Ephesians 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; 2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. 3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
“divine” = godlike [Think cars in a drag race] - it’s not about looks, it’s about what’s under the hood, but it goes even deeper than that. Tesla beats muscle cars not with a bigger engine but with software. Better programming. Better dna. [What we find in this section of Eph 5.1-6 is, better dna = divine dna]
First let’s do a quick overview of this section. Paul summarizes what he’s been saying, and gives us two broad categories of people. Children of God, and sons (and daughters) of disobedience. Who is your daddy? And when we conduct a paternity test, what are we looking at? DNA. DNA shows paternity. DNA authenticates whose child we are.
Paul reminds us of four things which are true of us in Christ as children of God, which inform how we should live:
•God’s children are loved [picture of parents loving their baby]
•God’s children are saints [white as snow]
•God’s children are blessed / have much to be thankful for [cornucopia]
•God’s children are heirs [Sam Walton heirs received billions][Our dad of course owns the cattle on a thousand hills - and then some!]
Paul also gives us a list of bad stuff which ought to never ever even be associated with God’s children. But let’s rewind and remember how we get into God’s family. It is not by getting rid of the bad stuff. And it’s not by doing a whole bunch of good stuff.
Ephesians 2:8-9
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Remember, by grace, undeserved favor, we are saved - through faith. Faith in Christ, trusting in what HE DID on the Cross. God brought us into His forever family when we believed in Christ. He adopted us. Made us joint heirs with His Son. Blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. It’s all ours. Now we are saints. We are holy ones. He has put His divine DNA in our hearts. His Spirit lives in us. We are HIS workmanship, His heavenly masterpiece. Brand new creations. We are His beloved children. This is who we are. And so this is how we should live. Paul tells us to become imitators of God. Imitating our heavenly Father. Imitating, walking like our risen Brother. But let me say that, divinity - that which is god-like - does not happen all by itself. Divinity is not an accident. There is no spontaneous divinity. It is never accidental. Just like there is no such thing as accidental complexity.
DNA. Deoxyribonucleic acid. It is the chemical name for the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for all living things - their development, functioning, growth and reproduction. It’s the recipe book for your body. DNA determines much of how we look and even function at the most fundamental level. We can alter our appearance, but we cannot alter our DNA. It is our biological source code. Do you know how many lines of code your body has? The average iPhone app has 50,000 lines of code. What are the odds of that arising by chance? The F-22 Raptor fighter jet uses about 1 million lines of code. In fact, so does the typical new car. That’s about 18,000 pages of printed text (14x War&Peace; 30 Harry Potter books). Some newer cars - like that Tesla - 100 million lines of code. Google w all of its internet services, has 2 billion lines of code. 2000 times that F22 fighter jet. 36 million pages - a stack of paper 2.2 mi high. The human body - your body - has almost double that. 3.3 billion lines of code. What are the chances of that? That you and I are some cosmic accident? That which is god-like is NO accident.
Psalm 139:13-16
"You created the deepest parts of my being. You put me together inside my mother’s body. How You made me is amazing and wonderful. I praise You for that. What You have done is wonderful. I know that very well. None of my bones was hidden from You when you made me inside my mother’s body. That place was as dark as the deepest parts of the earth. When You were putting me together there, Your eyes saw my body even before it was formed. You planned how many days I would live. You wrote down the number of them in Your book before I had lived through even one of them."
But now in Christ we’ve been born a second time. Re-created by the same amazing Creator.
Ephesians 2:10
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them."
In Christ we are re-created by God - w HIS DNA! This is what Paul is getting at for these Ephesians, and for us.
Ephesians 2:19-22
"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit."
Paul is not talking about brick and mortar. There is this spiritual forever family. A body of unfathomable oneness and purpose, with many different parts, joined together. Divine.
Ephesians 4:11-16
"And He gave some as apostles, (etc)… for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love."
Ephesians 2:10
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them."
We’ve been divinely recreated to be a productive part of this forever family, to help build up the body by this truthing in love. AND we have this new source code, this divine DNA. Yet we still have some choice in the matter, don’t we? Biologically, we may not be able to drastically change our genetics, but we have a choice in how we live. The same is true for us spiritually.
DNA. We’re talking about the fundamental and distinctive characteristics or qualities of someone or something, regarded as unchangeable. And when we begin to talk about DNA on more of the sociological level, we are talking about the ways things SHOULD be, how they should function. Who we are - how we choose to live - correlates to who we should be. SO - choose to imitate your heavenly Father. Walk like Jesus - imitate Him, Paul says.
