SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 5 verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_00: 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 a sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a senior in high school, I got a job at the local newspaper, the Albuquerque Tribune, which does not exist anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And I fancied myself on the leading edge of investigative journalism.
SPEAKER_00: All 18 years old of me, saw myself with my press credential, which had my picture on it and everything, got me into basketball games for free.
SPEAKER_00: It was great.
SPEAKER_00: And I saw myself as like going to city council meetings and exposing government corruption and being the reporter who could finally, you know, nail these corrupt politicians in the hallway of City Hall and going to crime scenes and getting the bottom of things.
SPEAKER_00: That's how I conceived of myself in my mind.
SPEAKER_00: And yet I found out that my first assignment would be at the sports desk and I would be writing down scores as coaches called them in from high school sporting events.
SPEAKER_00: But at least I would get to write sports stories.
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
SPEAKER_00: That'll be fun.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the first two weeks I learned would be spent in what they called the layout room.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't lay out their newspaper.
SPEAKER_00: This is the olden days, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't lay out their newspaper on the computer.
SPEAKER_00: They laid it out on a lightboard, and you would print out the reporters, would print out their stories, and I would have to take an X Acto knife and cut out their stories and lay it on the lightboard to get it to look like the paper was supposed to look before it went to the press.
SPEAKER_00: That was my first job at the newspaper, and I was mad about it.
SPEAKER_00: This is not what I signed up for.
SPEAKER_00: And my interview was all questions about investigative techniques and what makes a good lead, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: There was not a single question about an X-Acto knife anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And yet that would be my tool.
SPEAKER_00: And when I did grumble and complain about it, people that uh oversaw me, which was everybody at the newspaper, informed me that before I could know what to write, and before I could learn what to write and how to craft a good story, I first had to understand the framework in which it would appear.
SPEAKER_00: I had to understand how the paper looked and how it communicated before I could know what content to put inside of it.
SPEAKER_00: And I think of that illustration as we get into Ephesians 5.
SPEAKER_00: Because as we get later on in Ephesians 5, we're kind of getting to the quote unquote good stuff in Ephesians, the practical living, because, you know, something I've heard a lot over the past 17 years going through Ephesians has been when do we get to the practical stuff?
SPEAKER_00: You know, because Ephesians is about practical living, how to have a good marriage, how to be a godly husband, how to be a godly wife, how to be an obedient child or a servant or how to put off sexual immorality or change your foolish speech.
SPEAKER_00: All of those things and how to put on, you know, how to speak better and put on righteousness and work harder, and you know, it's got a lot of practical applications to it, so much so that people even say the first half of Ephesians is theological and the second half, four, five, and six is practical.
SPEAKER_00: But then you get to chapter four, and okay, where'd the practical stuff go?
SPEAKER_00: This is still more theology.
SPEAKER_00: I was duped.
SPEAKER_00: Then you get in chapter five, and you're like, finally the good stuff, finally the practical stuff.
SPEAKER_00: But it starts back where the book started again.
SPEAKER_00: Back with theology, back with the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Be imitators of God as beloved children.
SPEAKER_00: Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_00: And it's reiterating to us one more time this basic principle that before you know how to live, you have to set your eyes on the cross one more time.
SPEAKER_00: Over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: You have to set your eyes on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You have to look at God as displayed in the cross in order to understand how to lead the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: It does no good to teach you how to write a story if you don't know what it's supposed to look like, what the framework is supposed to look like.
SPEAKER_00: It does no good to teach you how to be a godly husband or a godly wife if you don't understand the glory and the majesty and the holiness of God as displayed in the cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It was A.
SPEAKER_00: W.
SPEAKER_00: Tozer who said, quote, we tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.
SPEAKER_00: There's a law at work in our soul that draws us and gravitates towards us, gravitates us towards the image of what we conceive God to be like.
SPEAKER_00: We are programmed to look like our own image of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is why people are idol makers.
SPEAKER_00: People want to make idols to reflect what is important to them, and then they worship that as if it were God.
SPEAKER_00: What you think God is like, you gradually become.
SPEAKER_00: That's a principle at work in the human heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's on full display in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: You remember the Phoenicians who were fishermen.
SPEAKER_00: They dominated the sea.
SPEAKER_00: Their God was Dagon, a god who looked like a fish.
SPEAKER_00: And it is hard to distinguish between cause and effect there.
SPEAKER_00: Did they become fishermen because they worshiped the fish god, or did they invent the fish god because they were fishermen?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I've seen fishermen do crazier things.
SPEAKER_00: People become what they worship, and they craft what they worship into how they see themselves.
