us. Then he gave
himself to be made sin. He gave his holy self to be made
sin for his people. He gave himself, he took the
sin of his people into his own body on the tree. And boy, he
paid a price for doing it. He knew what he was doing. He
knew the price that he would pay, and he willingly took the
sin of his people into his own body on the tree when Christ
was made sin for his people. He had to be sacrificed for that
sin. God's justice demanded it. He
had to suffer and die for that sin, to put that sin away by
his own precious blood. He had to give himself. He had
to shed his life's blood to wash his people white as snow. Because
the only way they could be washed white as snow is in his blood,
the blood of his sacrifice. And that sacrifice, the sacrifice
of God's son, was accepted by his father. Paul calls it, in
our text, a sweet-smelling savor. Now, the awful, bloody torture
and sacrifice of Christ, it is more horrible than we can
really think of. But in his dying age, it's just
so horrible. Scripture says his visage was
marred more than any other man. it would just be hard to look
at, just physically hard to look at, much less if you, if we had
any glimpse of what was happening when he made a soul and offering
for sin. His scripture says that awful
bloody sacrifice was a sweet smell to the father, a sweet
smell. Now that's a statement. And I'll
tell you why that sacrifice was a sweet smell to the father.
Because the Father is holy. And the sacrifice of Christ satisfied
God's holy justice. There must be death for sin.
Now there's all kinds of sacrifices for sin in the Old Testament,
weren't there? Animal sacrifices, sacrifices that were offered
as pictures of Christ, but none of those were a sweet smell to
God. But the blood of Christ, that was a sweet smell to the
Father. because the blood of Christ atoned
for sin, put away the sin that offends God's holiness. That's
why Isaiah wrote, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. It pleased
the Father to bruise his son. It pleased the Lord's justice
to bruise him. It pleased the Lord's justice,
it pleased his holy character, the very nature of God was pleased
by bruising his son as a sacrifice for the sin of his people. It
pleased the Father's justice But you know what else it pleased?
The sacrifice of Christ. It pleased the Lord's mercy.
It pleased the Lord's grace to bruise him. When Christ made
himself a sacrifice for sin, he put away the sin of his people
and made it right for God to show mercy and grace to his people.
The sacrifice of Christ pleased God's mercy and God's grace.
You see, God, since he's holy, since he's just, he can only
be merciful injustice. And that can only happen by the
sacrifice of Christ. His suffering, his death satisfied
the father, enabled him to be just and still justify sinners
like you and me. Now, if Christ suffered like
that for you, if he suffered for your sin, he suffered like
that because he loves you. I'm telling you, your heart will
be moved. Salvation is a whole lot more
than emotion, but there's emotion. There's emotion to it. If Christ
sacrificed himself like that for you, your heart will be moved
in love. In love for God, and it will
be moved in love for your brethren. You just won't be able to ignore
them. You won't be able to keep yourself separated from them.
because the sacrifice of Christ moves your heart in love. To
love people in general, certainly, but especially your brothers,
especially those of the household of God, it'll move your heart
to be knit together with them. You know, Christ loved his people
so much that he gave himself for them for this reason, that
his people might be brought to God. Christ sacrificed himself for
you because he loves you because he came for you on purpose to
suffer and die for you. You love him. And how did he
tell you of his love for you? It's by the preaching of the
gospel. It's by the preaching of Christ. That's how you found
out about all this. God let you in on it by the preaching of
the gospel. Well, you love God. You love Christ, you love your
brethren and you love the gospel. Well, this is one of the big
reasons is Christ sacrificed himself that he might bring us
to God. This is one of the big reasons that we want to support
the gospel and to help other people. It is our heart's desire
that the lost hear of Christ and that they hear of Christ
and they be brought to the father. You know, some of the lost are
our loved ones. They're our children, they're
our relatives, they're our loved ones, people that we know and
been around a long time. We love them. They're people
in our community. Maybe there's people in the community,
you know, I mean, I don't know, but I live in this community. I care about this community.
I want people in this community to hear of Christ. You know,
God hasn't given us this gospel. that we can, you know, sit on
it and hide out here, you know, just waiting for the Lord to
return. Like we're hiding, you know, from the Nazis or something,
you know, we're just trying. No, we want the gospel of Christ
to be spread. We want people to hear of Christ. And the reason is we love him. Because he first loved us, that's
why. You know, it is the love of Christ.
