Ephesians 5:1-21
The Purpose of God
I was asked recently the question we all ask ourselves at one time or another
- Why am I here?
- What purpose is there for me here?
- Now the person who asked me this is a Christian
- And after confirming the importance of his decision to accept Christ as Savior
- I knew he really wanted to know
- What does God want from me?
- What is His purpose for my life?
- That is a big question
- One most of us struggle with.
- I think that sometimes the struggle is due to our blindness
- To what God and salvation are all about
- We also assume becoming a Christian
- Is one thing among many
- It makes sense, but that decision doesn’t require much in return
- We pretty much go on with life
- As if all Christ and God expect is our worship on Sundays
- And that we try to be morally good the rest of the time
- Be a good person and come to church
- Everything will be alright
- The question I had for this person
- In response to his question was
- “Do you really want to know?”
- You see, once you know something that God wants you to know
- You become responsible for it
- He expects you to act on the illumination He gives you
So do you really want to know what God’s purpose is for you?
- It is really very simple
- Yet it is very radical
- It is also very costly
- Our salvation cost God His Son
- Jesus, His life
- Our finding His purpose for us
- Will cost us dearly
- Yet it will result in the most satisfying and rewarding life we could ask for
- If we actually act on it
If I were a heavenly salesman knocking on your door
- And offered you God’s purpose for your life
- How much would you be willing to pay for it?
- Or would you turn me away?
- How much are you willing to give to know all God has for you?
- What is God’s purpose for you worth to you?
Well, last chance to get up and leave
- Shortly, it will be too late
- You will be responsible for the truth God has for us today
- Concerning this matter
- Turn with me to Ephesians 5:1
Vs 1-2 “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.”
Vs 8b-10 “Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.”
Vs 15-17 “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
God’s purpose can be found in these verses
- The verses in between these flesh out God’s purpose
- With specific acts and attitudes to avoid and to have
- We are first told be imitators of God as beloved children
- Or as the New English Bible says it, “as God’s dear children, try to be like Him.”
- Paul said elsewhere to imitate him
- We are called to imitate Christ
- But God?
- What a staggering concept
- Paul invites us to imitate God
- A child will show himself to be a true child
- By wanting to grow up to be like his father
- Likewise, God’s precious children should be eager to copy Him
- As He enables us to do so
- Jesus told us the same thing
Now Paul goes on to tell us exactly how we are to imitate God
- God is love
- And a life that is like His
- Will be a life of love
- If love is the essence of God’s nature
- It is also an essential part of a Christian’s character
- We are not talking about soft, gushy love here
- We are talking about hard, rational love
- Not a love of emotions, but of reality
- The model of love is Christ Himself
- It is because He laid down His life for us
- That we are to love others to the point of sacrifice
- He offered Himself as a sacrifice and offering
- Not in an emotional passion
- But in simple, rational obedience
- A choice He made to be obedient because He loves the Father and the Father loves Him
- The Lord’s self-sacrifice was pleasing to His Father
- And was accepted as the means of reconciliation.
- Because we too are called to follow Christ
- Our lives should likewise prove to be an acceptable sacrifice to God
- We should be living out that reconciliation
- And bringing others into it as well
- That is God’s purpose for us
Just like Christ laid down His life willingly and willfully
- We too are called to be living sacrifices
- To lay down our lives
- And allow God to pick them up for His purposes
- Let’s look at Roman’s 12:1-2
- “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (rational act of worship). Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
- We are told to offer our very selves to Him, a living sacrifice
- We are to lay ourselves on the altar as a sacrifice to God
- To let go of ourselves
- Into His hands for whatever He brings us
- This is our act of worship
- Rational or spiritual, it is worship
- So while we may do many acts of service
- What God wants most is
- For us to allow Him freedom to transform us into the image of His Son
- God has made us for Himself
- That we might be delighted in Him
- Driven by a desire for Him
- And captivated by hope of a destiny with Him
- When we respond to Him in these ways
- We will devote our lives continually and wholeheartedly to Him
- And to His purposes with joy
- We are to pursue Him and find our whole joy in Him
- God’s purpose then for us can be summarized as
- Living out our salvation/reconciliation and worshiping Him and bringing Him glory in all we are and do
- Jesus said the same thing very bluntly in Matthew 10:37
- NEB “No man is worthy of me who cares more for father or mother than for me; no man is worthy of me who cares for son or daughter; no man is worthy of me who does not take up his cross and walk in my footsteps. By gaining his life a man will lose it; by losing his life for my sake, he will gain it.”