SPEAKER_00: I heard this morning of a story of a bishop, a female bishop, who referred to God in gender-neutral pronouns, or referred to God as she while she was doing a baptism, and I heard that story, and I thought, man, that is that is the case in point.
SPEAKER_00: If you are gender confused yourself, you're gonna make God gender confused.
SPEAKER_00: I sarcastically thought in my mind, you know, why won't she r use God's preferred pronouns when addressing him?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that logic really works all the way down, but it is there.
SPEAKER_00: But the bigger point is you craft an image, you craft an image of what you are.
SPEAKER_00: You want God to be like you.
SPEAKER_00: People who live for success end up making a God who only cares about success.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the idea that you make a uh uh confused and perverted God because you're confused and perverted, it's not confined to the confused and perverted people.
SPEAKER_00: That attribute is well in play in American culture.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you live for the success of yourself at work or to have a happy family and the joy and the happiness of your family, and lo and behold, you invent a God who is concerned above everything else about your success and happiness in your family.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what are the odds?
SPEAKER_00: The God that I think exists happens to care about the exact same things I passionately care about.
SPEAKER_00: Who knew?
SPEAKER_00: That's the American God of health, wealth, and prosperity.
SPEAKER_00: People who live for politics often just adapt the God of Washington and Jefferson.
SPEAKER_00: And they think, well, I mean, I don't know if they would think it or articulate that way, but I have heard articulated to me by people this idea that, you know, to get back to the kind of God that our founding fathers worshiped, which has a way of localizing the infinite and eternal deity just in one time and place 240 some years ago.
SPEAKER_00: It's a strange approach to understanding God.
SPEAKER_00: It's seen most clearly in idols, though, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: This is why our hearts are idol worshippers.
SPEAKER_00: They they craft the idols.
SPEAKER_00: The idolatry in many societies in the world is just so on display.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you will physically make a God with your hands, put it on your mantle, and then say that that made you.
SPEAKER_00: And it's logically incomprehensible, but it is sown into our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And now listen to this next part carefully.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that we become like our image of God, that's not bad.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Paul is counting on it.
SPEAKER_00: His logic here in Ephesians 5 is built on the idea that God made you to want to be like him.
SPEAKER_00: You have this image of God and you were drawn towards it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for those who don't know the God of the Bible, they're drawn towards worshiping idols, they're drawn towards worshiping themselves.
SPEAKER_00: But for those who do know the God of the Bible, there's this gravitational pull in our hearts that wants to conform us to his image.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you remember, we were made in his image.
SPEAKER_00: Without the knowledge of God, we are like the mirror wandering around, but we can't find the person whose image is on us.
SPEAKER_00: We're lost.
SPEAKER_00: We are made in God's image, but sin separates us from God, and we have no basis for which to understand him.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, through the gospel, we're drawn back towards faith in God.
SPEAKER_00: We have eyes to see the truth of him, we have eyes to read and behold his majesty in the word, and so we desire to be conformed to his image.
SPEAKER_00: You can't reach out to others in Ephesians 5, which is coming, until you first reach up to God through the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You can't reach into yourself to change your own life and sanctify your own life until you first reach up to God through the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And so, as I give you an outline this morning, two practical mandates for life in light of the cross, that's what we find in Ephesians 5, verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_00: Just two very practical mandates, two imperatives, two things you're commanded to do, and they're both taking place in the light of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The cross illuminates how you're supposed to live your life, and in light of the cross, two basic imperatives that Paul gives you.
SPEAKER_00: First, you're to imitate God.
SPEAKER_00: This is how chapter 5 begins.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, be imitators of God.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, it's connecting you obviously to chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 4, Paul is talking about removing the old man, putting on the new.
SPEAKER_00: Your old man, which you were a Gentile, you were conforming your desires to the lusts of the world.
SPEAKER_00: You uh your life, your old self was belonging to the former manner of life.
SPEAKER_00: It was corrupt, it's sinful desires, lust, pride, arrogance, greed, envy.
SPEAKER_00: He lists them all down in verse 31 of chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: You are grieving the Holy Spirit, you are living for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Now you take that off, and you now put on the new man through conversion.
SPEAKER_00: You put on the new self after the likeness, chapter 4, verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: You put on the new self after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: So you're putting on your new self is in the likeness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Your new self looks like God.
SPEAKER_00: You're robed in it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's an ontological reality.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fact.
SPEAKER_00: When you come to faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells in you, your sin was removed and nailed to the cross of Christ, Christ's righteousness is given to you.
SPEAKER_00: You now have the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: You possess it.
SPEAKER_00: You're robed in the new man.
SPEAKER_00: And now Paul is saying, so act like it.
SPEAKER_00: Act like the clothes you're wearing.
