In Christ - Live Loved

In this message from the In Christ series, Tyler Lynde opens Ephesians 5:1–2 and invites us to hear the call to imitate God “as beloved children” and to “walk in love” the way Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us. Tyler frames Christian living not as behavior modification but as family resemblance. When we know whose we are, what we do begins to change. That identity shift makes sense of the “put off/put on” contrasts from the previous weeks: put off lying and put on truth, put off anger and put on peace, put off stealing and put on generosity, put off destructive words and put on life‑giving speech. These are not random moral upgrades; they flow from being made new in Christ.

Tracing the story back to Genesis, Tyler reminds us that humanity was created in God’s image to reflect His heart in the world. Sin fractured that purpose, sowing distrust, shame, and distance from God. Tyler exposes the enemy’s oldest tactic—the lie that the Father doesn’t really love us—and shows how that lie still fuels fear, self‑protection, judgment, and striving. Against that backdrop, he brings us to the center of the gospel: Jesus loved us and gave Himself for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. At the cross, Christ carried our sin, guilt, and shame so we no longer have to hide. Repentance, Tyler explains, is a change of mind and direction—turning from self‑rule to trust in Jesus’ finished work.

From there, Tyler draws on 1 John 4:7–21 to show that love is both the evidence of knowing God and the antidote to fear, because perfect love casts out fear. If we claim to love God while withholding love from one another, something is broken in our witness. But when we live loved—secure in the Father’s heart—truth replaces lying, peace quiets rage, generosity loosens our grip, and our words begin to heal. This is the family trait of those who are In Christ.

Tyler closes with a clear invitation to receive forgiveness, new life, and the Spirit’s power, and to step into daily practices of love at home, at work, and in conflict. What would change in your life if you truly believed the Father loves you? Watch and be encouraged to move from brittle performance to the steady joy of family resemblance.

We are Trinity Community Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Subscribe to our Podcast & YouTube channel to find past sermons, classes, interviews, and more!
Find us on Facebook & Instagram

Transcript

Imitate God In Daily Choices

Tyler Lynde 0:03

I have a devotional for you this morning. So it's not a full sermon, but it's a devotional. So if you could, let's just jump right into it. If you could turn to Ephesians chapter 5, verses 1 and 2. And we'll get into that. We're in a sermon series right now called In Christ. And we're in the second half of it. The first half was about our identity in Christ, and the second half is about our purpose in Christ, who we are in Christ, and what he asks for us to do for him. And uh the last couple of weeks we've talked about the fact that believers in Jesus are called to live differently than the world. Have you been challenged in the choices that you made this week and the way that you've lived your life? Last week we saw a series of things that we're supposed to put off and put on. So let me just remind you of those. We're supposed to put off lying and put on truth, put off anger and put on peace, put off stealing and put on generosity, put off destructive words and put off, put on, I'm sorry, life-giving words. So in our passage today, the first word of it is therefore, and when there's therefore, it's to connect two thoughts. So it connects the thoughts that we just learned about in the last couple of weeks with this new thought in chapter 5, right? So let's read this couple of verses, Ephesians 5, 1 and 2. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Let us pray. Father, we thank you that this is your word, and the entrance of your word brings life and light. And Lord, we pray that your word would land upon good soil this morning and that it would produce the fruit and the harvest that you desire for it to produce. I ask, Lord, that it would not just be words of my wisdom, but that it would be words that would come directly from you, empowered by your spirit to do the good work that only you can do in Jesus' name. Amen. So have you ever said these words? You're acting like your father, or you sound like your mother. Most of the time when we say those things, is it a positive thing that we're talking about? Or does it tend towards the negative side of things? Usually towards the negative side of things. But why is that? Why is it that we focus on the negative side of that instead of the positive? Wouldn't it be better to highlight the positive things? Like when we catch somebody doing something good and we say, Oh, just like your just like your mother or just like your dad, right? Now, here may be one reason. Maybe it's because people are flawed, right? And the points in our lives where we felt unloved are places that we try to avoid. And so sometimes we highlight even, and and sometimes it's for good sake. Some of us grew up in homes where things were said and done that were very difficult. And so, because of that, we we try to avoid sort of repeating that, right? So let's let's look at, we're going to look today at the fact that believers in Jesus are members of a new family, and that the love of our Father and His Son is perfect in every way and worth emulating. So we're gonna move from the negative side of carrying forward or talking about the things that happened, and we're gonna move to the positive side, and that's what we're gonna focus on here this morning. So the first point is we should live like God. We should live like God. Our passage says, therefore be imitators of God. Wow, that sounds like a heavy task, right? But how many of you know if you imitate God, it's not gonna be any problem for you to tell the truth. He is truth, right? It won't be any issue for you to be a peacemaker, because God is peace. You'll be able to speak, you'll be able to be generous because there's no one in the universe more generous than our Heavenly Father. And you'll be able to speak life-giving words because the very words of God spoke life into existence, right? And so if we emulate or imitate our Heavenly Father, we will exemplify his character and nature. We will live like him. We are called to be holy as he is holy. What does holy mean? It means to be set apart, it means to be set apart for something. We are set apart and we are holy, and we are to live holy lives just as he is holy. And in fact, humanity itself was made to bear God's image. Pastor Derek brought this to us uh a few months ago. He brought a sermon to us that really highlighted this, and I'll just kind of skim over that. God the Father and God the Son in eternity past decided that they wanted to expand their family. And so, how were they gonna do that? Well, the Holy Spirit was going to take their words and he was going to cause creation to come about, right? And God created, and we'll look at it, let's look at Genesis 1, 26 and 27. Then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, in our what?

