The Next Best Thing
Eight Secrets to Imitating Christ Pt 6
Ephesians 5
A couple of weeks ago we began this series looking at Paul’s challenge to the church to be Imitators of Christ. The question that we posed last week and will continue to pose during this series is “Are you the next best thing to Jesus in the lives of those around you?” Paul shares eight secrets to imitating Christ in this passage - practical stuff to help us look like Him.
V.15 - Be careful how you walk
V.16 - Redeem your time
V.17 - Make it your purpose to understand the will of God
V.18 - Be careful what touches your heart
V.19 - Let worship become your lifestyle
V.20 - Develop a habit of thankfulness
V.21 - Find Humility in Life
Today I want to continue with verse 22 - 6:9
1) Secret #8 - Our Imitation Starts at Home - (v.22-69) - In this passage Paul spends three times as much time talking about this secret as he does on all the others combined. Why do you suppose Paul spends 21 verses in a discussion on how we imitate Christ in our homes and only 7 verses on how we do so outside the home? I think there are several reasons but here are just a few.
• Home is where life gets real - you see when you’re here and even when you’re at work it’s easy to put on the act. John Eldridge calls this posing. The reality is that most of what you see in people is a disguise. It’s an elaborate charade developed to hide who we really are and what we are really feeling. We wear the masks of contentment, happy faces, and confident self-assurance when inside we often really don’t know what to do next. Eldridge describes the church masks - Pg 55 Wild at Heart. - While we can be posers at church and at work - life gets real when we get home. It amazes me how many Christians live double lives - they are super Christian within church circles but at home they live lives that are abusive, broken, and destructive. You see posers are one thing when people are watching - another when they are in the relative seclusion of home.
• Home is where life gets real hard - Relationships are the hardest thing we do as human beings. It’s been like this from the beginning. From the moment sin entered the world relationships have been hard. Adam gets caught in his sin - and what’s the first thing he does? He blames Eve. “The woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate.” Men and women have been blaming each other for their problems ever since. Adam and Eve had children - wonderful children yet Cain killed Able because he was jealous of His relationship with God. Chapter after chapter of history is written in the conflict and blood of those who simply could not get along. Home is where life gets really hard - we are together everyday all the time. We try to blend different views, desires, needs, and visions into a unified whole - while each still has the desire to bend the other to his own will. Home is where life gets raw - no holds barred, no acting, no posing, no charades - home is where we become who we really are. For some of you that may be scary - for others reassuring but folks who you are when you go home today is really who you are.
So what does Paul tell us to help us be imitators of God in our homes? Well let’s look at it together.
It starts where we left off last week - Mutual submission - You see you cannot disconnect this idea from verse 21. What Paul teaches here is not male domination of the home - but a home built on mutual submission. Look husband, wife, and child all have their roles. Wives be subject to your husbands, husbands love your wives just as Christ love the church and sacrificed himself up for her, children obey your parents, fathers don’t provoke your children. This is not a message of dominion - it’s a message of teamwork. Teams are not built on dominion and assertion of rights - they are built on cooperation and teamwork. Each person in a home looking out for the best interest of the others not themselves. It requires sacrifice and service not rights and demands. It amazes me to look at how some families operate - fear, intimidation, childish silence, cold shoulders, foolish prodding, threats, yelling, on and on it goes and then they wonder why the relationships grow cold, dead, and eventually end.
United Partnership - The two shall become one flesh. We often see life in a family as a group of people loosely bound by cords. Imagine a family each holding a segment of a long rope. Some may tie themselves into that rope others using carabineers to hook into the rope but all connected in way that separation is possible if trouble happens. God intends families to be different than that. He says that the two shall become one flesh - that’s much more like the idea of Siamese twins. Joined together in a way that cannot be separated without the death of one. Often these twins share vital organs - when one hurts the other hurts - when one has pain they both have pain - that is the idea of one flesh. Paul says no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it just as “Christ does the church.” What does he say “this is the imitation of God”.
Loving Service - Husbands, wives, children, yes and even slaves in the household are each called on to become loving servants for each other. With good will rendering service, as to the Lord, and not to men. You know when we start our families we make a vow - “for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health - till death do us part.” This is a vow of service not a vow of rights. It means in good times and bad times, when I want to and when I don’t want to, when I feel like it and when I don’t feel like it - I am your servant - simply because you are the one God chose for me to love. If you can’t demonstrate this kind of love to the people closest to you - then all your posing in front of others is just that; posing. The imitation of God is not something to be put on and taken off - like a suit or necklace - it’s something to be lived and walked out.
Therefore be imitators of God , as beloved children… I started this series by asking you - if your life was a new reality show - a real reality show - and we were to edit together the scenes of you life over the last week - how well would you do at being the next best thing to Jesus? When people see you - do they see Jesus - or someone else?