SPEAKER_00: Live it out.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, be imitators of God.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word for imitate here, it's the word for mimic.
SPEAKER_00: And in Greek, like in English, it has a negative connotation to it, usually.
SPEAKER_00: Just like it would in English.
SPEAKER_00: You know, think about where where you might hear the word imitate or mimic if you're parent multiple children.
SPEAKER_00: You might have a familiar complaint of, you know, my little brother is imitating me.
SPEAKER_00: He's mocking me, he's copying everything I do.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's not meant in terms of flattery, is it?
SPEAKER_00: No child ever tattles on their brother or sister for imitating them as like it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, it's so cute, they want to be just like me.
SPEAKER_00: It's so cute, they want to be just like me.
SPEAKER_00: You know, so of course, what does a parent do?
SPEAKER_00: Steps in, stop copying your brother.
SPEAKER_00: Stop copying your brother.
SPEAKER_00: Wait, now you're copying me.
SPEAKER_00: Now you're copying me.
SPEAKER_00: Stop it! Stop it! I was pre-trib until a few minutes ago, but the tribulation is coming right now.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't normally have a positive association with it.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes in the New Testament, it's a word used for counterfeit, even.
SPEAKER_00: There's a counterfeit faith or counterfeit gospel.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, as far as I know, those who followed God weren't called to imitate God.
SPEAKER_00: The language in the Old Testament is not that of imitation.
SPEAKER_00: Language in the Old Testament is that of following.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the Israelites are supposed to be holy as God is holy.
SPEAKER_00: But the language in the Old Testament is that of following God.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Moses stood out from the Israelites because he followed God.
SPEAKER_00: And he followed God in a very literal way.
SPEAKER_00: There's the light and the smoke and the fire, and he followed God.
SPEAKER_00: As God moved his presence through the wilderness, Moses followed.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua, at the beginning of Joshua, is said to be set apart from the Israelites because he followed the Lord's command.
SPEAKER_00: The angel told him where to go, and Joshua followed.
SPEAKER_00: Saul did not follow and had the kingdom removed from him.
SPEAKER_00: Saul wouldn't wait.
SPEAKER_00: He was supposed to literally wait and he wouldn't do it.
SPEAKER_00: He went out on his own, and Samuel said, The kingdom's taken from you because you wouldn't follow the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: David, meanwhile, is set as king because he had a heart that was after God's heart, even that language, after God's heart.
SPEAKER_00: David is following God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes in the Old Testament, it looked like physically following where God led, such as the case with Moses or Abraham, even Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes, more often, it looks like making a heart that is obedient to the words of God.
SPEAKER_00: You're following his moral commands in the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: But you understand the Old Testament, you couldn't imitate God because in the Jewish mind, Ephesians 5, verse 1 is blasphemy.
SPEAKER_00: Be imitators of God.
SPEAKER_00: In the Jewish mind, God is separate and distinct and apart.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a person.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot imitate him.
SPEAKER_00: It's blasphemous to even say that you could do so.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the Old Testament, you followed God, but his laws, as you obeyed his laws, they didn't bring you into conformity to his image.
SPEAKER_00: As you followed the laws in the Torah, they revealed to you how separated you were.
SPEAKER_00: The law exposed your sin.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't sanctify you.
SPEAKER_00: It exposed you, it condemned you.
SPEAKER_00: It had the power to reveal your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, there were believers who were sanctified.
SPEAKER_00: There were believers who were applying the scripture to their life.
SPEAKER_00: As you read Psalm 119, for example, over and over again, it lays out the path you should live and you you you walk in it.
SPEAKER_00: But you're again, even that language in the Old Testament, that when you are being holy, when you're growing in holiness, you're it's the language of following a path.
SPEAKER_00: And the New Testament's also going to use that language.
SPEAKER_00: An example in the next verse is going to be the language of walking.
SPEAKER_00: But before you get to the language of walking, in chapter 5, verse 1, it's the language of imitation.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament takes this word and gives it a positive spin.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 1, be imitators of me as I imitate Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is imitating Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so how does this shift from the Old Testament to the New Testament?
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament you follow, but you can't imitate.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament you do imitate.
SPEAKER_00: What's the change?
SPEAKER_00: And that's the most easy Sunday school answer ever.
SPEAKER_00: The change is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can't imitate God in the Old Testament because you haven't seen God, and the Word is designed to convict you and show your separation from Him.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus comes incarnate, the glory of God in human flesh, who lives out the Word perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: So the law of God doesn't expose Jesus' deficiencies.
SPEAKER_00: The law of God doesn't condemn Jesus as a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, the law of God validates Jesus as the Savior because he alone can keep it, and he keeps it perfectly and fulfills it exactly.
