Be Imitators of God

Happy Sunday! Today we're going to continue in our series called Great Expectations. These are expectations that God has of his children. If you're a parent, don't you have expectations, great expectations? I spoke with a father today that had a great disappointment this week involving his teenage son.

The father was hurting. His expectations, which to me were very reasonable, were not being met. He was devastated. I hope it's your great desire to live up to God's expectations for you.

Today we're going to look at an expectation found in Ephesians chapter 5, verses 1 and 2: "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Did you see the expectation there? We are to imitate God.

It's likely that all of us at one time or another have imitated someone else. Fashion trends come to mind. I remember the child wearing a lime green Nehru jacket. If you don't know what that is, Google it, but thank God there are no pictures of me wearing it.

Language comes to mind, or words. We hear somebody say something, or a phrase, and we imitate it. I was talking to a non-Christian friend of mine, actually I like the word pre-Christian better. He told me that they were at his house and his four-year-old daughter cussed at the dinner table. He knew where she learned the word: from his own mouth.

He was more careful after that. She was imitating her daddy. Scripture tells us to imitate God. The whole of the Christian life could be summed up in that one idea: be imitators of God.

Thank God verse 2 from Ephesians 5 tells us how. I'll read it again: "And live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." To imitate God, where to love and give as Jesus did.

Jesus said this in John 13:35: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, that you have love," that you love one another as I have loved you. In John 15:12, Jesus said, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." If you miss everything else I say in these few minutes, don't miss this: the imitation of the love of God will lead more people to Christ than anything else we can do. We need to imitate Christ.

Isn't the opposite also true? If someone sees someone claiming to be a Christian acting hateful, it will turn people away. Sadly, there are too many examples of this today, and the negative examples can be devastating. I was asked the other day about how to deal with a destructive person who claims to be a believer. I said, from a distance.

All of us have likely had to separate from bad influences are people who have hurt us. It doesn't mean you don't love them if you avoid them. It just means that you're being careful. The hurt father that I spoke with today said his son needed to find new friends.

In our society it seems to get harder and harder to love everyone. Our world has gone crazy, and there's some nuts out there. Here's a great policy to live by: be loving to those you encounter, and let God weed this world out later. It's not our job.

One of my favorite stories from my time pastoring at my favorite church in Indiana: one Sunday morning there were several migrant workers standing outside the church. They spoke broken English at best. They'd never been at our church. I'd not spotted them, but a dear lady, old enough to be my mom, came up to me and said that they asked her if it was okay to come in, and she said yes.

"I hope that's okay," she asked me. I smiled a big smile and started referring to her as our Minister of International Evangelism. I love that she had a heart to welcome and to love. That was the right response, of course, and it should be the only response.

However, over the years I've seen people turned away for various reasons. We should be very careful and love everyone. When we imitate God and love like Jesus did, we'll notice a big difference in our lives. Others will notice too.

In the last part of Ephesians 5:2, we are told that we are to be a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. In the book of Leviticus, a book that many of us will avoid, we find instructions for burnt offerings. In the Old Testament system these were necessary. God expected these offerings from his faithful people, and God paid close attention. He still does.

Today we do not offer burn offerings. Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice, and we no longer are required to do as they did in those days. We are required to offer our very lives as a living sacrifice. God still expects our lives to be fragrant to him.

Honestly, there are some stinkers in this world. God has to be, at times, a disappointed father. But it's my prayer that our lives calls him great, great joy as we live up to his expectations of imitating him.

Pray with me. Father God, help us to be imitators of you and not of this world. We have a choice every day, every moment of every day, how to act, and we pray that our choice would be Christ-like. Through your Holy Spirit, we ask that you would give us the strength to do just that. Help us to love this world that needs that example. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

God bless. Thanks for watching.