Be Imitators of God as Beloved Children | Ephesians 5:1-2

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. And then chapter 5 from verse 1. 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. Now I'm going to concentrate mainly on those words that say, therefore be imitators of God. But before I do, let me remind you of one or two things. God has a plan. God has a plan. That's what Ephesians has been telling us about, that God has a plan. And I know that Paul, when he was talking about this, one of the key things in the plan that Paul's talking about is reconciliation, bringing people together. Whereas in his day it was the Jews and the Gentiles, in our day there are countless divisions. There are countless places where men and women need to be reconciled to each other across religious lines, across cultural lines, across political lines. There are all kinds of lines that are being drawn today. And I don't know whether you've seen what has been happening in France, if you've been seeing the riots that have been going on there. And I saw even today, a building that has survived, I think, two wars, an amazing historical building, completely burned to the ground by rioters. It was the center of the resistance during the war. It's a great landmark brought down. And another image, I saw a woman standing in the doorway of her shop, her business, and speaking to the rioters and pleading with them to spare her business. This is the kind of thing that we're seeing. And this is a manifestation of the Spirit, Spirit of our age. It is a manifestation of what is going on right across the Western world right now, and I'm sure in other parts of the world as well. And in Paul's day, he looked at the division that was there. In particular, he looked at the division that was there in the church. And he said, you know, Christ came to bring people together. Christ came to make a change. It says in Ephesians 1 from verses 9 to 10, that God is making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things in earth. And then in Ephesians 3:10, it says, through the church the manyfold wisdom of God is being revealed. As we come together, we reveal the Wisdom of God at work, in action as we come together, as we welcome others, as we cross, as it were, enemy lines and people that maybe we wouldn't want to associate with, or people who perhaps wouldn't want to associate with us. And we bring healing and we bring unity and we bring change and we bring transformation. And I get so excited about this and so passionate about this, because this is the plan of God. We look around and we. We look for the answer in politics or whatever it is, and politics can play its part. But the church, that's you and me, we have a unique role to bring healing to the world around us, to bring the change and to be the change. And Paul says this, this is the plan of God, to bring that healing where there's that division, because the enemy comes to kill and to steal and to destroy. But he has come that we might have life and have it in abundance. How amazing that we have been given that mission, you and I, to bring healing where we are in Colchester. Colchester. I was sharing with someone last night who we were at a fundraising meal last night, and we were sat with several people at our table. One had come from London, and we were sharing with her how diverse Colchester is. She didn't realize how diverse our community is in Colchester. And I think that's an amazing, wonderful thing, the diversity that we have. We have the opportunity here in Colchester to get to know people from all parts of the world, from all kinds of backgrounds, from all kinds of situations. It's amazing and wonderful to live in such a diverse community. But it's also a city with divisions. It's also a city where lines are being drawn, where placards are being raised up, where protests are being made. It's a town or a city of opportunities, but it's also a city with its problems, and the answer is us. And when I get into places outside of the church where secular things are going on and I meet some. Some of the people that we meet outside, quite often they don't realize and they don't see how the church is the answer. But we know that we have a divine mandate from God to be the answer and to be the change that is the plan of God. It's Christ in us, the hope of glory. Christ, the one who. Paul talked about it earlier in Ephesians about Christ. Christ uniting all things in himself. That as he was lifted up, as he was crucified, he was healing division and bringing people together. He was healing the divide. Paul puts it this way when he talks about the wall of Division that was between jews and gentiles in the temple. He says that in Christ's body, the dividing wall has been broken down, and that same Christ is at work in you and me. We have that Christ in us, and so we can be the answer to this division and this pain and this suffering that we see around us. Because the enemy has put a wedge between communities, A wedge between husbands and wives, a wedge between parents and children, a wedge between different nationalities and groups of people. We are the answer in Christ. We