Sermon: Forgiving, Giving, and Living

Imitating God
#1399
Martin G. Collins
Given 23-Sep-17; 74 minutes

I hope your week was rewarding, especially since the Feast of Trumpets was this week. And we seem to begin our enthusiasm and excitement for the rest of the fall festival holy days as well. And so the excitement I see is building.

Soon after Christ returns, order is restored and the world becomes at one with God. Will you be among the saints who stand with Him? Will you truly reflect the character attributes of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ?

Turn with me if you will please to Ephesians 5, verse 1. Now, the apostle Paul teaches us in a very simple but powerful general principle, what we must do to stand with Christ upon His return and His setting up of God's Kingdom on earth. God inspired Paul to write that we are to do something quite challenging and difficult.

Ephesians 5:1-2 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

The fifth chapter of Ephesians begins with one of the most startling admonitions in the New Testament, "be imitators of God." It is the only place in the Bible where these words occur. And what makes them so startling is that they point to a standard beyond which there is no other. This is the highest standard in the universe, the sum of all duty. It is the ultimate ideal.

But the imitation of God the Father is quite an impossible obligation or at least it seems so. How is it possible to imitate One who is infinitely above us, the sovereign God of the universe?

Part of our problem comes from the nature of God and from His non-transmittable attributes. There is a distinction between God's transmittable attributes in which we share and God's non-transmittable attributes in which we do not share.

For example, when we talk to God we usually begin with the fact that He is self-existent, self-sufficient, eternal. Self-existent means that God has no origins and consequently is answerable to no one. And this sets God utterly apart because everything He does does have an origin and is accountable. Human beings are accountable to people. For example, parents and friends. Organizations are accountable, such as the church, the state, the company for which one works, and ultimately, God. Everyone will face a final judgment.

Self-sufficient means that God is has no needs and therefore depends on no one. It is not at all true of us. We need countless things: oxygen, food, water, warmth, clothing, and homes. If our supply of oxygen were to stop, we would die.

Eternal means that God has always existed and will always exist. And that is not true of us either. We have a point before which we had not existed. Furthermore, we change as time passes and God does not change. He is always the same in His eternal being.

After these initial attributes, without which God would not be God, we can add such things as omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, which expresses His majesty and His holiness in its fullest sense. We cannot be like God in these three characteristics. So let us take a look at each one of those.

First, God is omnipotent. Omnipotent means all powerful. We are not, nor will we be ever all powerful in the sense that we would have the most power.

Revelation 19:6 And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!

The Greek word translated omnipotent in verse 6 there is pantocrator, meaning all ruling or, as it is more frequently translated, almighty. And when we say God is almighty, we are stating our belief in His authority and rulership over all creation.

Satan, who is the God of this age as II Corinthians 4:4 confirms, has authority over the world only because Almighty God has granted it to him. Now, God ultimately reigns in the universe and beyond and all legitimate authority must originate from Him. He has the authority to do all His pleasure. He sees to the fulfillment of His plans without fail. And Jesus Christ confirms in Matthew 19:26 that with God all things are possible.

Nevertheless, omnipotent does not mean that God can do any and everything because, for example, the apostle Paul makes it crystal clear that in Titus 1:2, God cannot lie. And in II Timothy 2:13, that God cannot deny Himself. The Bible clearly shows that God cannot act contrary to His nature. But do these cannots mean that He is not omnipotent, not Almighty? Scripture must be allowed to define its own terms.

Please turn to Isaiah 40, verse 15. Now there is no limit to the power of God. He is referred to as Almighty 48 times in the Old Testament and nine times in the New Testament. God's power is also described in many other ways in the Scriptures. Let us take a look at two of those passages.

Isaiah 40:15-18 Behold, the nations are as a drop in the bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales; look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before Him are as nothing, they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him?

There is another example is found in Psalm 135.

Psalm 135:5-7 For I know that the Lord is great, and our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all the all deep places. He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain; and He brings the wind out of His treasuries.

So we see there that He is omnipotent.

The second non-transmittable, so to speak, attribute is that God is omnipresent. Omnipresent means being everywhere at once, in one sense, being present everywhere at the same time. Now, as human beings, we will never possess this ability. We are finite creatures and will always be finite in this life.

However, over a few pages to Psalm 139 we find that there is no place in this universe where we can hide from the presence of God. You are very familiar with this scripture. King David posed this question directly putting it eloquently into words here.

