Be Imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1-14)

I learned quickly that we find out a lot about ourselves when we have children. They seem to pick up on every one of our quirks--good or bad. They are like little sponges that pay attention to the way we walk, the way we talk, and the way we interact with people.

As a young parent, I was still very rough around the edges. I had just begun growing in my faith and the process of sanctification was beginning anew. Needless to say, the way I spoke wasn’t always appropriate. Yet, since I was used to speaking this way, I didn’t notice it......until one day when I was driving with my three or four year old daughter. It was good hunting season and the geese were flying everywhere. I was always keeping an eye on them to find good hunting fields. As I drove home one day, with my sweet, innocent three or four year old daughter in the back seat, all of a sudden I heard her say, “Holy balls! Look at all those geese!” I remember swinging around and thinking, “Where did that come from?” Then, I clearly remembered saying those exact same words a couple days earlier. It was a caution for me to be more careful and intentional about the way I speak.

In the same way that our children model us and imitate us, Paul calls us to imitate our Father in Heaven. He has adopted us from our sinful lives and made us his children--made us part of His family. As his children, we are called to imitate Him and to model our lives after Him. Thankfully, He is a much better example than I was as a young father. Our Heavenly Father is perfect, lacking nothing, without any sin or darkness in Him. As we imitate Him, we are increasingly transformed into His likeness and made Holy.

Let’s take a look at our passage this morning: [Read Ephesians 5:1-14]

This passage has three sections in it. The first two verses are the command. Then, verses 3-7 give one reason for obeying that command. The final section, verses 8-14, give another reason for obeying that command. So, we have the command and then two reasons for obeying that command.

The command is very straight forward: “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1–2, NIV). The command is to be imitators of God as children. Since, God has adopted us into His family and has made us his children, we are called to imitate Him like we would any father. As we imitate our Father, we are to walk in love as Christ walked in love. So, we are called to imitate God the Father and God the Son and one of the characteristic ways we are supposed to imitate the Father and the Son is by living sacrificial lives of love.

Sounds easy right? All we are being commanded to do is imitate the most perfect being that exists. Go ahead and do that. Try to imitate God on your own, in your own strength. It won’t work. You cannot do it. You can try as hard as you want, but you will never be able to perfectly imitate God the Father, nor God the Son. You will always fall short. You will never measure up.

I remember telling this to one of the teenagers in my group and I remember the look on her face when I said it. It was complete shock and awe, disappointment. She had a look on her face like, “Well, that’s uplifting and encouraging.” She had been taught here whole life that she WAS good enough. Yet, scripture never says that. Scripture never says that we are good enough. Scripture never says that we are perfect just the way we are. THAT’S THE BEAUTY OF GRACE!

We are not good enough, but God has adopted us into his family anyway. It has nothing to do with how good we are. When we turn from our sin and look to Him in faith, he pulls us out of our sinful lives, cleanses all our sin, and makes us part of His family. Then, he calls us to imitate Him as beloved children, which we will never do perfectly either--yet God gives more grace. God’s grace and forgiveness walk with us from the beginning of our salvation until the end. That should be incredibly freeing! We will never be perfect, but God loves us, chose us, calls us, and perfects us anyway! As we pursue a life that is more like Christ--a life imitating God--we will fall short and make mistakes. We will stumble and fall. God gives more grace. He will pick us up, dust us off, and set our feet back on the path and say, “Keep on running.” We don’t have to run this race constantly afraid that we will stumble. We know we will stumble, but we also know that God will forgive and empower us to keep on running. That’s the freedom of the Gospel of Grace!

Paul moves into his first reason for being imitators of God. It’s a reason that makes us a little uncomfortable. He says that as we are imitating a HOLY and PURE God, there must not be any unholiness nor impurity among us. “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.” (Ephesians 5:3–4, NIV). Paul says, this is what it looks like to be imitators of God. As we live lives of self-sacrificial love, we will not pursue sexual immorality or impurity or greed or obscenity or foolish talking or coarse joking, because these things do to flow from self-sacrificial love. They flow from selfish ambition. They flow from our own desires and passions. They are all about ME ME ME.

Then Paul moves on to one of the reasons for not pursuing these things and for imitating God. This makes us squirm a bit. He says, “For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” (Ephesians 5:5, NIV). Let that sink in a bit. No immoral person will inherit the kingdom of God. No greedy person will inherit the kingdom of God. No impure person will inherit the kingdom of God. No idolater will inherit the kingdom of God. This is a strong warning. Paul is intentionally writing this to get people’s attention.

Now, I realize some of you may be saying, “Hold on! You just said that we will never be good enough, but God shows more grace. You just said that we are saved by grace through faith and this is not a work of our own. Doesn’t this contradict what you just said? Isn’t Paul contradicting himself?” The answer is: NO. I mentioned this last time I preached. When we turn to Christ in faith, we also turn from our sinful lives. We are either running toward Christ, or running toward sin and Satan. You can’t be running in two directions at once. Paul is intentionally causing people to examine their lives to determine which way they are running. Are you running toward Christ or are you running away from the kingdom toward sin and the wrath of God? Of course, we don’t run toward Christ perfectly. Of course, some who are running toward Christ struggle with sexual immorality, impurity, greed, foolish talk, and obscenity. But the key word in all of this is STRUGGLE. They are struggling against these sins. They are waging war against their sin as they run toward Christ. In this passage, Paul is looking at people saying, “If there is sexual immorality in your life, and you are NOT waging war against it, you are running away from the kingdom and toward the wrath of God! If there is impurity and greed in your life and you are NOT waging war against it, you are running away from the kingdom and toward the wrath of God! If you are aware of sin in your life and you are not waging war against it, you are running away from the kingdom and toward the wrath of God.” Paul’s call is for them to turn away from these sins, repent, wage war on them, and run toward Christ.

