How To Be Like God
Ephesians 5:1-14
It is for me the most memorable scene of the movie. Pongo is watching out the window as a stream of people pass by heading toward the park. Each passing pet look like their owners.
When a couple have been together for a long time. They begin to look like one another.
Jonathon imitating me as we are walking down the sidewalk.
Paul recognizes that we have been adopted into God’s family as “dearly loved children.” These words remind us of our adoption in 1:5; and of our new family from 2:19 and 3:14-15.
However, to be a child of God means that we are to become like God.
“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children …” (5:1)
The command to imitate God is breathtaking to us, but it is a thoroughly biblical idea. Although other texts may not be this explicit, the Bible assumes that God’s covenant people take their character from him.
The second half of 5:1 shows why the command to imitate God is legitimate: The readers are God’s children, who he loves. A person takes on the characteristics of the family to which he or she belongs.
In this text Paul, shares at least three ways that we are to imitate God. Let’s continue to read through these verses, and observe the ways we are to be like God.
1. Live a sacrificial life of love.
Vive una vida sacrificatoria del amor.
“… and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (5:2)
Since Paul’s readers belong to God’s family and, as his children, have received love, they should be like him and show love. Love is not an option in the Christian community. It is part of our DNA.
Yet, the way in which we are called to love is not the capricious, self-serving love of our time. The love that we are to extend to others has nothing to do with what do we get out of it.
The standard by which Christian love is shaped and energized is the self-giving love of Christ on the cross. Christ’s death is presented here as an example for our lives. The self-sacrificing love that he demonstrated in loving us the same sacrificial love that we are called to imitate.
This pattern of sacrifice describes God’s taking away his own anger. Our God is not a God who is removed from us, but a God who cares and who identifies with us. We have violated his commands and all he is, but he responds with self-giving love.
This self-giving love is evidence of God’s own favor. The sacrifice is pleasing to God not only because of the obedience of Christ, but also because of what it does in restoring humans into relation with God. The focus on sacrifice is to show that God accomplished for us what we could not accomplish for ourselves.
Now lets be honest – It is hard to like most others, let alone love them. Most others are rude, inconsiderate, selfish, full of pride, and I’m only talking about those in the church. We are utterly unlovely and unlovable.
Yes, we are – yet God chose to love us regardless of our unloveliness. God did not wait for us to become lovable before he demonstrated his love to us.
So often that is the condition that we mandate for our loving others. Do something to prove that you are worth loving and then I will love you. Show me you love me and I will love you. Prove to me that it is not a waste of my time and I will love you. Yet that is so antithetical to sacrificial love.
The command is for us to love others before they can love us back. Love them when they have nothing to offer us. Love them when they are unlovable, and rude, and self-absorbed. Love them when all they can do is love themselves. Love them when you don’t know if you will get anything out of it.
Living in love sums up the content of 4:25-32 within the context of the body of Christ. Yet, whereas 4:25-32 emphasized relations within the body, Paul is now emphasizing our conduct toward those outside of the body. This sacrificial love is the perfect bridge in describing the relational approach we should exhibit to those outside of God’s family.
Placed in this context our command becomes even more specific. Sacrificially love those who are outside of God’s family. Be like God and love the unlovely masses lost in their sin, stumbling in the darkness of their own depravity.
Now hold on – wait a minute.
We are like God when we live a sacrificial life of love. We are also like God when we …
2. Reject an immoral life of disobedience.
Rechace una vida inmoral de la desobediencia.
“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because there are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.” (5:3-7)
I think that it is interesting how Paul begins this paragraph … “But among you there must not be even a hint …” This has got to be one of those Biblical overstatements right. Statements like “If your right hand causes you to sin cut it off.” “If your right eye calls you to sin pluck it out.” No even a hint that is just plain unrealistic. Right?
Yes, if you aren’t part of God’s family … if you are taking your lead from someone other than Christ … if you are settling for something less than imitating God.
We have become far too accustomed to sin. We have become far too comfortable with its presence in our presence. We have allowed our moral standards to become so infested and infected that our actions prove we no longer believe that sin is all that God has cracked it up to be.
Yet, vs. 5-6 provide the motivation for rejecting a life of sin. According to these verses sin is still a pretty big deal to God. It says that those who are investing themselves in immorality are excluding themselves from God’s inheritance and recipients of wrath.
Laira and I have had the unfortunate opportunity to run into more and more young people that have been thrown on to the streets by their parents. Many times they are kicked out just because the parents don’t want them around anymore (that is not what I want to talk about right now).
Instead, I want to focus on the other times when it is because the parents can no longer advocate or condone the child’s life choices … and to allow them to continue to live at home would signal to the child that your choices are alright. That is the seriousness of these verses in God’s words: “If you choose to live this way, you can’t live in my house.”
So what is it that God takes so seriously? The first item is considered nothing more than a pastime in our time.