Psalm 139:7-10 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell [or the grave], behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.

So God is omnipotent; we cannot be. He is also omnipresent; we cannot be that either. David tells us here that it is futile to search for a place to hide from the presence of God. And Jonah confirmed that it is unwise to even try. Even in the belly of a large fish, you cannot hide.

In this sense, God's infallible word shows that He is omnipresent. Within His vast creation, there is no place where you can hide from His presence. And is it not interesting when somebody wants to commit sin or lead a sinful life. What do they look for? They look for darkness. Do they not to try to hide from God to do what they want to do?

Turn over to Exodus 33, verse 18, please. Now God's words in Genesis 1:26-27 leave no doubt that we are made to look like Him. Therefore, He generally looks like us. And although God is spirit and by way of His Spirit, in a sense, is able to be everywhere at once, nevertheless, He has a face, a back, and hands. Here we will read verses 13 through 23 to see that He does have a form.

Exodus 33:18-23 And he said, "Please show me Your glory." Then He said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." But He said, "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live." And the Lord said, "Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall be, while My glory passes b, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. [Of course, you have already guessed this is Moses He is speaking to.] Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen."

So, since God is spirit, and by way of His Spirit is able to go everywhere, David's rhetorical question to God in Psalm 139:7, "Where can I go from Your Spirit?" is answered by David himself when he acknowledges that everywhere David can think of, You, God, are there.

It is by Their Spirit that the Father and the glorified Christ have complete access to Their creation. Through His Spirit. God's reach extends to every nook and cranny of the universe and beyond, yet He still retains a form of body ruling in glory from His throne in heaven from where His eyes behold the sons of men.

Although God is omnipresent through His Spirit, we can become separated from Him because of our sins. And you are very familiar with this next scripture.

Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.

Jesus Christ experienced this horrible separation during His crucifixion when, on our behalf, He took upon Himself the full penalty of our sins.

God is everywhere in the known and the unknown universe. The Spirit of God is infinite making God omnipresent.

A third non-transmittable attribute is that God is omniscient. This means knowing all things. You and I will never know all things even as we will spend all eternity learning. The Bible tells us that God does perceive all things, which means that no fact can be hidden from His knowledge.

Now, let me give you a few scriptural examples.

Psalm 139:12 Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.

God Himself is light and light is always where God is. God is His own light. He is light and God sees all things and nothing can be hidden from His knowledge, not even the secret intentions of the heart.

Psalm 44:21 Would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.

He understands our own intentions better than we do.

Jeremiah 17:9-10 "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings."

Hebrews 4:12-13 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of the soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. [As Paul further explains in verse 13] And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

God knows exactly what we are doing at all times. We cannot hide from God to do our sins. We cannot hide in the dark. He sees through the dark.

We humans perceive through the senses but there are limits to what the senses let us perceive and understand. But God's senses are not limited like ours. His Spirit searches all things and nothing is beyond God's ability to perceive it. In this sense, He is omniscient. Nothing can escape His gaze or His knowledge. If it can be known, He knows it.

But if we are to use the word omniscient to describe God our Father and His Son, it cannot mean that God knows our every choice before we make it in every circumstance, because Scripture tells us otherwise. Now let me explain what I mean.

He certainly can accurately predict what we will do in any given situation by discerning our attitude and observing our track record. For example, the Bible shows that when God gave Abraham the supreme test of sacrificing his son Isaac, he had a very good idea whether Abraham would choose to obey or not. But to formally prove it for Himself and to Abraham, and to establish Abraham's position as the father of the faithful, it had to be evidenced by seeing it through to the end. Upon seeing his choice, He told Abraham in Genesis 22,

Genesis 22:12 And He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."

This was one of the most crucial points in the history of faith and in the plan of God. It was a challenge so intense and involving such faith that God had to know what choice Abraham would make.

This word know in the Hebrew can mean acknowledge, declare, or be sure. And it can mean something literally or figuratively. Most of the choices we make each day may be rather predictable because we have human nature and God knows how human nature works. He also knows our heart, mind, and everything else about us.

Parents with young children can see this for themselves. If a parent can often predict a young child's choices, how much more can the One who sees all, even the intent of our heart, which we sometimes do not know ourselves? How can we predict choices as well as God can?

Yet the Bible reveals that God does arrange circumstances to challenge our character, to help us to grow, where the outcome is not so predictable. When we choose, we participate with God in the new creation of our character.