unknown 5:26

In our likeness.

Made In God’s Image

The Lie That Broke The Family

Live Loved Through Jesus’ Sacrifice

Repentance And A Call To Faith

Walk In Love Like Family

1 John 4 And Perfect Love

Tyler Lynde 5:27

Yeah, in our image and after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created Is God trying to get a point across here? Three times in the same passage, in the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. We are made to talk like God, to think like God, and to act like God. That's the way that was God's original intent for humanity. We were to be imitators of God as his children, as his children. Now, how many of you know Adam and Eve enjoyed this reality in the garden? The Bible says that they walked and talked with God in the cool of the day. They spent time face to face with God, talking with them. Can you imagine the conversations that must have gone on? I would have loved to have been a part of that. And how many of you know there will be a there's a restoration project at work and there will be a time and day, and I don't want to get too ahead of myself, but we will see things completely restored. Thank God. So this sweet fellowship that Adam and Eve had with God the Father was God's original intent. This is God's plan for his family. But how many of you know the story didn't end there? What happened next? Sin separated separated us from God. There was one family rule in the garden. What was it? You can eat from every tree in the garden, but do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for if you eat of it, the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Satan tempted Adam and Eve and he convinced them of a lie. You know what the lie was? God doesn't really care about you. In fact, you can't even trust him. He's holding back on you. He doesn't actually love you, he's just acting like he loves you. Boy, does that sound familiar? Anybody ever dealt with not really believing that God loved them? That's what Satan was doing in the Garden of Eden. And with that great deception that they yielded to, everything that they had experienced began to go away. But how many of you know this the reality is he completely lied to them because they were already like God. He said to them, if you eat of the fruit, you'll be like God. And God doesn't want you, uh you know, you God is holding back on you. But they were already like him, they were already made in his image and likeness. Because of their sin, they were cast out of the garden, and more importantly, they were cast away from the presence of God. Imagine what that must have been like, how they must have felt the burden that they must have carried. And the result of their sin is that every single person ever born on this planet, except for one, Jesus, has been born dead in their sins and trespasses. All of us included, we have all been born dead. Instead of bearing the image of God as we were created to, we have bear, we have borne the image of a false father who is Satan, the God of this world. And if you say, Well, how is that fair? It's Adam and Eve's sin, not mine, but how many of you know we have followed in their footsteps? We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And what we deserve for the sin that we have committed is to die and to eternally be separated from God. This is the truth. This is the gospel. How many of you know it doesn't remain in that place? The story goes on, and by the way, when I say story, I mean true story. It goes on, and we learn that we can live loved. You see, Father God loves his children. It says, as beloved children, can you picture God loving you like a beloved child? Can you picture his heart being turned towards you? Can you picture him feeling the things that you feel? Can you picture him wanting to walk with you and talk with you and spend time with you? Can you picture, can you even imagine how great the Father's love is for you? You see, his father's heart could not stand to allow creation to be forever lost from being in relationship with him. In fact, at the very point that the curses were given out in the garden, God promised that there would be a seed that would come. And the serpent would attempt to strike the heel, but the seed would crush the head of Satan, as we know the serpent to be. And the seed is Jesus. See, if you had to define God in one word, what would it be? Love. If you really had to define God, if you had to narrow it down to one word, it would be love. Not just fluffy feelings, but love that cares enough to speak the truth. Love that corrects when correction is necessary, love that walks with somebody when they're grieving, love that never fails. That is who our God is. And I am so sorry if you have been taught or if you've learned about a different God than that, because that is the true and living God. He absolutely loves each and every one of his creation. That's who he is and that's what he does. What would it look like? Let me ask you a question. What would it look like for you to believe that he loved you? How would that change the way that you behave? Or would it? I think that it would. I think that it would change all of us. And I think that none of us can experience any kind of transformation or change in our lives before that reality hits us. The love of God. And how did he how far did he go to prove it? The scripture tells us Jesus loved us enough to die for us. It says Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. That's how much God loved us. He sacrificed his only begotten Son. He laid him on the altar of the cross so that he could say, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing, and it is finished. That's how much our Heavenly Father proves his great love for us. You see, Jesus took our sins upon himself, every sin that we've ever committed, every wrong thought that we've ever thought, every wrong deed that we've ever done, every wrong word that we've ever spoken, anything that is evil or that is wrong that we have, that has been a part of our psyche and our way of living, he took those things upon