“Sexual immorality” is a broad word covering any sexual sin. It can refer to incest, promiscuity, sexual relations with a prostitute, or illicit sexual relations. “Impurity” is a further link to indecent sexual exploits.
Modern Western society virtually idolizes sexuality, is obsessed with it, and is loathe to recognize boundaries for sexual expression. A recent news magazine lamented our loss of ethics by highlighting our society’s loss of all sense of shame. Anything goes. In a later issue, however, the same magazine seemed to contribute to that very loss by discussing the increase of bisexuality in our culture in a way that promoted it, or at least approved of it.
Our society has a major problem handling sexuality. The problem of adultery, promiscuity, and the like are bad enough, but the extent of the problem is revealed even more by rape, incest, and sexual abuse. Our legitimate desires for love and intimacy have gone haywire, and the pride, power, and pleasure coalesced around sexuality have destroyed all sanity and control. Pornography and ‘phone sex’ are both billion-dollar industries. Sexual discussions are among the most popular uses of computer on-line services. Standards of modesty and decency with regard to dress have all but evaporated. While soft-core porn is peddled during prime-time thinly disguised as advertisement.
We can assess the damage of now multiple generations in a teen crowd that now sees sexual activity as nothing more serious to dating than going to the movies. But lets not lay the blame at the doorstep of this generation. The seeds were sown, and some of us did the planting, one to two generations ago, when sexual constraints were loosened in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. And as sexual standards went into a tailspin, the Christian community just didn’t talk about such things.
The passage before us with its rejection of sexual sin needs to be applied directly – not just in society at large but also in the church. Incest occurs in church families, and adultery and promiscuity are often as prevalent in churches as in the rest of society. While 40% of Christian men admit to visiting sexually explicit internet sites in the last 30 days, pornography and other ‘industries of sexual sin’ could not survive without Christian support.
Yet this is precisely one of those areas that we, as Christians, have allowed a hint to be acceptable. “After all, it’s not like I’m having an affair. I’m only looking at pictures and reading stories.” Forget that Jesus said that when a man looks at a woman lustfully he has commit adultery with her in his heart.
And don’t think that the problem is only for men. The last time the issue of pornography was mentioned from the pulpit, a woman from the congregation asked, “When we talk about pornography, why do we only talk about it as a problem for men?” And now, recent statistics are showing that women are just as likely, if not more so, to have affairs than their husbands.
Lax sexual standards do not fit with Christianity, whether in the first or the twenty-first century. Christians too easily adopt the sexual attitudes of the surrounding culture, but sexual sin will not mesh with life in Christ. What we do to our bodies matters to God because we are his children.
The only solution is repentance. Do not go to it, do not rent it, do not read it. Do not allow the mind to dwell where it does not belong. Do not place yourself in compromising situations, and do not commit sexual sin of any type.
“Greed”, ‘the desire to have more’ has a Jewish context of idolatry as the root of all sin and of greed as the sin encompassing all sins. Greed motivates all other sin, and as J. A. Bengel has noted, is the highest act of revolt away from God. Desire takes the place of God, for it, rather than he, determines life.
Greed, too, stares back at us from the mirror of this text. In fact, sin has been described as seeking to get more out of life than God put into it. Even though God has packed life full of good things, most of us are never satisfied. When desire takes over – especially sexual desires – it distorts the mind, debilitates us, disrupts life, and finally becomes our master. Greed takes control of our minds and distorts us in the desire for possessions. It pushes us to acquire more money and resources. We never have enough.
Many Christians denounce sexual sin, but are mute when it comes to greed.
Our society does not consider greed a sin, which only shows how easily greed deceives. We live in a society that encourages all forms of greed. The music and the entertainment media seek success by heightening sexual desire and displaying conspicuous consumption. The advertising industry uses sex to create and instruct others forms of greed. Self-centeredness is no longer merely a given; it is elevated as a desirable quest. The only goals most people know are pleasure and possessions, and for many that means life goes out of control. Greed is clearly behind the consuming passion for gambling in our society. Our addiction, whether they be dependence on chemicals or fascination with sports, are a result of greed. We have moved self-centeredness from a malady to a deadly contagious disease.
Whether lust for sex, greed for materialism, or immersion in some particular interest, all greed is sin, for it allows something other than God to order our lives ... that is idolatry. Any consuming passion that defines life is a form of idolatry displacing God’s rightful place. When a football fan says after his team upsets another, ‘This is the greatest day of my life,’ that is idolatry of the stupidest sort.
The Christian community needs to be self-reflective, name the idolatries, repent of the greed, and reorder life with all its good things under God’s control.
The word translated “obscenity” expresses that which is shameful and indecent language. “Foolish talk” suggest speech from a fool and brings to mind the frequent condemnation of the fool in Old Testament wisdom literature. “Coarse joking” suggests something easily turned, a double entendre – speech innocuous in itself but turned to have an indecent intent. Such speech is not fitting for the believer.