Turn with me please to Isaiah 46, verse 9. We have a role to play in God's creation of His character within us as He prepares us for full membership in His Family. It is not that God cannot determine the future—He can and He does. But He does not control our free will. He directs it and helps us make wise decisions.

Isaiah 46:9 "Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.'"

This passage shows that declaring the end from the beginning is not just a function of seeing what is destined to happen.

And continuing in Isaiah, we read that God acts and intervenes in history to accomplish His ends.

Isaiah 46:11 "Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it."

These three things, omnipotence, omnipresence, and not omniscience set God apart from His creation, and they are what make Him totally other than anything else in existence. We are not like that. Each of these incommunicable, so to speak, attributes sets God apart from us and delineates an area in which we cannot and never will be exactly like Him.

But we are also overwhelmed by God's communicable attributes. That is, those attributes in which we do share. There are things like justice and wisdom and faithfulness, goodness, love, mercy, compassion, tenderness, forgiveness, and so on. That is a healthy comparison which should humble us, if nothing else. But it is nevertheless true that Paul says that we are to imitate God and we are to imitate God as dearly loved children.

In other words, just as a son should imitate a good father, though he is not yet a father and cannot imitate his father in many respects and just as a daughter should imitate a good mother, though she is not yet a mother and cannot imitate her mother in many respects, so should the children of God imitate God. And we have this going for us, we have the enabling life of God within us through the indwelling of His Spirit. Consequently, just as physical genes should lead a child in the direction of a parent's primary characteristics, so should a Christian's spiritual genes lead in the direction of the moral character of God.

We have been given the power, we have been given the ability to be able to become like God, to imitate God. And we have a lot of work, a great deal of effort to be made to become like Him. But He tells us that He will help us to do that. And He ultimately is the one who does it for us.

Turn with me back to Ephesians 5, please. So we have seen some of the non-transmittable attributes of God that we cannot imitate: omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. Now, let us look at some of the transmittable attributes of God that we can acquire now as dear children of God.

Ephesians 5:1-2 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

So when we look at this passage in which the command to imitate God occurs, we see immediately that it is not just any attribute that Paul has in mind for our imitating, though it would be possible to imitate God in more ways than the one he mentions.

What Paul primarily has in mind is the imitation of God's love. Here, he mentions it right after he says we are to imitate God. And certainly this is what ties Ephesians 1 to the end of chapter 4 and links it also to Ephesians 2. Ephesians 5:1-2 are part of the preceding paragraph shown there at the end of chapter 4.

Ephesians 4:31-32 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

The Amplified Version of this passage paraphrases the entire text by adding synonyms after some of these keywords. So I am going to read the same scriptures to you out of the Amplified Version.

Ephesians 4:31-32 (AMP) Let all bitterness and indignation and wrath (passion, rage, bad temper) and resentment (anger, animosity) and quarreling (brawling, clamor, contention) and slander (evil-speaking, abusive or blasphemous language) be banished from you, with all malice (spite, ill will or baseness of any kind).And become useful and helpful and kind to one another, tenderhearted (compassionate, understanding, loving-hearted), forgiving one another [readily and freely], as God in Christ forgave you.

And we go to chapter 5 reading from the Amplified Version.

Ephesians 5:1-2 (AMP) Therefore be imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father]. And walk in love [esteeming and delighting in one another], as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, a slain offering and a sacrifice to God [for you, so that it became] a sweet-smelling fragrance.

So this is the way as a sweet fragrance we should want our sacrifice of witnessing God's way of life and offering up prayers to be received by God. Our actions in the way of what we do, how we treat others, and also our other offerings to God should be a sweet-smelling sacrifice, a sweet-smelling fragrance to Him.

When I walk into services or to work at this time of year, I love the smell right outside the back door here because those tea olives are blooming and they smell so wonderful and it is such a nice, pleasant, sweet smell. It always puts a smile on my face. That is the type of way God wants to receive what we do and what we say and how we treat one another.

The general sense in which we are to imitate the Creator is, of course, by walking in love. And what kind of a love is being referred to in Ephesians 5:2? The passage answers this question in several ways of what type of love.

The first answer is that this love is to be forgiving. Since God the Father forgave us through the work of Christ, we are to forgive one another, and this is true love's nature. I do not know how many times we have heard this. But really, take to heart that this is a major aspect of God's love, the forgiveness.