are all united together. Isn't that amazing that I can stand here as a white pastor in the midst of a predominantly black church and feel at home and feel that I'm among my brothers and sisters? That's the answer we're looking for. And we need to bring more of those individuals that look like me in here and make them feel welcome so that we can be the healing, so that we can be the change. That's the plan of God. And we've talked about how that plan is enacted in us. But one of the ways that that plan is enacted in us is through the imitation of God. The imitation of God, it says, therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. Imitators of God as beloved children. You know, in my early days of prayer preaching, I remember exactly where I was when I preached my first ever sermon. It was not far from here. It was over in surbiton in Surrey. And it was a Wednesday night meeting. And I finally got the opportunity to share a message. And so I went up, and my knees were like this. And I thought about this message. I thought about this message for days. I had preached this message in front of a mirror. I'm not afraid to say. And I got up and I began to share this message. And I always remember something one of my peers said to me after that meeting. She said it was very good. She said, did I detect a slight American twang in your voice? You see, because what happens is we find ourselves imitating, isn't it? And sometimes someone might criticize that and say that imitation is fake. I want to tell you that sometimes imitation can be fake, but in many cases, it's not fake at all. You see, I had something in me, and I knew I had something in me. And the people that encouraged me to have a go also saw something in me. But it was necessary to have a certain level of imitation to help bring out what was in me. Hallelujah. You know this yourself because, you know, have you ever caught your children imitating you or pretending to Be you. Does that happen? I remember when we were in Kenya, one of our pastor's kids left his child in the office. And if you've ever been to our house, you may know that we have these Maasai warriors carved figures in our hallway. These two Maasai warriors. And at this time, we just bought them, and they were sitting in my office in the church. And one of the pastor's kids was in there. And we came in the office and we found him preaching and laying hands on the Maasai kids imitate you? Not because they're fake. I want to tell you, there's nothing fake about children. There's nothing, you know, more not fake than children. And yet they imitate you. Why? Because there's something in them. There is your DNA, of course. Is there? There's your heritage. Is there? It's all in them, waiting to come out in its adult form. But it's necessary that they play and they imitate, though, that what is in them might come out. And it's the same here, every one of us. If you're born again, you have Christ in you, the hope of glory, Jesus is in you. And Paul told us, you know, you need to work that out. And working that out in part is imitation, in part, it's imitating God. He says, therefore, be imitators of God. And so as we imitate him, we begin to find that actually it's all in there in the first place. He's put it in there by His Holy Spirit, and it begins to work its way out as we become imitators of God. I love the way Spurgeon put it. You know, Spurgeon said that there's that expression that the highest form of flattery is what? Imitation. Hallelujah. And he said it is the highest form of adoration to imitate God. It's the highest form of worship to imitate God. Because we look at God and we say, I want to be like Him. I want to be like that. And I have his spirit in me. And so I'm going to imitate. In fact, it says in 1 John 3. Two, that as we do that, where there will come a day when we will meet him face to face. And he says, when we do, we'll find that we are like Him. We are like him because the more we see him, the more we become like Him. And in that moment, we will be like Him. I love what it says in Romans 8:29 that those he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son. Hallelujah. Imitating God, imitating Jesus and being like him in our choices and our actions. And one of the things that we can imitate is this, is that Jesus came to tear down walls. It says in Ephesians 2:17 that he preached peace to those that are far off and preached peace to those that are near. He was a breaker of walls. He was a breaker of divisions. And so we need to start imitating that because, you know, one of the things that happens when you live in society, especially some of the journeys that people in this very room have been on, is that we feel the need to protect ourselves. If you've been through trauma, if you've been a victim of abuse, if you've been a victim of racism, if you've been a victim of othering, if you've been a victim of any kind of pushback or mistreatment, what do we do when we want to protect ourselves? We build a wall. Right? We build a wall. And those walls that we build are supposed to protect us, us. But all they do in the end is divide us. And Jesus was a breaker