Obscenity, foolish talk, and coarse joking are ways we reinforce or court a godless lifestyle. These three categories cover everything from vulgarity to defiance of God to innuendoes.
People may start using language to prove they are tough and know the ‘ways of the world.’ But it is evidence that sin has taken up residence in their minds and that shame is being honored and embraced. It is a way to play with sin, but as G. B. Caird notes, where vice is regarded as amusing, the practice of it comes easy.
Obviously the list of sins here is not exhaustive. No mention is made of violence, murder, or a variety of other transgressions. Paul’s concern is not a comprehensive treatment of sin, but those sins by which his readers are most likely to be thrown off course.
But why is so much focus placed on sexual sin, language, and greed? Language and greed are so important because they are gateways by which sin finds entrance. If sin gains control, sexual immorality is often the result. Sexual sin is the one place where pride, power and pleasure are inordinately concentrated ... it is that one sin that has the greatest power to defile the intimacy we can only find in God.
We are like God when we live a sacrificial life of love. We are like God when we reject an immoral life of disobedience. Lastly, we are like God when we …
3. Transform a life of darkness.
Transforme una vida de la oscuridad.
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful event to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:
‘Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you.’” (5:8-14)
Other passages speak of disciples being the light of the world (Matt 5:14) or having the light and being children of light (John 12:35-36). In addition, John 8:12 says Christ is the light of the world, and 1 John 1:5 asserts that ‘God is light.’ But we do not expect the bare statement, “You are light in the Lord.”
How can Paul make such a statement? He had written in Romans 7 that he himself did the opposite of what he wanted. We could understand Paul if he had written, ‘You are part light and part darkness,’ or ‘Try to be light.’ But Paul took conversion much more seriously than we do. This is a statement about what people are in Christ. It is only in the Lord that we are light. To have the light of Christ shine on us is to be transformed into what he is; to be in him is to take on his nature.
The underlying thought is based on Paul’s ‘spheres of influence’ theology. People take on the character of the sphere in which they live. Once we lived in darkness and were darkness; now we live in the light and are light. We are not light in ourselves, of course; we are only light “in the Lord.” When we are in him who is light, we too are light.
Paul calls for us to separation from the darkness. However, it is not so much a withdrawal as a confrontation. He is not thinking of geographical separation and avoidance of contact, but of the refusal to partner in indecent actions. Contact with non-Christians is required if the light is to accomplish its purpose.
And what is that purpose ... to expose the darkness. Though, the question that must be resolved is whether the “exposing” is merely negative (exposing people’s sins) or whether a positive element exists as well, so that people are both exposed and transformed. The context seems to require both since the word translated “expose” also means “correct or convince”. The person who is exposed and convinced by the light is transformed.
We as Christians are to have a transforming influence on the world around us. Through our lives, the light of Christ is supposed to penetrate the darkness and transform those who are in darkness into the light. Through the words that we speak, and the choices that we make … through the way that we love those who are outside of God’s family and treat those who are in … through our choosing to live right when it is so easy to live wrong … we shine a light that penetrates into the darkness … a light that shows that Christianity is indeed different.
Max Lucado tells a story about some candles who refuse to be taken from a storage closet to provide light during an electrical storm. They all have excuses why they should not give off light. When the husband tells his wife that the candles don’t work, she explains, ‘Oh, they’re church candles.’ Ouch! That the story even works creates pain.
The task of Christians is to leave the light on. We are light in the Lord and are to live as people of light. Yet, too often the light shines only a few hours, and then it is life as usual. We may be light in the Lord, but we keep our reservations on the train to darkness.
Evangelicals used to focus on personal sin and neglect social sins like racism or abuse of wealth. For the past decade or so, sin has been viewed increasingly in social rather than personal terms. Neither extreme is acceptable. Sin is both personal and social. Part of our job is to light the darkness wherever we find it. It doesn’t matter whether the sin is a cultural issue like the inhumane working conditions for illegal immigrants, or a deeply personal issue like pornography. The crime here is that people are wandering around in the dark, and someone needs to turn the light on. We transform the darkness by leaving the light on.
However, none of us should be like that driver who refuses to bring down his high beams as he approaches closer. Flashing our own beams does nothing to help. So with each passing yard the intensity of the light increases until it is nearly blinding, causing us to turn away.
People may hate the light and choose darkness, but when they do, it should be because their works are evil, not because the light is offensive. That is the danger of the politicizing of morality, that in an attempt to engage the law we portray a spite-filled spirit of contempt. That we become the community elders asking Jesus to authorize our stoning of the woman caught in adultery … rather than the Jesus who said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go … go and sin no more.”
The light is the place where people find the grace to face the truth and be transformed by the light.
Jr. High wilderness camp-walk without flashlights … return with lights.
Being the light is being the person with the flashlight lighting the way for those on the darkened path … allowing them to see clearly what dangers lay in their way.
Resources: Snodgrass, Klyne. Ephesians. NIV Application Commentary.
Swindoll, Charles R. Becoming A People of Grace.