This link between God's forgiveness in us and our forgiveness in others is essentially important because it is only through knowing ourselves to be forgiven that we are set free to forgive others lovingly. People are in desperate need of forgiveness. And thanks to Jesus Christ, because we find forgiveness from God, we are enabled to be forgiving. God's forgiveness is not a mere overlooking of sin as if He is saying "I'll overlook it for now. Just don't let it happen again." God takes sin with such seriousness that He deals with it fully and completely in the sacrificial death of Jesus and makes it perfectly clear so we can know we are forgiven.

As long as you think you are a pretty good person who does not really need to be forgiven, you will naturally have a very hard time loving and forgiving others. Self-righteous people fall prey to this demonic deception. But if you know yourself to have been a sinner under God's just wrath, all that has changed. And God says that in His sight, even the best of us is despicable to the extreme before our conversion.

Romans 3:10-12 As it is written, "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one."

That is the way God sees us before our conversion. And if we see ourselves through His eyes, knowing our contemptible rebellion against His love and moral standards, and yet finding ourselves forgiven on the basis of Christ's death for us, then we will inevitably love and forgive others. Nobody can act as badly toward us as we have acted toward God and yet He has forgiven us.

If we are not forgiving in our love, we really do not know the extent of God's forgiveness of us, we still consider ourselves to be better than we are. But if we see ourselves as forgiven sinners, then we will be set free to love others in imitation of God.

Now, the second thing that Ephesians 5:2 teaches us about the love of God that we are to imitate is that it is a giving love. First, it is a forgiving love, then it is a giving love. These are simple terms but powerful in their impact on us. It is a giving love; not merely forgiving, but also giving.

Again, God is the model of such love and the point at which it is most clearly demonstrated. What is it that God primarily gives us? He has given us all things, of course. Before Adam and Eve were even created, God had prepared a wonderful environment to receive them. It was a place of beauty and interest with meaningful work to do. Sin marred that environment, as we know very well today. But even marred by sin, our experience of God's gifts to us is not entirely unlike the experience of our first parents.

You look at our country here, the United States, and everywhere you go, there is some breathtaking view or there is some breathtaking design and creation that God has placed there to help us to appreciate Him. God has given us life itself and He has placed us within an imperfect but nevertheless beautiful and fascinating world and the work we have to do in it is important.

Now having said this, however, we have to admit that it does not even come close to an expression of the full measure of God's giving love because, that, like God's forgiving love, is seen in Christ's crucifixion. Let me read five scriptures to you that express this.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

How many of us have had to give a child?

I John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who lives [says Paul], but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Both God the Father and Jesus Christ gave a great sacrifice.

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."

If you will turn over to Philippians 2, verse 5, please. Philippians 2, verses 5 to 8 tell us that even Jesus did not merely give up things to save us. He gave Himself, He did not only give up things which were outward accompaniments of His divinity, like His outward glory, the service of the angels, and His position at the right hand of God the Father. He gave Himself!

Philippians 2:5-8 Let this mind be in you [that is a humble mind] which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God [that is, in the very nature of God], did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. [So the heart of the passage is that Jesus gave Himself to the point of even of death.] And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

The greatest expression of love is not that it gives things or even that it gives up things, but that it gives itself—and this is how we imitate God. We give up ourselves for others as Christ did and as God the Father did and does. In this too we are to be God's imitators.

Over the years, many of you have heard in movies and read in literature of the husband who speaks in frustration about his failure to understand what he has done wrong to cause trouble in his marriage, saying something like this, "But I don't understand it. I have given you everything a woman could want [speaking to his wife]. I've given you a nice house, I've given you a car, I've given you all the clothes you can wear, I've given you [on and on and on and on about the material things]." At last, the man ended and his wife replied, "Sadly, yes, Bob that much is true. You gave me everything except yourself."

Why do not we give ourselves to other people? It is because we are afraid to and it is because we are selfish. We are afraid to and we are selfish because we have human nature. Still, we are improving. We have God's Holy Spirit and we are improving. But we still have that awful human nature to deal with and the influence of the world, which has a great impact on the church every day.

We want ourselves for ourselves. And we are afraid that if we give ourselves to others, we will be hurt or disappointed. And only those who have a relationship with God are set free from these fears and can give to others out of God's own endless love.

Moving on to the third thing in Ephesians 5:2. It teaches us about the love of God, which we are to imitate. And it is also to be a living love. It is to be forgiving, it is to be giving, and it is to be a living love. It occurs in verse 2 where Paul says, and live a life of love "just as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, as a [fragrant] offering and a sacrifice to God."