Imitation is what? The sincerest form of flattery. When you imitate someone, when you try to be like them, act like them - you honor them. Part of this then is honoring the Lord, making Him look good…
Children actually are born imitators. Research shows, from the earliest age:
•We instinctively imitate those we spend time with
•Imitation helps to socialize, it forges social connections
•It even facilitates communication.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52tt5LhOIU] - Now their imitating us doesn’t always make us look good - [Story of the daughter playing with her doll who exclaimed in her mom's hearing: "This g.d. baby won’t take a nap!" Who was she imitating...? :)]
We imitate by nature - the question is who? What happened to the Israelites in the promised land. They began to imitate the idolatry of the peoples who lived around them (Judg 2.17).
How do you imitate someone? Imitation requires time, time spent watching the other person. You watch the other person, and then you begin to try and do what they do. You practice. So how do we begin to imitate God? We watch Him. In His Word. His people. We watch Jesus. Then we practice walking in love. Love which sacrifices - like Jesus. Because remember, Paul is focused on how we relate to one another in the assembly, in community.
Immorality, impurity, greed - these things which Paul is calling out, these all say, I want what I want. It is all about me. Me living into the worst example of me. My pleasure. My happiness. Doing what I want, getting what I want will make me happy. No, it won’t. It will make me selfish. The focus is on me. On what I don’t have, what I don’t like. It makes me ungrateful. Instead of words of gratitude and words that build up, there are hurtful words. Filthy words. Rotten. It’s rampant in our entire society.
Geno Auriemma (on how our society is trending) - “Recruiting enthusiastic kids is harder than it’s ever been…Recruiting kids that are really upbeat and loving life and love the game, have this tremendous appreciation for when their teammates do something well…it’s really hard. Kids…are allowed to get away with just whatever, and they’re always thinking about themselves. Me, me, me, me, me. I didn’t score, so why should I be happy. I didn’t get enough minutes, so why should I be happy. That’s the world that we live in today, unfortunately… Kids check the scoreboard because they’re gonna get yelled at by their parents cuz they didn’t score enough points… On our team, we put a huge premium on body language. And if your body language is bad, you will never get in the game. Ever. (so-and-so) was acting like a 12yr old, so I put her on the bench… When I watch game film, I’m checking what’s going on on the bench - if somebody’s asleep over there, if somebody doesn’t care, somebody’s not engaged, they will never get in the game. Ever!”
He’s talking about this gratefulness, this others-centeredness. Because it is not about me…
“We hear so much and see so much of the coddled generation these days and especially in youth sports, where there is a focus on the 'me' culture. (Geno's) comments get to the heart of what it takes to excel today: to work really hard and really embrace the power of being a teammate. Life is not a highlight film…” -Donna Orender (former president of the WNBA)
The power of being a teammate. Life is not about me. Life is not about what I don’t have. Certainly not for those who have trusted in Christ. Life is not about me. Which sounds unfathomable to Me, my fallen self. But because me-first relegates God to 2nd place at best, me-first also makes me an object of God’s wrath. We were His enemies, Paul says. Children of wrath. The sentence of death was upon Me. Even as the rest. And rightly so. Me had freely chosen - along with the rest - to go the way of Me. Me put other things in God’s rightful place. Me deserved to be separated from God and His breathtaking goodness forever.
Let’s not miss this. Yes, our God is slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness, but He gets angry. Angry at sin, at Me-first. My sin. He is so good, but He is not safe.
This is why the Good News we celebrate at Christmas (and ideally the rest of the year) is so good - God gave us the greatest gift, the gift of His Son, Who was born as a baby and grew up so that He could die for me - and all the rest. In Christ we have the forgiveness of our sins. Through His blood. By grace through faith. And so now for those who trust in Christ, we’re not talking about try harder. We’re talking about good works and a new life which GOD has prepared - and which He is working out in and through us. This new DNA. But yes we have a part to play. Knowing who we are - and Whose we are - we have a part to play. Imitate God. Watch Him. Observe Him. Spend time with Him. Put His love into practice. Instead of this Me-ness there is We-ness.
Paul says, you all there in Ephesus (plural) - the Christian life is not about me. Imitate your heavenly Father. All y’all. This One Who so loved the world that He gave. Imitate your risen Brother, Who also loved you. Who gave Himself up for you, an offering, a sacrifice that brought great pleasure to the Father. Walk in love - together! Truth in love! Guard, grow the oneness. Unity. Love one another. Lay down your lives for one another. Be giving thanks, grateful for what you have. In one another. Make it not about what you don’t have or don’t like but about how God has loved you, how He has blessed you - TO BE A BLESSING!
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