SPEAKER_00: And so the law of God identifies him as holiness incarnate.
SPEAKER_00: And now you've seen him lead his life.
SPEAKER_00: Now you can copy him.
SPEAKER_00: So what does holiness look like lived out?
SPEAKER_00: You look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What does the word of God look like lived out?
SPEAKER_00: You look at Jesus and you imitate it.
SPEAKER_00: You can follow him, you imitate Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So in the Old Testament, there's this gap.
SPEAKER_00: Then the word reveals this gap.
SPEAKER_00: There is God who is incomprehensible and exalted in glory and cannot be seen or comprehended.
SPEAKER_00: And the word that God gives you convicts you of your sin and shows you the gulf.
SPEAKER_00: And then in the New Testament, Jesus Christ comes and lives through that word, the perfect life, and then can bridge that gap in his own person.
SPEAKER_00: You then can imitate God.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul means in Romans 5, verse 10, that we've been reconciled to God through Christ, that Jesus' perfect obedience restores us to God so that we can follow him, we can imitate him by following Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard some people argue that, you know, sanctification, it's not about obeying the Bible more, it's about looking like Jesus more.
SPEAKER_00: Or flipping around.
SPEAKER_00: Sanctification is like not about looking like Jesus more, it's about obeying the Bible more.
SPEAKER_00: Both are equally preposterous because Jesus' perfections are seen in how He completely fulfills the Scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: So you can't divide and say sanctification is looking like Jesus, but it's not about obeying the word because Jesus obeyed the word.
SPEAKER_00: Sanctification is complete then in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You look at him and you see the perfect model.
SPEAKER_00: Tellos the perfections of God, the maturity of God, the perfections of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We know what God looks like because we can look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We know what the Bible lived out looks like because we can look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We know what holiness looks like because we can look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So we have something to conform ourselves to.
SPEAKER_00: And so you conform yourselves to it as the image.
SPEAKER_00: He's the image.
SPEAKER_00: He commands us to love your enemies, do good, lend to those who have need, and expect nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will become children of your Father in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You will become sons of the Most High.
SPEAKER_00: So what does he mean?
SPEAKER_00: If you ethically do good, you lend to those who have need, you love your enemies, you'll become sons of the most high.
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you become the son of someone?
SPEAKER_00: Well you He doesn't mean like biologically, if you do a paternity test or DNA test after you lead a good enough life, oh I guess your father is God.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't mean generically like every human being has God as their father because you know we all come from Adam and Eve, and God made Adam and Eve, and he doesn't mean that way because it's it's connected to doing good, lending, serving, loving your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: It's connected to those things.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the answer here is that you can tell who somebody's related to often by how they look.
SPEAKER_00: And I may have mentioned this last week in one of the services, I don't remember which one, but my my dad was here recently, and I my dad looks like what I'm gonna look like in 20 years.
SPEAKER_00: There's no getting around it.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember when Deera first met my dad, she later looked at me and said, Well, I've got no excuse now, I know where this is going.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, look like my dad.
SPEAKER_00: And this is true even in children who are adopted.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I have seen this in children who are adopted.
SPEAKER_00: They take on the mannerisms of their parents.
SPEAKER_00: Their parents aren't their biological parents, but their parents who are raising them.
SPEAKER_00: And the children start to take on their mannerisms.
SPEAKER_00: They use the expressions their parents use.
SPEAKER_00: They'll stand or lean like their parents stand or lean.
SPEAKER_00: They care about the things their parents care about.
SPEAKER_00: They take on their parents' sense of humor and and the way they look.
SPEAKER_00: It's not DNA that's doing that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're looking like their parents who are raising them.
SPEAKER_00: You say, like, I know whose parents you are, and they're like, oh no, I'm adopted.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not helping.
SPEAKER_00: You still are looking and acting like your parents.
SPEAKER_00: You can see it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus is saying in Luke chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: When you start to live that kind of life, you're taking on the appearance of your father in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And people can see the family resemblance.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Paul goes in Ephesians 5, verse 1, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Be imitators of God.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the phrase, as beloved children.
SPEAKER_00: You start to live this way because you are the child of God.
SPEAKER_00: This phrase, beloved children, it is a Greek idiom that is often used for an only child.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in English, beloved children has like almost a dismissive feel to it, like, oh beloved children.
SPEAKER_00: We don't really think about what those words mean.
SPEAKER_00: But in the in the time period of Christ, this is a phrase, it was an idiom that was usually reserved for an only child who had everything they needed in life.
SPEAKER_00: They were fully content, they were fully happy, they had no need for worry or despair.