Now, there are two things that a living love suggests. There may be a more, but these are the two main things.

First, it suggests a practical or active love. This is what Paul's whole section on practical Christianity involves. Because if we ask, what does it mean to live a life of love?, the answer is in the very thing Paul has been saying. To use the outline of Ephesians 4:31-32, it means to put off lying and speak truthfully. Second, it means to put off anger and bring peace. Third, to put off stealing and work for a living instead. Fourth, to put off unwholesome talk and instead speak to help others, And five, to put off bitterness, rage, and anger, and slander, along with every form of malice—and instead be kind, compassionate, and forgiving. That is what it means to live a life of love, to be forgiving, living, and giving.

Second, living love suggests love that is made alive by the very life of God and is therefore an eternal love as God is eternal. Please turn with me to Romans 8, verse 35. We really need this today. Our love is weak and faltering, variable and untrustworthy at times. What we need in our love is something of the character of God's love as Paul writes about in chapter 8 of Romans.

Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So we cannot be separated from the love of God, but we separate ourselves at times, when we sin, from that very thing. But God is not the one separating us, but His love for us is a permanent love, eternal love.

Can you be an imitator of God in such an eternal love as that? And the answer, if we look only to ourselves is, no; no, we cannot. And nothing that is natural to us is eternal or forgiving or giving either, for that matter. But the answer is yes, if we look to God. The apostle Paul who wrote Ephesians 4:1 said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," there in Philippians 4:13.

But we must spend time with God if that is to happen. It cannot be just once a day or once a week or whatever it may be for those in the world, if they even do that much.

Now, the word that Ephesians 4:1 translates imitate or imitator is mimetai, from which we get our English word mimic. Mimic means to copy closely, to repeat another person's speech, actions, or behavior. That is what we are to do with God. We are to repeat His actions, echo His speech, and duplicate His behavior.

How can we do that if we do not spend time with Him. We cannot because we will not even know what His behavior is. It is essential to spend time with God, to spend time with God in prayer, spend time with God in Bible study, to spend God time with God in worship. It is only by spending time with God that we become like God.

Turn with me back to Ephesians 5, please. Now, Paul is always quite balanced in the things that He presents to us and teaches us in what we must avoid and what is required of us to spend time in true fellowship with God. What is it?

Ephesians 5:3-7 [which gives us the balance here] But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for the saints; neither filthiness nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. And God let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.

So we are to reject these things and we are to be in verse 4, "but rather giving of thanks." We are to be thankful (and we will get into that a little later).

Because all mankind is covetous, lust and greed are present across the board in all purely human relationships. Now, it has been said that under communism, man exploits man; under capitalism, the situation is exactly the reverse. Man exploits man. So it does not matter what government man has, man exploits man.

In true Christianity, there really is a reverse. Because in Christianity, the man who once exploited others becomes a new man and the woman becomes a new woman. And this is what Paul is writing about in Ephesians. He is writing about God's work of making a spiritually alive Christian out of a spiritually dead pagan and of combining such newly-made people into a new society.

According to Paul and Christianity, the hope of the world is not new programs but new people, and new people become new only by the work of Jesus Christ, who is our hope. You notice that the worldly Christian churches or the mainstream Christian churches are all about the programs on how to bring people into those churches. But God's church is all about overcoming, obeying, and submitting to God, worshipping Him correctly.

It is about relationships. Before we were people of the dark, just as those in the world, and now through Him, who is the Light of the world, we have become children of light and so shine in the darkness.

We will continue on in Ephesians 5. We are going to read verses 8 through 14. This is where he adds some balance to what he has been saying.

Ephesians 5:8-14 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is a shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says: "Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead [that is the spiritually dead or sleeping, maybe your latest sin], and Christ will give you light."

Notice there he says, "whatever makes manifest is light." Now, the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness uses light as the link between creation and new creation, and between the physical and the spiritual. The difference is regeneration (which Paul has been writing about in the earlier sections of this letter to the Ephesians), and not merely morality. Because teaching only a new or higher morality never changes anybody. Not everyone understands Christian morality, but all people know to do better than they actually do.

And the problem is not with the standard. The problem is ourselves as human beings. Paul's prescription for a higher standard of living is quite profound, as a careful reading of Ephesians 4 and 5 shows. It involves three things: First, what we are. Second, how we think. And third, the way we act. What we are, how we think, and the way we act. And each is necessary.