The gift center is a good hope. through grace because it's the
love that Christ had for his people that moved himself to
sacrifice himself for them. And I'm telling you, hearing
of that sacrifice, now that reaches the heart, doesn't it? It reaches
the heart to move us in love for our brethren, love for people,
to put our shoulders to this thing together. And boy, it also
comforts the hearts of believers, doesn't it? To be reminded that
the Son of God loved you so much, he sacrificed himself for you. Good chance, either right now
or very soon, you're gonna find yourself in a dark, dark place.
You know what will comfort you at that time? Being reminded
Christ sacrificed for you because he loves you. That'll comfort
your heart. And we can imitate that love.
This is what Paul's telling us now. Imitate that love by comforting
the hearts of your brethren. Find a way. Just find a way. Find a way to comfort the hearts
of your brethren. People find a way to do what
it is that they want to do. Now they do. Then find a way
to comfort your brethren. Go spend some time with them. Take them out to lunch. Call
them. Send them a card. Send them a text. Maybe people
don't send cards anymore. Send them a text. If they're
in need, give them what they need. Whether it's bodily, whether
it's emotionally, or whether it's spiritually. Give them what
they need. And do it because you love them.
Do it because you're imitating Christ's love for you. And if
you've got to sacrifice some of your time and some of your
comfort and some of your effort to do it, do it. That's what
Paul's talking about here. Be an imitator of God's love
for you. And this is not just a one-time
thing. Paul says walk in it. Walk in love. And that word means
be occupied with it. Make it your occupation. be an
imitator of Christ, to walk in love, showing other people that
you love them. That's being an imitator of God's
love, and we do it, why? Because of what he's done for
us. That's mighty good motivation, mighty good. But here's the second
reason. Being an imitator of Christ's
love, because you are a child of God. You already are. Paul says, verse one, be ye therefore
followers of God as dear children, as dear children. Be an imitator
of God because you're a dear child of God. And that phrase,
dear children, means a beloved child, a beloved child. Be a beloved child of God. I'm very thankful I know something
about having a beloved child. I got two of them. Beloved. Oh, how they're beloved. And
this I can tell you about a beloved child. They're not rebelling
against their parents. A beloved child is doing what
his parents have taught him to do. That's a beloved child. Well, how does a person get to
be a child of God? Well, first of all, because God
chose them and because God adopted them by his will, by his purpose,
by his grace, he adopted them into his family. They're born
sons of Adam and he adopted them into his family. God did. Now
you think about that statement. Almighty God adopted the likes
of you and me into his family, into the family of God. Let that roll around in your
mind and your heart for a minute. That ought to make us so filled
with love and thanksgiving that that would make me want to do
anything I can to imitate that love because he's made me his
child. Oh, I want to imitate his love.
And second, Here's how you become a child of God. Our heavenly
father birthed us into his family. He both adopted us and birthed
us into his family. But in order to birth a sinner
into the family of God, the father first had to take care of their
sin. We can't be in the family of God like we are, son of Adam,
daughter of Adam. Our sins got to be put away.
And the only way, like we've just been looking at, the only
way that can happen is by the sacrifice of God's only begotten
son. The suffering that our Savior
endured at Calvary is unimaginable. And the Father is the one causing
him all that suffering. But he did that so the sin of
his people, the people that he loved, could be put away. And
after our sins put away, after this matter of sins taken care
of, now the Holy Spirit come and cause us to be born again,
born again into the family of God. born again with the nature
of our Heavenly Father in the new birth. God the Father sacrificed
God the Son so that he could birth the likes of you and me
in his family. Now again, just let that roll
around in your mind and your heart for a minute. God did all that to birth the
likes of us into his family. Don't you reckon that ought to
draw a response from us? If it doesn't draw a response
from us, I'm pretty certain we haven't been born again. We're
certainly not given any evidence of it. Hereby shall all men know
that you're my disciples. that you have love one to another. Almighty God birthed his people
into his family. Now love and gratitude and awe
ought to make us want to do anything we can to imitate his love. And here's a big key now. I want
you to hear what I'm saying. Imitate Christ's love for you.