SPEAKER_00: It was usually a wealthy child, and specifically a wealthy child without siblings, because a wealthy child with siblings might have a rival to his inheritance, might have other things that would threaten him.
SPEAKER_00: But this word, this phrase, describes a child who is alone with his parents and entirely secure in his parents' love and affection.
SPEAKER_00: He's not worried about his next meal, he's not worried about where he's gonna sleep, he's not worried about what's gonna happen in the world or in his life, because all he needs is provided by the love his parents have for him.
SPEAKER_00: It's all seen in him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul takes that phrase and uses it for believers here.
SPEAKER_00: That you're supposed to imitate God because you that is you in your relationship to God.
SPEAKER_00: You are God's beloved child.
SPEAKER_00: You're not an only child.
SPEAKER_00: He's got lots of children, but you are fully content and rested in his love with no despair, no worry, because of how secure you are in your father's affection.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul is meaning here.
SPEAKER_00: If you are fully content in the love that your father has for you, your heavenly father, then you will imitate him.
SPEAKER_00: You'll start to live like him just as children grow into their parents.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first mandate is that you imitate God.
SPEAKER_00: The second mandate is that you walk in love.
SPEAKER_00: This is verse two walk in love as Christ loved us.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to walk in love.
SPEAKER_00: This is the third walk command in Ephesians, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: The third time you're commanded to walk in a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 4, verse 1, you're supposed to walk in unity and walk in the manner of worthy of the calling which you've been called.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes on to describe that as unity.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 4, verse 17, walk in holiness, put off the old man, put on the new.
SPEAKER_00: You recognize that because of your conversion, you're united to other brothers and sisters in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about a reality that once you have your faith in Christ, you are united to other brothers and sisters who likewise the Holy Spirit dwells in them as well.
SPEAKER_00: So walk like that.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last part of Ephesians 4, walk in holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Put off the way you used to live.
SPEAKER_00: Again, the language in verse 31 bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander.
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Stop speaking in an arrogant way.
SPEAKER_00: Stop speaking like slandering other people.
SPEAKER_00: Stop speaking with all this wrath and anger and jealousy and strife.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the Gentiles walk.
SPEAKER_00: You walk differently in holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And then you get the third command here in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Walk in love.
SPEAKER_00: A very circular kind of question here.
SPEAKER_00: Walk in love.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean to walk in love?
SPEAKER_00: Who defines what love is?
SPEAKER_00: You've heard it said, you know, if you loved me, you would love the things that I love.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not really loving you then, is it?
SPEAKER_00: That's loving the things that you love.
SPEAKER_00: And if you understand how the human heart makes God into an image of what you love yourself, you're basically asking people to love your idols when you ask them to love you as you are.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a biblical concept of love.
SPEAKER_00: The first time we find this word love in Ephesians is back in chapter 1, verse 4, where in love the Father predestined us for adoption as sons.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same kind of structure there.
SPEAKER_00: In love, the Father predestined us.
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember from back when we were in Ephesians 1, many, many moons ago, when God predestines you, he does not do so based on anything inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: So he doesn't size you up and say, ah, I look at Jesse and there's some things I like about him, I choose him.
SPEAKER_00: No, he chooses because he loves.
SPEAKER_00: And he loves because he chooses.
SPEAKER_00: They're together, they're the two sides of the same coin.
SPEAKER_00: God puts his love on people who do not deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: God set his love on you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you were still a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: God set his love on you before you were even born, but he set his love on you also in light of all of the sin you would do in your life before you knew Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means in love he predestined you.
SPEAKER_00: So your love for other believers cannot be conditioned on or predicated on anything in them apart from being believers.
SPEAKER_00: You're not called to just love believers that love you back, or just love believers that you like or you get along with.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's how the Gentiles love.
SPEAKER_00: The Gentiles are friends of those that are friends back to them.
SPEAKER_00: They love those that love them back.
SPEAKER_00: They invite people to dinner who will invite them back.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the Gentiles work, not the way Christians operate.
SPEAKER_00: Because our concept of love is not tied to the worth or the value of the person whom you love.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing that gives believers their worth and value, by the way, is the love of the Father that's also set on them.
SPEAKER_00: So we love each other because God first loved us.
SPEAKER_00: That's looking back to the beginning of the book.
SPEAKER_00: You love others because of how God loved you by predestining you in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, we saw this lesson with Moses last week.
SPEAKER_00: Man, Moses loved the Israelites, and they hated him.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites rejected Moses 40 years before he was even their leader, leading them out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: They already rejected him, and things didn't get better for him once he started leading them.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, God says, that's it, I'm taking them all out.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get rid of this whole nation, Moses, and you know I'll start over.