In Ephesians 4 and 5 Paul seeks to integrate three things, what we might call Christian experience, which is what we are; Christian faith, which is what we believe; and Christian ethics, which is how we behave. Now, they emphasize that being, thought, and action belong together and must never be separated because what we are governs how we think and how we think determines how we act. That is important.

Holiness is not a condition into which we drift, but rather an active working out of what has already been worked into us. And this new life is neither automatic nor easy. It takes a great amount of effort and work.

Now, at the end of chapter 4 of Ephesians, Paul introduced upright Christian living by using a contrast between putting off one type of behavior and putting on another. The contrasts were striking and the standards were quite high. In chapter 5, the contrast between the two ways of life is even more striking and the standards are even higher than what he posed in chapter 4.

Paul speaks in chapter 5 of not merely of exchanging one pattern of behavior for another, something which we might assume would work out gradually, but rather of things that are not even to be hinted at among members of God's church. They are improper and out of place. He says certainly if they are present, they are evidence that the person involved is not even a believer but an idolater; that they are that serious.

Paul mentioned six of these intolerable vices.

Ephesians 5:3-7 But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for the saints [It is a shameful thing if we have to admit that these things go on in the church.]; neither filthiness nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting but rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.

So the first item on the list, sexual immorality. The Greek word translated sexual immorality is porneia, from which we get our word pornography. But it does not refer to lewd pictures or films. It refers to sexual immorality outside of marriage. In older versions of the Bible, porneia is translated fornication, as it is in my New King James version and the old King James as well. I think it is so harmful to the individual and society. We just cannot put a real value on its damage.

The second is impurity. This word includes the sexual sins, but it also goes beyond it to embrace particularly defiling practices. The Greeks among whom the Ephesians lived openly approved of such practices as prostitution and homosexuality. And now we are dealing with transgenderism. Paul says that what was perfectly acceptable in the surrounding society was not even to be hinted at among the Christians. That does not mean we do not mention them because we have to warn people about them, but they should not be occurring in the church or should not be talked about favorably.

The third one is greed and it is an intense covetous human desire to have more and more and more, which includes, obviously, the love of money. Greed is the love of money partly for itself, partly because of what it can do for us. We can buy lots of things with money, procure things with money, do more things and have more fun if we have money. In fact, the love of all that money can do and achieve is what Paul is condemning under the word covetousness. The greedy person is an idolater. Their idol is the money. Their idol are the material objects that they want more and more and more of.

The fourth is filthiness, which is obscenity. It is a bridge word in this list, referring both to indecent or improper actions which the earlier terms describe and to indecent and offensive speech, which comes next. An obscene person is one who has no regard for standards, nothing commands his respect, therefore his actions are consistently disrespectful.

The fifth, foolish talk. Now this Greek word is easy to remember because it is made up of the words moron in the Greek, and logos, which means word. So it is the word morologgia. It means one who talks like a fool or as is in the word moron. The concern here is not with intelligence, it is with morals. The word refers to one who makes light of high standards of behavior, thinking that it is somehow funny or sophisticated to tear down anything that is high or praiseworthy or ennobled. It is what television does. Television pretends to be funny. It is destructive of those values that hold a society together and suppress its worst elements. And one of the things we see it most is sex and marriage. They try to destroy it at every turn.

The sixth item that Paul mentions there is coarse joking. The last of these terms is closely related to obscenity and foolish talk but with the emphasis on that kind of coarse, vulgar humor, which is the lowest form of wit. All three refer to a dirty mind expressing itself in dirty conversation. And how many times, whether it is on TV, or wherever it may be, in some novel or just in the course of conversation with some in the world, do you hear the "S" word and the "F" word and so on and so forth? Vulgar, trashy language which is coming right from the mind and sometimes it seems like every other word is that. You are not even expressing an idea talking like that.

Let us move on to something more positive. What are Christians to be or do in contrast to these despicable characteristics? There are several ways of answering this question and one is by the listing of corresponding positive virtues that Paul provides in Ephesians 5, verses 8 and 9. The end of verse 4 says (and I have repeated over already several times), "but rather giving of thanks."

Ephesians 5:8-9 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth).

And you know the longer list of the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, and so on and so forth.

These correspond somewhat to sexual immorality, these ones that Paul is pointing to here, impurity, greed, obscenity, foolish talk, and coarse joking. Each of the positive characteristics flows from the character of Jesus Christ who lives in His people by virtue of the new birth.