of walls. Listen, if there's anyone who needed to build a wall, it was Jesus. Everyone was after him. The devil was after him. The Pharisees were after him. The Sadducees were after him. In the end, the Romans were after him. He had every right to build a wall. And yet there has never been anyone so open as Jesus, so welcoming as Jesus. In fact, he was the exact opposite of what was expected by the Jews of his day, because he was a breaker down of walls. He was one who would heal a Gentile. He was one that would eat with a tax co collector. He would even go and heal the centurion servant. He broke down walls. He crossed barriers. Listen, we need to be those people in our day that step out to cross over walls and barriers to reach people. Are we ready to imitate that Jesus and step over those walls and be peacemakers? That's what it means to imitate Jesus. He preached peace to those who are far off and peace to those that were near. And it says here that he offered himself as a sacrifice. Let's read it. Here it says he loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice. And here it talks about two kinds of sacrifice. You know, in the Old Testament they had two kinds of sacrifice. There was the meal offering. It was like a fellowship offering. It was something that brought you closer to God. And then there was the things like the sin offering, the burnt offering, things that shed blood. So there were offerings of blood and offerings without blood. And it mentions both here when it talks about Jesus. He both died for us and he died in our stead. In other words, he didn't just die for our sins, but he died and he put himself in our place to bring us closer to God. And that's us as we lay ourselves down, as we imitate Christ. Christ. We lay ourselves down in order that we might bring people together. You know, those people who, who you don't want to. You just don't. You don't want to deal with them, you don't want to talk to them. When you cross that divide and you bring people together, I believe that's a powerful thing. You see, the Jews were there for thousands of years. Know that? Do you know they were there for thousands of years in Israel, in the desert? They were there for thousands of years, the people of God. And yet the world around them went on the same way that it always had. Nothing changed. But as soon as Jesus came and he was crucified, what do you see? Suddenly now it goes from Jerusalem to Antioch. Suddenly now there's Gentiles that are joining suddenly now they can't understand. They had to have special meetings to figure out why the Gentiles were starting to get saved. Peter went to the house of Cornelius and preached and crossed lines he was not supposed to cross and preach to people he was not supposed to preach to. And suddenly now the Gentiles are getting baptized. And suddenly, now as the walls broke down, down, and as they reached out to people that they didn't want to reach out to, they didn't want to reach out to those Romans. You know, you can complain about othering and racism and mistreatment and all of that, but these were people who had thoroughly colonized their country. They didn't want anything to do with them. They hated them. They thought of them as godless. These were the people that talk, took their money as taxis and hung their people on crosses. These were the people who executed their relatives, who didn't allow them to have their own power or authority in their own country, who ruled every area of their life. And suddenly, now they're reaching out. Suddenly now a centurion part of the occupying force has come to Jesus and said, my servant is sick. And, and Jesus heals his servant. Suddenly now they're crossing lines to people that they hated. And here's the thing. All the time that they were trying to resist by force and defeat the Romans, they were losing. All the time that they were trying to dislodge that enemy force they were losing. People were getting executed, people were getting tried. People were not succeeding at driving out that enemy force. But the moment they got the gospel of Jesus and they began to reach out, and they began to reach out in love to those people that were supposed to be their enemies and tell them the word of life, suddenly now, as those people began to get saved, the gospel went to the heart of Rome. Suddenly, now, the Rome was Rome. Their occupier was the very center of the worship of Jesus Christ, a Jew from Nazareth. Suddenly, now, what fighting could not do, love did. What fighting could not do, the gospel did suddenly, now, what no man could do through force, Jesus did by hanging on a cross. What are we going to imitate? Are we going to imitate the zealots? Are we going to march up and down with placards and protest and probably get nowhere? Or are we going to be imitators of God and do it the Jesus way and walk across the aisle and reach those that we're supposed to hate with the gospel of Jesus? Be imitators of God, he says. And he says, put away. Listen to this. Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander. Put it all away. Put away malice, he says. Put it away. Jesus put it away. As he went to the cross and he hung upon that cross and he bled and he suffered. And as he hung there, he's praying for people. He's asking God to forgive people. He's thinking of people. I want to tell you, when I'm suffering, I'm not doing a whole lot of thinking of other people. I'm just not. I've often pondered whether if someone just struck my big toe, I would just crumble. Have you ever stubbed your big toe? You just walk into a cupboard or a wall and you're like, oh, my goodness. And you're what? And here's Jesus in such pain and such suffering, and he's forgiving and he's praying and he's concerned about people that ought to be struck down and destroyed, and he's concerned about them. That's how he did it. And he broke down the dividing walls. He broke down the dividing walls. How else do we imitate God? How else do we imitate Christ? Well, we imitate Christ, he says. By walking in love, he says. And walk in love as Christ loved us. Walk in love, he says. Be kind to one another. Be kind to one another. In verse 32, be kind. I wonder what you think of as being kind. What does kindness look like to you? I love what John Piper, the preacher John Piper, made an observation. He says, what do you think kindness is like? And he said, when Jesus turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple, was that kind kind? You know, sometimes being kind doesn't mean being soft. Being kind is all about caring for someone so much that you will help them regardless of whether they hate you back. Hallelujah. You know, when a parent helps a child, sometimes what they get back is is hatred. What they get back is complaints. How many haven't seen a child stomp their feet in the face of loving discipline and say, I hate you? Kindness. Always wanting the best for someone else. You see, I say that first because sometimes in today's society, kindness means never offending. Kindness means enabling somebody who's doing something that is harming themselves. Never criticize, Never advise against what somebody's doing. Always support them. Always say, don't worry, you're good, you're doing good. Well done. Everything you're doing is amazing. Never criticize. But being kind means thinking about their absolute best, not that kind of modern kindness. Being like God. John MacArthur points out the paradox of this. The Bible says, be perfect as he is perfect. And the paradox is we find that we are called to be perfect. The Bible says, be perfect as he is perfect. And the Bible also says, you can't. Which am I to believe? As I imitate God, which am I to believe? And that's the paradox that we're faced in our Christian life is being imitators of God to realize that we can never arrive there, because. But if we will just imitate, if we will just walk as imperfectly as we can, that's the way that we begin to work out what God has put in us. It says in 3:19 Ephesians. 3:19. We read it earlier in our series to know the love of God, or rather the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. How do we imitate God? Spurgeon again says this. He says, it's like a sculptor. You know, when a sculptor wants to make a statue of somebody, I don't think anyone's going to be making any statues of me. But if you want to commission a statue, we can have it out there. Pastor Sean, statue. Hallelujah. Maybe not, but when a sculptor makes a statue, what does a sculptor do? He has to pay very close attention. Has anyone ever painted your picture or attempted to paint your picture and then they showed it to you. And this person who was once a friend, But a real painter or a sculptor, they pay very close attention to their subject. They want to know every line, every furrow. And there's something about being a Christian as an imitator of God that is more than this shallow Christianity where we just spend our time shouting about how I am victorious, how I am the head and not the tail, how I am, how I am blessed, how I am favored, and we just make declarations about ourselves. Ourselves. But imitating God means we have to pay close attention to our subjects. We pay close attention to our subject. We look and we see and we say, how does God look? How does God look? The reason why sometimes Christians, we are such poor imitators of God is that we don't know how he looks. We don't really know how he looks. Have you ever. Have you ever. You've met someone for the first time, they tell you their name, and next time you meet them, you forget what they look like. It's the curse of being a pastor of a growing church that you're out shopping somewhere and when someone says, hello, Pastor, and you say, hello, brother, how are you, my brother? And then you're desperately trying to remember, where did I meet them? Where did I meet this brother? And they say, I'm a member of your church. Because it takes time to recognize somebody. You know, I've spoken to a good number of our, over the years, members of our church who are of the Caucasian variety. And one of the things they complain about is frequent changing of wigs. The changing of wigs to certain people can be a very confusing experience. And what I suggest is that if you want to have some fun, come to church with the wig you