SPEAKER_00: And Moses said, Well, you'll have to take me down too.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna let you kill them and not me.
SPEAKER_00: And that was Moses' love for the Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: Even though they rejected him, he still loved them.
SPEAKER_00: And that in many ways is a model for us to walk in love.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul here in verse 2 is not looking all the way back to predestination.
SPEAKER_00: He is looking backwards, but not even that far.
SPEAKER_00: He's looking back to the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Walk in love as Christ loved us.
SPEAKER_00: He's tethering the way we're supposed to love to the way Christ loved us.
SPEAKER_00: Well, same question.
SPEAKER_00: How did Christ love us?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he answers it in the rest of the verse.
SPEAKER_00: He gave himself up for us.
SPEAKER_00: He gave himself up.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's back to the cross again.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like in Ephesians you can't go two or three verses without him getting back to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Before he can get to how you're supposed to live your life, he wants you to go back to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to walk in love.
SPEAKER_00: What does love look like?
SPEAKER_00: It looks like the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to imitate God.
SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_00: It looks like the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to comprehend and perceive the cross and live in light of that.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite quotes from a commentator is actually a quote from a commentary in 1 Corinthians by a guy named David Pryor.
SPEAKER_00: He writes, We never move on from the cross.
SPEAKER_00: We only move into a more profound understanding of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Paul goes here.
SPEAKER_00: Before you can really understand what it's like to practically walk in love, you have to go back to the cross and understand it more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: And he begins by saying, Christ gave himself up for us.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very unusual turn of phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Gave himself?
SPEAKER_00: You never use that expression.
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever give yourself?
SPEAKER_00: You might give somebody with a time.
SPEAKER_00: You might give somebody your car keys or your car.
SPEAKER_00: You might give somebody a book.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking things I lend all the time.
SPEAKER_00: My car, my books, they go out.
SPEAKER_00: You can lend somebody money.
SPEAKER_00: You could give somebody your phone number or your email address.
SPEAKER_00: But you can't give yourself to somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Except maybe in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You might say to your wife, or wife might say to her husband, I give myself to you, and then it's reciprocal and it's a giving that lasts your whole life.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what is happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not reciprocal here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is giving himself to God for us before we've given anything back or even pledged to.
SPEAKER_00: We're lost in our sin when he does this.
SPEAKER_00: He gives him whole self up for us.
SPEAKER_00: Think of Mark 10, verse 33, where Jesus begins in the Gospel of Mark.
SPEAKER_00: He begins his walk towards Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He sets his face towards Jerusalem, and he says the Son of Man is going to go to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be delivered up to the high priest.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be beaten and he's going to be condemned and he's going to be killed by the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, the disciples are losing their mind.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Peter says, no, aren't wrong answer.
SPEAKER_00: But even the language Jesus uses, I'm going to Jerusalem, or I'm going to be given up.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's surrendering himself.
SPEAKER_00: He's giving himself up.
SPEAKER_00: When he says he's giving himself, he's giving all of who he is, his whole life, his obedience for more than 30 years, his perfect obedience to the law, he's giving that up.
SPEAKER_00: His holiness that he has accumulated and demonstrated his entire life, manifested his whole life, kept every command in the scripture, fought off every temptation, lived the perfectly obedient and holy life his entire life, he's giving that up.
SPEAKER_00: The one who is too holy to look upon sin, too holy to entertain sin, too holy to be associated in an internal sense with sin, what does he do?
SPEAKER_00: He takes on our sin.
SPEAKER_00: He gives up in that sense all of his accumulated righteousness and holiness and replaces it with our sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means when he gives himself up.
SPEAKER_00: All of his perfections, who he is, he surrenders and he places on himself our sin.
SPEAKER_00: That song we often sing, his robes for mine, his robes for mine, oh wonderful exchange.
SPEAKER_00: Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered neath God's rage.
SPEAKER_00: That language, clothed in my sin.
SPEAKER_00: Draped in his righteousness, I'm justified.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ I live, for in my place he died.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul has in mind in verse 2 here, that Jesus gives himself up for us.
SPEAKER_00: There's that exchange.
SPEAKER_00: That for us is the exchange.
SPEAKER_00: His holiness for us.
SPEAKER_00: Our sin for him.
SPEAKER_00: So that Paul can re legitimately say, He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the exchange.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the love of Jesus looks like, that he surrendered everything good, everything meritorious, righteous, virtuous, whatever word you want to use, all of his obedience, his entire life brought him to that point, and he surrenders it for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: For us, the great exchange.
SPEAKER_00: And instead, in exchange, he becomes an offering.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we get his righteousness, he becomes an offering, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_00: The word for sacrifice there, that's the word for all the sacrifices in the Old Testament, repeated throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: That God demands a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: God will not forgive sin without a sacrifice, without the shedding of blood.