But there is another way of speaking of proper Christian behavior in these areas. And that comes from the contrast Paul makes when he says that instead of obscenity, foolish talk, and coarse joking, which are out of place among Christians, there should be rather giving of thanks.

How how thankful do you think you will be following Christ's return to set up God's government on earth? How thankful will you be standing there or whatever you may be, riding a horse or whatever method God or Christ decides that He is going to attack the nations. How thankful will you be for being on the right side and obviously being that way? And you're not in pain. Your mind, your thinking is clear and your goal is sure.

Instead of committing those six intolerable vices, Ephesians 5:4 requires Christians to be giving of thanks. And giving of thanks for what? Well, I just named a few things, but it \is an unlimited list.

Well, for all good things, to give it a general category of course. For life, for health, for God Himself, for what He has made of us through the work of Christ. Thankfulness for the true peace and safety Christ will bring to earth following the Day of the Lord that you and I will have a part, of God-willing.

Within the context of Ephesians 5, Paul may primarily be thinking of the things the vices distort and destroy, but which when properly used in obedience to God, bring great blessings and joy.

The first of these blessings is sex within marriage only, of which both immorality and impurity are the perversion. Christians have a bad reputation where sex is concerned because they are thought to be against it. And that is understandable from the Christian point of view because sex has been so vulgarized by mainstream society that much of what Christians say on the subject has necessarily been negative. Sadly, it is no surprise that the one thing above all others which people have been most diligent and proficient at dragging through the mud, turns out to be the most innocent thing in the world.

But sex is not something for Christians to deploy condemning it as evil. It is only the perversions we deplore. On the contrary, sex has been given by God. It is itself good and is therefore something for which we should be thankful. As Paul indicates, thankfulness recognizes sex as God's gift and for that reason tries to use it to please and honor Him.

The second blessing for which we can be thankful is our share of the world's material possessions. When perverted, such thankfulness turns to greed, and thankfulness means being content with what we have and therefore being free to use our possessions for others. Greed means always wanting to have more for the self. There is the big difference. Desiring to have material possessions is not wrong if you are going to include others in the blessing of it.

People spend too much time looking for more instead of appreciating what they already have. Contentment is great gain were told. If we look at history on up to this moment, we see a constant struggle for increasingly accumulating things, most of which are totally unimportant when compared to our potential for salvation and eternal life.

But there is another perversion of that too. Some people claim that since greed is bad, therefore, things are bad. So they reject things by self-inflicted poverty. However, sometimes they are just plain lazy and are looking for an excuse for their lack. And sometimes it is just a matter of a lack of understanding of Scripture, believing that material wealth is a confirmation of their own supposed goodness.

On the other hand, some people who are addicted to things must avoid possessions just as an alcoholic must avoid alcohol. So this may be quite proper, even necessary, if a person has a problem with going to the store and cannot stop.

But neither greed nor abstention is God's way of life. We should receive what God gives us with thankfulness. And if He gives more, to recognize that the increase means an increase of responsibility and how we use it. With more material things, more material blessings and spiritual blessings, we have an obligation to use them correctly. The more we have, the larger the percentage we should give to others, in a sense. Sadly, in this covetous society, most Christians just live like the world in this area, which is why God probably does not give them more than they already have in some instances or many instances.

The third blessing that Paul mentions is truth and the ability to express it by words. It is the ability of words to do this, particularly to communicate truth about God, ourselves, and salvation. That makes the cheapening of words through foolish talk and of coarse jesting so reprehensible. A lightheartedness or positive humor is not bad. The God who made monkeys is not humorless. All you have to do is watch a monkey in the zoo or in the wild just for a little while and you cannot help but have a smile on your face.

Let us move on here. In Ephesians 5, verse 8, once again, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light." Now we are to be God's light in the midst of this world's darkness. We must be an enlightening element because we have been enlightened first before the world.

The most important thing about this statement is that Paul does not say merely that before our conversion we were in darkness and that now since our conversion, we are in the light, though that is true. He says something much more profound. Before you were darkness; now you are light. He is pointing to a change in us, not merely to a change in our surroundings. Before we were not only in darkness, darkness was in us. And now we are not only in the light, we are light because Christ is in us. And therefore, we must shine out as lights to this unenlightened world. That is what makes all the difference.