because you are a child. Because you are. Not because
you're trying to do something so that you'll please God, he'll
make you one of his children. No, you imitate your father. Be an imitator of God because
you already are his child. See that? Your children almost
always act like their parents. Almost always. Even if they don't
want to, they tend to, it's very rare if they don't, imitate their
parents. You know why? They got their
nature. They got their nature. So they
almost always imitate their parents. Well, child of God, listen to
me now. This is important. Paul took the time to write this
in this great epistle. Imitate your father, which is
in heaven. because he's already given you
his nature. In the new birth, he's given
you his nature. Now act on it. Imitate him. The father has made
you a partaker of the divine nature. He's given you his nature. Now walk in it. Act in it. Look
over at 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1 verse 14. As obedient children, not fashioning
yourselves according to the former lust in your ignorance, as obedient
children, as one of these beloved children that Paul's talking
about, as a beloved child. But as he which hath called you
is holy, so be ye holy. in all manner of conversation
because it's written, be ye holy for I am holy. Now Peter's saying
the same thing Paul's saying. This is very, very important
for us to get. Peter doesn't say be holy, act holy so that
you can make yourself holy. He doesn't say do something so
that you can be holy. He says be holy because you are.
See that? Be holy because you are a child
of God. Be holy because you have a holy
nature. that's been given to you in the
new birth. And since you have that nature,
now be an imitator of your father, which is in heaven, and show
that love, walk in that love, in love for God, and walk in,
be occupied with loving your brother. Be occupied in it. Put some effort. Everybody either
has a job or has had a job. We were talking about having
a work ethic yesterday. You got an occupation. Boy, you
gotta put effort into it, don't you, Sean? You gotta put effort
into it. This is the believer's occupation. Walk in love. And I wish I could tell you it
was an easy occupation. Sometimes we're not lovable. If I don't act lovable, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But be occupied
in walking in love and try to get past it. You see what I'm
saying? Be occupied in it. John says
that in first John chapter four. First John chapter four. Verse seven. Beloved, let us
love one another. For love is of God and everyone
that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. If you've been born
again, you know God, now act on it. He that loveth not, he
does not walk in this love, does not seek to show this love, doesn't
know God. For God is love. And that's how
serious this thing is. Look at verse 16. And we have
known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love. And he that dwelleth in love,
dwelleth in God, and God in him. Now, if God dwells in you, God
is love. If he dwells in you, if he's
put your nature in you, show it. Show it by walking in love. Showing your love, your care,
your concern, your deep affection for the people here. You know,
children imitate their parents, first of all, because they got
their parents' nature. Second of all, children imitate
their parents because of what they see their parents do. And
I'll give you a good example of this. When Becky and I were
little, I mean little enough as before Jonathan was born,
at a certain time, now we couldn't just do it anytime we wanted
on a Saturday morning, but at a certain time, Mom would let
us go in and jump in bed with Dad. And we'd wake him up. And
we'd wake on Saturday morning. We'd wake him up, and he'd lay
there and talk to us. And it was just such a great
time. And we'd go in there and do that.
And I noticed this every Saturday morning. We'd wake Dad up. He'd lay there, and maybe he'd
sit up. And he'd just scratch his head all over every Saturday
morning. I finally asked him, I said,
Dad, why do you do that? And he said, I don't know. He
said, I didn't even know I did it. He said, I guess to wake
my scalp up. Maybe I was seven, eight years
old. Guess what Frankie started doing every morning? And guess
what I do to this day? First thing I get up in the morning.
Now it's just habit. Now I just do it. Wake my scalp
up. Feels good. But you know why
I started doing it? I was imitating my dad. My dad was my hero. And I'm a mighty poor imitation.
But that don't stop me from trying. That don't stop me from imitating.
That's what Paul's telling God's dear children. Imitate your father. You see what he's doing. You
see what he's done for you. Now imitate it. He's forgiven
you, you be forgiven. He's loved you, you be loving. He went out of his way to find
you a lost sheep and put you on his shoulder and bring you
back to the fold. You go out of your way to find
your brothers and sisters and help them. Oh, the Lord's been
patient. Hadn't he been patient? Be patient
with others. You've seen the Lord be kind
to his enemies. Seek to be kind to your enemies.
You know the Lord makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust. He's kind, isn't he? Seek to
be kind. Be giving. What do you have the
Lord didn't give you? Not one blessed thing. You've
seen the Lord be giving. Then you be giving. The Lord
giving you, hand over fist, every person here can say it with David,
my cup runneth over. You've seen your father be generous,
now be generous. Be a follower of God as dear
children by imitating his love for us. I hope that'll be a blessing
to you.