SPEAKER_00: There is no forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_00: But this leads you to the problem in the Old Testament is that none of the sacrifices in the Old Testament actually led to a changing of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so they had to always be offered.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you sin, you need to give a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: And the sacrifice doesn't sanctify you.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're back the next day or the next month or the next season with the same sacrifice over and over and over again, perpetual sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: There's no hope for forgiveness without the sacrifice, so you can't give up.
SPEAKER_00: You go back to the garden, Adam and Eve sins.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to forgive Adam and Eve of their sin, but what's required?
SPEAKER_00: A sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: So God kills the animal and covers them, Adam and Eve, with the animal skins.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first death, really, is what God does to provide for the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: The animal didn't willingly give up its skin, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: It was put to death.
SPEAKER_00: It's a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: And then God commands Cain and Abel to provide sacrifices for their own sin.
SPEAKER_00: Abel willingly does so.
SPEAKER_00: Cain refuses.
SPEAKER_00: Cain is rebuked.
SPEAKER_00: Cain murders Abel.
SPEAKER_00: Noah comes off the ark after the flood.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing he does, sacrifices for sins.
SPEAKER_00: This is the pattern all the way to the Torah.
SPEAKER_00: The Torah is filled with sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: It's so much of what the Israelites did the sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: There's at least five different kinds of sacrifices in the Torah the Israelites were supposed to provide.
SPEAKER_00: There was the burnt offerings.
SPEAKER_00: It was a voluntary.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have to do the burnt offerings.
SPEAKER_00: But if they were moved, they wanted to worship God that way, they could bring to the temple a bull or a bird, even a ram.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it could be any kind of animal, it was a voluntary sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: But with all of these sacrifices, the way it was slaughtered, I mean, the animals split into thirds.
SPEAKER_00: The organs and the kidneys and the fat and all of that was burned in the fire.
SPEAKER_00: And in the in that world, I mean, that was the best part of the animals to eat, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: We don't Americans generally shy away from that, but in most countries in the world, that's the delicacies.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you eat.
SPEAKER_00: They would be burned in the fire.
SPEAKER_00: The ashes would be spread outside of the city gate.
SPEAKER_00: The other third of it would be eaten by the priests at the fire, and the other third of it could be eaten by the worshiper as long as he ate it in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Demonstrating that you bring the sacrifice at great cost to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: God receives the best part.
SPEAKER_00: The one who is the intermediary, he receives some of the blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And then the worshiper also receives joy from the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: So the burnt offerings you could do whenever you wanted to worship God.
SPEAKER_00: The grain offerings, you know, wasn't an animal, no organs in a grain offering.
SPEAKER_00: You'd bake a cake.
SPEAKER_00: You'd bring a cake with your wheat or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And the priest would eat some, and some would be burned in the fire to thank God for the harvest.
SPEAKER_00: It had a drink associated with it, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: If you brought the cake, you had to come with a drink.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to give the priest some, you know, your dry fruit cake, somebody to wash it down with.
SPEAKER_00: There was the peace offerings.
SPEAKER_00: If you needed to make peace again voluntary with some other person, you sinned against some other person, you'd have to bring a spotless animal.
SPEAKER_00: And on that one, the the best part of the animal had to go to the priest who would wave it in front of the fire, showing that peace is now being made between these two parties that had sinned.
SPEAKER_00: There was no way to make peace between somebody else without the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: The ashes from the fat and the organs spread outside the city again.
SPEAKER_00: There's the sin offerings, the fourth kind, the sin offerings.
SPEAKER_00: You sinned, you had to make atonement.
SPEAKER_00: This is the atonement offerings.
SPEAKER_00: It had to be a bull.
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't have enough money for a bull, you had to bring a goat.
SPEAKER_00: If you couldn't afford a goat, you had to bring a pigeon.
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't afford a pigeon, you had to bring flour, you had to bring something, because there's no forgiveness of sin without this.
SPEAKER_00: Again, burned and the ashes spread outside the city gate, the rest eaten inside the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: So fitting that Jesus was crucified outside the city gate where the ashes were scattered as a sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_00: And the fifth kind of sacrifice was the trespass offering.
SPEAKER_00: That was for unintentional sins.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't mean to sin, it just happened.
SPEAKER_00: You were ceremonially defiled.
SPEAKER_00: You had something unclean touch you.
SPEAKER_00: You sinned in some way that's not even called, you're not culpable for it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just you are unclean because you're a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: You had to bring a ram.
SPEAKER_00: And again, it had to be sacrificed and cut up and carved up.