Sin is a very serious thing. “For the wages of sin is death...” (Romans 6:23, NIV). In our culture today, we don’t take sin very seriously. People will often talk about sin like it isn’t a big deal. It’s just a little dirt. It’s just a little stain. Yet, Paul says, “NO! Sin is death. Sin leads us away from the kingdom and toward the wrath of God!” Do not mess with sin in your life. Do not flirt with sin in your life. It will only lead to death and destruction. Then he says, “Let no-one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.” (Ephesians 5:6, NIV). Even in Paul’s day, he knew that people would try to downplay sin. So, he says, “Don’t be deceived. Don’t fall into their trap. It’s not just a little dirt or just a little stain. Sin is death and destruction. Run away from it and Run toward Christ. Be imitators of God where you will find LIFE.

The second reason he gives for being imitators of God is an analogy between darkness and light. “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8, NIV).  To live as children of light, is to live as children of the Father who IS light and in whom there is no darkness at all. To live as children of light is to be imitators of God. He says that we should live this way because we were once darkness and are now light because of the work of Jesus. Our lives have been transformed. We have a new identity. So, Paul says, live that way--live into the identity you’ve been given--be imitators of God.

He says, “and find out what pleases the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:10, NIV). Rather than constantly thinking about what pleases us, let us focus our minds on the Lord. What pleases Him? We do not fall into sexual immorality because we think it will please the Lord. We do not fall into greed because we took a moment to ask, “Will this please the Lord?” NO. We fall into all of these sins because we are focused on what will please us. We are not living lives of self-sacrificial love. We are not imitating God. Rather, Paul says, “Find out what pleases the Lord.” Just ask yourself the question as you live your life each day and make decisions. Will this decision please the Lord? Will this action please the Lord? It’s not always that easy. Some decisions/actions are difficult to know if they will please the Lord. We need to keep our hearts, minds, and souls saturated with God’s Word so that we can more fully understand what pleases God. We need to keep ourselves surrounded by Christian community, so that they can help us more fully understand what pleases God. We need to keep ourselves saturated with prayer, so that God can more fully open our eyes to what pleases Him. Then, in the power of the Spirit, we must step out in faith, trusting God that the best way to live is in a way that is pleasing to Him.

This is what it looks like to imitate God and to live as children of light. Like I mentioned in the beginning, we do not do this in our own strength--we need the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit--and we cannot do this perfectly--we will fall short and repeatedly need grace and forgiveness. However, the life of faith is one that means we are imitating our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. We are living as children of light in the midst of darkness. When we live this way, a couple things happen.

Paul says, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” (Ephesians 5:11, NIV). This is what light naturally does, it exposes darkness. When you walk into a dark room with a light, the light automatically overcomes the darkness and exposes what was hidden. As we live our lives in this world, walking as children of light, our lives will automatically expose the darkness around us. Our lives will automatically expose the futility of those living in darkness. That’s just what light does.

Back in Minnesota, hockey parents would typically use every weekend hockey tournament as an excuse to get drunk and stupid with the other parents. That’s just what they did. However, Rachel and I refused to participate in this activity. One tournament, we found ourselves--along with another Christian parent--with the entire hockey team in our room as the rest of the parents were drunk. We had a ton of fun with the kids. We found out later that the drunk parents had gotten into a bunch of fights and there was a ton of drama resulting from their drunken actions. The light of our refusal to enter into that activity, drew the futility of their actions out of the darkness and into the light. It became obvious to many of the hockey players and a number of the parents that what they were doing was foolish.

Paul even goes on to say that our light will transform the darkness into light. I think the ESV does a better job translating this part of the passage. It says, “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.” (Ephesians 5:13–14, ESV). Do you hear what he says? Light makes things visible and what becomes visible is light. Paul is talking about the transformative nature of our holy lives--the transformative nature of living lives of light in the midst of darkness. Not only does our light expose the darkness, but it transforms it.

I think that is an extremely important reminder of us today. I repeatedly have conversations with people who feel they need to become more like the world in order to share the Gospel with the world. They are afraid of being seen as judgemental and “holier than thou” and they are afraid that these stereotypes will hinder their efforts to share the gospel with the world. So, they try to dim their light in order to expose less of the darkness. They try to show the world how “cool” Christians can be--how much Christians are “just like them.” Yet, Paul says this will only HINDER our gospel proclamation. Dimming our light prevents things from being exposed and being transformed into light. Trying to be like the world will only leave the world wondering why they need Jesus. As we strive to live lives that imitate God the Father and God the Son--lives of self-sacrificial love--their light shines through us onto the world around us and brings transformation. That’s how we reach a fallen and lost world. In John’s Gospel he says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5, ESV). Finally, Jesus sends us out saying, “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16, NIV).