himself. And not only did he take our sins, but he took our guilt and our shame. How many of you know that we no longer have to live ashamed lives? We no longer have to try to find fig leaves to hide behind. We no longer have to live as beaten-down people. Because we have not only been given his love, but we've also been given what? His approval. What great love our Father has for us. Jesus was a willing party to these things. He stood in our place. God the Father was well pleased with Jesus' sacrifice because the end result was what? Reconciliation for the family. I know that many of you are praying for family relationships to be restored. You're praying for reconciliation. Let me tell you, that is the heart of God. And he proved it in so many ways by working as hard as he did to woo his own family back to himself. So, how do we acknowledge this? How do we participate in this great love? How do we understand this thing that Jesus did on the cross? Well, we are restored to right relationship with Father God when we repent of our sins, which means to change our mind, change our attitude, change our direction concerning who God is and who we are, to repent of our sins and to put our faith, hope, and trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ. That, my friends, is how we participate in the family restoration project that God started in well before the beginning of time. It was in his heart and in his mind that this is what was going to happen. I implore you, I beg of you, I plead with you, I ask you sincerely, will you please acknowledge Jesus, acknowledge who Jesus is? Not just the historical Jesus who was here and who lived in this life and all of the things that were accomplished, but Jesus, the Son of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Put your faith, hope, and trust in him today. In the Old Testament, it says, choose you this day who you will serve. And Joshua says of his family, as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Dads in this room, I encourage you, speak up for your family, as for me and my family. And if there's not a dad in the picture, moms, stand up. And if parents aren't saved yet, grandparents, speak it out. Confess it, profess it, believe it. God desires to restore more of humanity, much more of humanity to Himself before Jesus returns. So if we have been transformed, if we have been changed, if we have been made new, if we are born again, if there's this new life that has begun, we saw the examples in the waters of baptism this morning. All of these people have one thing in common. Once they were lost, and now they are found. So how then should they live? How then should we live? We should emulate the family trait of love. It says in this passage that we should walk in love. Not put on love occasionally or experience love when we want to experience love. Walk in it. Wear it. Have it be a part of who you are. As part of God's new creation, that's what it says. When we are born again, we are a new creation. Just like Adam and Eve were the original creation, we've been made new. Even though we haven't experienced the entirety of that which we will when Jesus returns and restores everything to the way that it's supposed to be. In between now and then, we are made new. We are the new creation, and we are once again tasked with bearing the image of God. We are not God, but we are his children, and we should act like his family. It's my daughter. She's a sweetheart. But occasionally, when I call my wife, my daughter attempts to pretend like she's my wife on the phone. She picks up the phone and she will imitate and emulate her mother and attempt to uh to sound like her. And a few times, if I'm honest, I get real quiet when that happens because I'm like, Tyler, you need to get this right. So here's what goes through my head. Do I say something that only Amy would want to hear as a test? And I've never done that. Never done that. Won't do that. That's a temptation I've had. That's a temptation. But then I'll I'll I'll just say something off the ball or whatever. I can't even remember what I say, but I just I will distinguish. They her and Amy, in some ways, are very much alike. In fact, they can open each other's phones with the face recognition. So there's some some real similarities between the two of them. And I am so thankful that my daughter has learned so many wonderful things from her mother. She represents our family and her new family with her husband and children very, very well. Very, very well. And I love to catch her in doing that, but she's still don't don't tell her this when she gets back. She's still a stinker pot, right? No, nobody should do that. Anyway, it's fun. It's fun. So what a what a privilege it is for us in similar ways to represent Christ and our Heavenly Father in a fallen world. People should ask us, where did you learn this? How can you live with such joy in the middle of sorrow? How can you have peace that makes no sense? How in the world is it that you don't argue all the time with your other employees? What is it that's different about you? Well, I had a great breakfast and I'm just feeling good this morning. No, that's not the answer. The answer is I'm a part of a family. And this is the way the family lives. This is the way my family lives. The love that we have so graciously received from our Heavenly Father should motivate us to do what? To pass it on to others, regardless of their current state of deservedness. Isn't it interesting that we do want to we we do want to be like God in one way? We want to be the judge of everybody. That job is to him and to him alone. We're not to sit in judgment. We are to give love in whatever form that takes, regardless of how we feel the other person deserves it or not. The world will know us by our love for one another. It's not hard to live truth-filled lives, to be peacemakers, to live generously, and to speak life-giving words when we understand that we get a chance to honor our Heavenly Father and Jesus by walking in love as he walked in love for us. Now, I could go on and on this morning. We don't have the time to do that. But I wanted to read a passage to you. And as I do, I want you to really think about this. And I would ask you to meditate on this passage this week. What does meditate mean? It just means to mull it over and over, to think about it, to consider it, to ask the Lord, how can you teach me through this? What is it that you want to implement in my life concerning these truths? And it's found in the book of 1 John, chapter 4, starting in verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his. Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit. Want to know how we can love and live according to the way God lives? By the Spirit of God living on the inside of us. And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. Wow. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brothers. Isn't it interesting that Jesus, when asked about the greatest commandment, summed it up with two simple sayings shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. That's what being a Christian looks like. That's what bearing the image of God as new creation, as his new creation and a part of his family, that's what it looks like. Are we ready to do it? Are we ready to ask the Holy Spirit to continue to help us to do this? Amen. I'm gonna ask just quickly, if everybody just close your eyes where you're sitting, and I'm gonna ask a simple question. There's a lot of people here that I don't know. And so I'm just gonna ask you a simple question. You've heard the gospel of Jesus Christ this morning. And if the Holy Spirit is working in your heart and you realize that it's time for you to stop living according to the ways of this world, to stop living for yourself, and to turn your heart and mind and life over to Jesus Christ. You've run out of road, and the road that you've been on is not the right road. And you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you want to put your faith in Jesus Christ. I'm not gonna embarrass you, but I ask that you would just raise your hands where you're sitting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I see the hands. Are there any others this morning? Thank you. In the back, I see in the back. Thank you. Thank you. I see here in the front. Yes. Anyone else? Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I see. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. I'm going to pray a simple prayer. And you can pray your own words. You don't have to follow mine. I'm so thankful for what God's doing in this room right now. Spirit of God is working, and there are people here in this room that are acknowledging their need for a savior. And I'm telling you, all of heaven is rejoicing. And all of us who are already followers of Jesus Christ are eternally thankful for the decision that you're making right now. So you could pray your own words. There's no magic in the prayer itself. But I'm going to lead in a prayer. And if you want to, you can pray after me. And this is a time where you just pour out your heart to Him. God loves you. He loves you. He's not ashamed of you. He loves you. So if you would just say something like this God in heaven, I thank you for loving me. I realize that I have made a lot of mistakes. I have fallen short and I have sinned. And I ask that you would forgive me and cleanse me. I believe in Jesus Christ. That he came to this earth and lived a perfect life. That he took my sins on himself and that he was crucified and died. And that on the third day he rose again from the dead. I put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ this day. I ask that you would change me, lead me and guide me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and help me to walk after your ways. In Jesus' name. Amen. If you did that this morning, prayed your own prayer, followed after what I was praying. We want to walk with you. Or we would ask that you would find, if you're not from this area, that you would find a Bible-believing preaching church that's near you, and that you would attend there, and that you would, just like the people who were baptized this morning, allow others to walk with you in your faith journey and to help to disciple you. So there will be a prayer team that will be up here at the end of the service on the sites. And if you would come and just talk with them, they'd they'd like to just again pray with you, talk with you. We also have Bibles that we'd like to give to anybody who would like a Bible. We have new Bibles we'd like to give to you. And also we just want you to know that if you are in Knoxville, you're welcome here as a part of this church. And we would love to be a part of your story and to walk with you as God does the good work that only He can do in your life. Can we thank the Lord for what He's done this morning? Amen. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. If we can all just in closing, if we can stand to our feet, I want to pray a prayer for us and then bless you. Remember, we will have prayer, a part of our 21 days of prayer and fasting that will start in 10 minutes after the service. Okay. But again, the prayer team will be here. Please come. Please come and let us continue this uh journey with you. So, Father, I thank you and praise you for each and every person that's here and those that are watching online. Father, we thank you for the Spirit of God that lives on the inside of us as believers. We ask that you would help us to be changed, to be holy, to be sanctified, that you would give us the ability to speak truthful words, to be patient and generous, that we would uh that we would speak life-giving words. Help us to be like you, to represent you well in this world. Father, I also pray, Father, for those who haven't in a long time felt loved by you. We take authority over anything that would try to deceive them or keep them away from experiencing not just knowing your great love, but feeling your great love for them. We ask, Lord, that you would do that in Jesus' name. We pray may the Lord bless you and keep you. May He cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.