EPHESIANS 5:1-7
October 8, 2006
New Covenant EPC
“BE IMITATORS”
Body Life The Book of Ephesians
I. The stamp on an object tells a lot about its maker.
A. Too often it says, made in China or made in Taiwan.
1. It is reassuring when a well made product is stamped with Made in the USA.
2. Most products have stamped the place of origin and the party which made it.
3. The old Shenango China had such a marking.
a. Each piece was stamped with the company which made it and place of origin
B. The person or persons we set as examples or heros in our lives, put a lasting stamp on who we are.
1. Who are our heros? Cal Ripken, Doug Flutie, Hank Aaron, Lance Armstrong, Mia Hamm, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra?
2. Who to we emulate? Whose example to we try to imitate?
3. As believers in Christ, we are called to imitate, copy God and particularly Jesus Christ.
C. God is holy. He is without sin, without even the hint of immorality
1. That is why the inference that Christ some how lead an immoral life or compromised His purity is so repugnant to the Christian faith.
2. Jesus Christ was the incarnation of the Holy God. Jesus was devoid of error or compromise.
3. Our standard of comparison is not the world nor anyone in the world.
II. Verse 1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children
A. Did you ever look up to your parents?
1. Some of us have remarkable parents who went through the depression, wars, financial adversity, physical limitations, etc.
a. Many of our parents exemplify the epitome of moral courage.
b. They did without so others in their family could have food, clothing and shelter.
c. They became heros because they sacrificed themselves for something noble and right.
2. As parents, it is encouraging to see our children learn our better traits and live them. All three of our children love books and love to read.
a. Each of our children learned good traits from their parents.
B. God is our Father if we have received His Son as Lord and Savior.
1. We are His dearly loved children.
2. As the Father’s children, nothing endears us more to Him than following His moral and holy example.
a. Like Father Like Child.
b. 1 Peter 1:16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." (NIV)
c. Leviticus 11:45 I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy. (NIV) Appropriating the lesson of the parents is a sign of maturity.
3. Maturity in the Christian faith is seeing the image of God and seeking by grace and the power of the Spirit to look like Him
4. No longer a child lead along by the wimps of immaturity, the prodigy are striving to emulate the Father.
C. Be Imitators
1. The word imitate in the Greek is MIMETES from which we get the word MIMIC.
2. MacArthur’s New Testament Commentary: Ephesians
a. It means to copy specific characteristics of another person
b. As imitators of God, Christians are to imitate God’s characteristics, and above all His love.
c. The whole of the Christian life is the reproduction of godliness as seen in the person of Christ.
3. God’s purpose in salvation is to redeem men from sin and to conform them “to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29).
4. 1 John 3:2 “We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is”
D. When Alexander the Great discovered a coward in his army who also was named Alexander,
1. he told the soldier, "Change your character or change your name"
2. Those who carry God’s name are to be imitators of His character.
E. To know what God is like we must study His Word, His revelation of Himself, His great Self-disclosure.
1. The more we learn of God’s character the more we learn how impossible in ourselves it is fulfill the command to be like Him.
2. That is why we need “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man” in order to “be filled up to all the fulness of God” (Eph. 3:16, 19).
3. The only way we can become imitators of God is for the Lord Jesus Christ to live His perfect life through us.
III. Verse 2 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.
A. Christ is a person who has and continues to sacrifice self for the betterment of others.
1. His self actualization was to surrender self for those He loved.
2. John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (NIV)
3. I John 4:10-11 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (NIV)
B. Loving others by the power of Spirit in us, is most imitative of Christ.
1. Loving others is a sign that we are letting Christ and the Spirit have full sway of our lives.
2. I John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (NIV)
a. 1 Corinthians 16:14 Do everything in love. (NIV)
b. Colossians 3:14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (NIV)
C. What Are We Writing? Richard L. Baxter in Reasons to Be Glad. Christianity Today,
1. A Christian is a loving letter.
a. Love is basic to being Christian. If we love not, we are not.
b. This is not sentimentality or effusive feelings, but good old basic love that reaches out to heal the hurt of the world.
2. Love’s simplicity is its attraction; its transforming power is its glory.
a. Love is practical, yet transcendent; earthly, yet heavenly.
b. Love is the essence of the divine Author and permeates the whole of life.
IV. Verse 3-7 reminds me of the news about U.S. Congressman Foley which makes most of sick.
A. For a leader of our nation to prey upon teenage boy is inexcusable and reprehensible.
B. These verses describe characteristics which are the exact opposite of Christ.
1. The Christ we believe in was incarnate.
2. He was tempted as we are and maybe even more so.
3. Heb 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-- yet was without sin. (NIV)
C. John Stott, “Remember Who You Are” The Message of Romans (InterVarsity);
1. The Duke of Windsor, the uncrowned King Edward VIII, recalling his boyhood as Prince of Wales,
2. He said: "My father [King George V] was a strict disciplinarian. Sometimes when I had done something wrong, he would admonish me, saying, ’My dear boy, you must always remember who you are.’ "
3. It is my conviction that our heavenly Father says the same to us every day:
4. "My dear child, you must always remember who you are."
5. Let us constantly remind ourselves of who we are [in Christ.]
V. College Basketball Star Shows Christ’s Love "The Insider," Sports Spectrum (1-3-02)
A. One reason for the success of the University of Miami basketball team a few years ago was forward James Jones.
1. The 6-foot-8-inch, 211-pounder was as successful off the court as on, building a reputation as a generous member of the Miami student body.
2. He continues in a forward for the NBA Phoenix Suns.
3. He said: “My desire is to live out my faith in such a way that people can see Jesus Christ in me without me ever having to say a word. I’ll be the first person in the middle of the night to go pick someone up from the airport. I love people. Whoever I come in contact with I just try to display and express God’s love.”
B. A farmer was walking through the forest one day when he found a young eagle that was hurt.
1. The farmer saved the eagle and took it home and put it in his chicken lot where it soon learned to eat and behave like the chickens.
a. One day a Forest Ranger passed by the farm and asked why it was that the king of all birds is living in the chicken lot with the chickens.
b. The farmer replied since he had given it a home in the chicken lot and feed it chicken feed it acted like the chickens it lived with.
2. "Still it has the heart of an eagle," replied the Ranger, "and can surely be taught to fly."
a. The Ranger took the eagle from the chicken lot to the roof of the house and urged him to fly again, saying, "You are an eagle. Stretch forth your wings and fly."
b. But the eagle was afraid of his unknown self and this new world and jumped down once more and flapped his eagle wings just enough to get back to the chicken lot for the chicken food.
3. Finally the Ranger took the eagle to a high mountain.
a. There he held the king of the birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, " You are an eagle. You belong to the sky. Stretch forth your wings and fly."
b. The eagle looked around, back towards the way that they had come from the chicken lot and then up to the sky.
c. Then the Ranger saw another giant eagle soaring on the current of the wind coming toward them.
d. As the giant eagle passed by the chicken lot - the once lost eagle slowly stretched his wings, and with a triumphant cry, soared away into the heavens.
C. We were once lost in sin until Christ saved us, redeemed us and put a new nature in us.
1. We must decide daily not to stay in our former state,
2. But by grace and the Spirit we must choose to follow Christ be imitators of Him, and soar as His chosen people.