SPEAKER_00: This was so much of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So much of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, the peace offerings were often called the wave offering or the heave offering.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you this because I want you to get how graphic this is in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: For the heave offering, they would take the whole, you know, the breast and the shoulder of the cow.
SPEAKER_00: It was a wave offering if it was a bird.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you could wave the breast of the burden from the fire.
SPEAKER_00: But it was a heave offering.
SPEAKER_00: If you had some kind of big ram or bull, and the priest would have to get together and heave that third of the animal up over the fire.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is blood everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: That was what they had to do all the time to worship.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the most picture perfect of these sacrifices in the Old Testament wasn't even any of the ones that described in the Torah, but was Abraham's sacrifice of his son.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he had to bring his son up to the mountain and sacrifice his only son.
SPEAKER_00: And God stops the sacrifice, and God instead provides a substitute, indicating that one day God himself will provide his own only son as a sacrifice on that same spot, outside the gate where the ashes are spread, right where Abraham was going to sacrifice his son.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the final sacrifice will be provided.
SPEAKER_00: All of those sacrifices were inadequate.
SPEAKER_00: They all were pointing towards a future sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where Paul goes in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Walk in love as Christ loved us, gave himself up for us, a sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_00: And the last phrase there is it's a fragrant offering.
SPEAKER_00: That's the smell of all those organs being burned in the fire.
SPEAKER_00: The smell would come up from the fire.
SPEAKER_00: Very distinct smell.
SPEAKER_00: And Leviticus describes it as a pleasing offering to God.
SPEAKER_00: God smells the best part in the fire and accepts the offering.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: His life was the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: His life demonstrated his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: He completely fulfilled God's law, giving us the pattern to imitate, giving us the path to walk in.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of his life, rather than following that path all the way to glory, he follows that path of the cross where he fulfills all of the sacrificial system.
SPEAKER_00: He becomes the final sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: He gave himself up.
SPEAKER_00: He did this voluntarily.
SPEAKER_00: It was his own initiative.
SPEAKER_00: And he was a fragrant offering to God.
SPEAKER_00: It was J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packer who said men are opposed to God in their sin.
SPEAKER_00: And God is opposed to man and his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Men reject God because they love sin, and so God rejects man because he loves holiness.
SPEAKER_00: That tells you everything you know about people in God.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God makes a way to reconcile separated sinners from himself to him through the final sacrifice of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's not coincidental that he was crucified outside the city where the ashes were spread.
SPEAKER_00: It's not coincidental that he was lifted up as the peace offering is heaved up.
SPEAKER_00: He was lifted up on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It's not coincidental that he fulfills all of those categories of offering.
SPEAKER_00: Your unintentional sins can be forgiven through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Your deliberate sins that cause hostility between you and another believer can be forgiven in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Your sins against God that require atonement can be forgiven in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Your thankfulness, you want to give God a sacrifice because of how filled with joy you are at how much he's blessed you in life, fulfilled in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You have nothing left to give except what Christ has given you.
SPEAKER_00: This is our call.
SPEAKER_00: To live a life of love.
SPEAKER_00: And so now he commands you to go out and walk like Jesus walks, imitate how God would have walked, talk like he would have talked, act like love what he would have loved, care what he would have cared about, do the things he would have done.
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible to say I want to be a father and model it off of how Jesus was a father.
SPEAKER_00: He had no children.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be a wife and model it off how Jesus was a wife.
SPEAKER_00: He had no He wasn't a wife.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know how to navigate old age like Jesus navigated old age.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know how to be a child like Jesus was a child.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible doesn't tell you.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever situation you are in life, you can imitate God by looking at the holiness of Christ, the righteousness of Christ as he went to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's on display.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful that you've given us the cross on which to fix our eyes.
SPEAKER_00: We want to imitate you.
SPEAKER_00: We understand the key to imitating you well is to fill our mind with the cross, to die to ourself, to elevate you.
SPEAKER_00: To have a love for you that is real and authentic and on display for the world to see.
SPEAKER_00: We're thankful that you loved us when we weren't worthy.
SPEAKER_00: Now empower us to love others when they aren't worthy.
SPEAKER_00: Let us love others like you loved us.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for anyone here this morning who has never trusted you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray this morning they'd be convicted of their sins, of their shallow understanding of love, and would be drawn towards the cross where there's an ocean of love on display.
SPEAKER_00: I pray this morning there would be people here who have never given their lives to you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray this morning they would pray to you in their heart.
SPEAKER_00: They would believe the death of Christ is the substitute for their sin, and they would be saved.
SPEAKER_00: I ask this in the name of Christ.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, DC area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our service times and church information are on our website at ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.