are wearing and another one in your bag and mid service, go and change and enjoy certain members welcoming you to church for the first time, even when you've been around for one good year. And you know something? No matter how many times my wife changes her hair, I won't fail to recognize her because I have studied that face for 24 good years. And for 24 years I have studied that face. Now I want to tell you there are still some mysteries like those times when I say, are you mad or just something else? I'm not sure am I about to die? But I know that face. I can never bump into my wife on the street and say, and what is your name? I can't, because I have studied that face. And as we get to know the face of somebody. Not only do we discover that we know their face, but there's something behind that face. There's something more about that face. I've seen people, and when I see their photograph for the first time, you can start assuming things. Because we know that the face. There's something behind that face. But as we get to know them, there's something different about that face. And so it's the same with God. If we want to imitate God, then we've got to study him. We got to study him. We got to know him. We got to know every line and every wrinkle. Because a face tells a story. I've seen people, older brothers in church, who I've learned from. And before they even speak, you can see the years etched in their face. You can see a story etched in their face face. You can see a wilderness experience. You can see the crossing of the Red Sea. You can see the disasters, the sorrows, the intercession, the breakthroughs. You know what I'm talking about. You see it? It's written on them. Their story is written in their face. Study the face of God, and you will imitate him. Him. Study the face of God and you'll know how to walk. Says in Romans 12. Give yourself. Give yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act. Give yourself. Give yourself fully to knowing him, to seeing his face, to knowing what he's like. If you're bored by this book, say, God help me. God help me. Because in here you'll find the face of God. In here you'll find the character of God. In here you'll find the love of God. In here you'll find the mystery of God. You'll find a God you can't always understand. You'll find a God that you find it hard to agree with on occasion. You'll find a God who defies logic to your mind sometimes. But you'll also find how deep and how wide and how high the love of God is. Though you will never see the end of it. And you'll never fully understand it. You'll discover him. You'll see him. You'll see the look in his eyes. And now you'll know what to imitate. An imitation won't just be a matter of thinking. Now let me walk this way. We used to wear those bands. Do you remember those bands we used to wear back in the day? WWJD Remember those? What would Jesus do? It won't be just what would Jesus do but imitation will be. You'll start to look like him. Something happens when you're in the company of people. You know, Smith Wigglesworth, the great evangelist, used to teach at the. I think it was the Elim, or the assembly of God Bible School back in the day. And the young men would listen to him for hours and hours. And he had a big moustache, he had a big mustache like two squirrels. He had a big mustache here like this. And it says that the young men who had listened to him when they preached, these young boys, could be seen stroking the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen. You see, when you're in someone's presence and company, imitation naturally happens. So focus on him, like that sculpture. Look at him, know him, understand about him and imitate him. And I promise you that if we all begin to imitate God, Colchester, Colchester will be transformed by the love of Jesus. Riots will be stopped, murders will be stopped, protests will be stopped, hatred will be stopped. And people will say, whatever is happening in Colchester, and you'll say, oh, God's people are busy imitating God and. And everything has changed. Amen. Shall we pray together? Let's stand up on our feet and let's pray. Thank you, Lord. Heavenly Father, we give you praise. Heavenly Father, we thank you. Father, we thank you that your son is the great example of what it is to be human. He is the great example of all that we are supposed to be as human beings. Heavenly Father, we want to pray right now that we here at Colchester City Church will be imitators of God. That we will be those who open up your word and look inside and begin to see who you are, to study who you are, to look at your face, to know every line and to imitate to become more like you, Father, in Jesus name. So often we are exposed as we look at the world around us, as we open up media, we are exposed to all that, all that the world is doing. And we find ourselves imitating that. We watch influencers and we find ourselves imitating that. We look around at the world around us and we begin to take on the appearance of that. But your word says, let us be imitators of God, oh, Lord. Let us look and see who you are and become more and more like you. In Jesus name.