Turn with me to I John 3, verse 24, please. So this brings us the question: what does it mean to be light? Spiritual vision produces a whole body full of light. And in contrast, a lack of that vision produces the opposite, a whole body full of darkness. True spiritual vision comes from God the Father and Jesus Christ by way of God's Spirit. And that is the same way that light is in us and that we are light. It is thanks to God's Spirit dwelling in us. It is thanks to Jesus Christ dwelling in us by way of God's Spirit.

I John 3:24 Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him [that is, Jesus Christ], and He [that is, Christ] in Him [the commandment keeper]. And by this we know that He [that is, Christ] abides in us, by the Spirit whom He [that is, God] has given us.

Turn over a page to I John 4.

I John 4:12-13 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him [that is, God], and He [God] in us, because He [that is, God] has given us His Spirit.

Now, flip over to the Old Testament to Daniel 5, verse 10, just to see something that I think is somewhat interesting having to do with the Holy Spirit and light. Now, let us take an example from the book of Daniel regarding this connection with Holy Spirit being present as light.

Daniel 5:10-14 The queen, because of the words of the king [that is, King Belshazzar son of Nebuchadnezzar] and his lords, came to the banquet hall. The queen spoke, saying, "O king, live forever! Do not let your thoughts trouble you, nor let your countenance change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God. [It was recognizable. It was obvious, even they knew it.] And in the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him; and King Nebuchadnezzar your father—your father the king—made him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers. Inasmuch as an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting dreams, solving riddles, and explaining enigmas were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar, now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation." Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king spoke, and said to Daniel, "Are you that Daniel who is one of the captives from Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah? I have heard of you, that the Spirit of God is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you."

So we see here that light and understanding and superior wisdom is seen as the result of the indwelling of God's Spirit in a person. And at that time, then, it was the light of the world. He was enlightening the world because he was light because he had God's Holy Spirit in him.

Now, in the ultimate sense, the Kingdom of God is going to arrive only when Jesus Christ sets up God's government. But until that time, the true witness of it occurs as true Christians live as light like Jesus Christ imitating God the Father. Matthew 4:14 says, "You [that is, the saints] are the light of the world. A city that is set on a high hill cannot be hidden."

If it is only a question of seeking the light or living in the light, then Christianity is no different from any other religion or philosophy and there is no more hope in it than from any of them. But if becoming an obedient servant of God involves a change from darkness to light, then the presence of Christians in the world is itself hope as together we stand against the darkness.

Do you realize that everyone outside of the church of God is darkness and in darkness, and darkness is what they live in? They cannot see past the end of their nose, so to speak. They cannot see God's way of life. Now, they may see it on the surface. Some people in mainstream Christianity can keep the letter of the law, but they just do not get the spirit of the law.

Let us wrap this up. God has revealed to us through Scripture that He is omnipotent. He is almighty, such that no part of creation can escape His influence or authority. We see that God through His Spirit is omnipresent, such that no part of creation can escape His presence. As we understand that God perceiving all things is omniscient, such that no part of creation can escape His knowledge.

Now, for a final scripture, please turn over to I John 3, verse 2. But is there any practical use for this knowledge? Well, we have seen some practical use, so we can say, yes, absolutely. We should never forget that God has called us to become His full sons and daughters to share His level of existence with us for all eternity. And just as these characteristics, amazing power, access to all of the universe, and perception of all things apply to Christ and the Father, now they will apply to us in the future, but to a slightly lesser degree as His dear children.

As the apostle John wrote in,

I John 3:2-3 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

So how do we purify ourselves? By ridding ourselves of sin with the help of the Holy Spirit and becoming, imitating God. The more clearly we can see our awesome calling, the better we can put this present life into perspective. So for those who wish to purify themselves, understanding the nature of God and family has tremendous practical application.

And as we seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, let us be motivated by our high calling and our ultimate destiny. We must avoid the deceit and enticements of this world's philosophers and instead let God teach us truthfully of His glory that we will share with Him. But even though these three attributes I mentioned of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, even though these attributes seem beyond our reach at this time, eventually we will be like Him.

So now is the time for us to do our very best to imitate Him, beginning with true love for one another. We must be forgiving, giving, and living in our imitation of God. Please remember those things. If you do not remember anything else, we have to be and we should be forgiving, giving, and living. We must be living these things.

And if we want to experience the return of Christ together with Christ and be involved in the world becoming at one with God, we must be imitators of God now as dearly beloved children and live a life of love while walking in the love of God, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us.

So, everyone have a forgiving, giving, and living remainder of the Sabbath.

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