- We are not worthy of him
- If we cling to our lives (ourselves, goods, desires, lusts, happiness, etc)
- And if we seek anything else but Him and His glory
- We are not gaining life.
- Until we let go of it
- And take up the cross,
- The instrument of death, death of self
- And walk in His footsteps we won’t
- In Philippians 3:8 Paul says, “I count everything sheer loss, because all is far outweighed by the gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…”
- That is what it means to be an imitator of God
- All too often we are following our own path
- Begging God to bless us
- And wondering why we seem to be getting nowhere
The 2nd part of Romans 12:1-2 tells us why
- We fail to be transformed
- We strive to conform to the ways of this world
- We follow the world’s way
- And pursue the world’s goals
- No wonder we can’t discern God’s will
- We are looking the wrong way to see Him pointing out the way to go
- The way He wants us to follow
Paul tells us we are to be “a living sacrifice, dedicated and fit for his acceptance…”
- The OT sacrifice had to be spotless and without blemish
- Or stain or fault
- Only a perfect lamb was acceptable
- Sacrifice was part of OT worship
- It still is, but we are called to be the sacrifice
- We too are to be dedicated and fit
- Or holy and acceptable
- If we are to be an sacrifice
- In Ephesians 5: 3-5 Paul tells us the same thing
- But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
- Later in verse 11 we have:
- “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”
- Then verse 18-20
- And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
- Do you see the practical outworking of what Paul is telling us?
- Be a living sacrifice
- Take up your cross
- Live in the light
- Do away with pursuing as goals in life sensuality, sexual pleasures, greed, and whatever else is of the flesh and the world
- All those things in which we seek pleasure for ourselves
- We need to claim forgiveness in Christ
- Confess our sins and turn from them
- Rather than clinging to them
- We are called to delight ourselves in God
- To find our fulfillment in Him
- To abandon our plans, our goals, our pursuits
- That belong to the world
- The ways of the world, and of darkness
Sounds good, but still vague and other worldly doesn’t it?
- The question becomes in the final analysis
- Who are we serving?
- Our own best interests or God’s kingdom interests?
- Are we daily laying aside our own
- To pick up God’s?
- Are we filled with the Spirit
- Guided and directed by God’s Spirit
- Or are we full of ourselves?
- Where do we find our joy-
- In a bottle or a pill or in bed or in some other activity?
- Or in being with God
- And serving His people and loving others?
- Do we find our satisfaction in our relationship with God
- Or are we seeking it elsewhere?
- Do we feel a deep holy dissatisfaction with our impurities
- Or are we content with things the way they are?
Let me tell you, the sluggard and the fool is content with life as it is
- God is always working to draw us deeper into Himself
- To do the further work of transformation
- Changing us more and more into the image and character of Christ
- He is always pointing out the one more thing in our lives that needs to be renewed
- He will not be content until we are perfect and holy and totally yielded to Him like His Son
Lastly, let’s look at Philippians 2:8-13
- He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”
- The first part tells us what Christ did
- How He was obedient to the Father
- And the result of His obedience
- It describes how we too should imitate Christ and walk in His footsteps
- It reveals God’s purpose
- Work out our reconciliation in salvation and glorify God- worship Him
Then Paul tells us we too must be obedient.”
- We must take the truth of God revealed to us in Christ
- And work out the salvation we have found in Him
- Salvation- regeneration- new birth in Christ, reconciliation with God
- Always comes with obligations
- Acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord
- Obligates the believer to obey Him
- Working out our salvation does not mean working for salvation
- But making salvation operational
- Making it a part of our daily walk
- Making it experiential
- Something of our every day experience
- A normal part of being made right with God
- Is the experiential aspect of sanctification, that is becoming more like Christ
- We should progressively becoming more and more obedient
- And conscious of our sin
- Which must be rooted out of our hearts
- We need to consciously and consistently pursue the new life we have in Christ
- It is the same Lord who saved us
- Who is working in us to want what He has set before us
- Every careful and thoughtful Christian has a holy fear or respect for God
- And trembles at the thought of sin
- We should remember we are dealing with an awesome and powerful God
- He has only one purpose for us
- His purpose
- Everything He does with us and around us is not for us immediately
- But for His purpose
- Everything concerning us is brought to this purpose
- Paul tells us in Romans 8:28, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
- All things work for our good as He His purpose is worked out
- We need to realize we find God’s good in cooperating with Him in the pursuit of His purpose
- A purpose higher and nobler and purer
- Than any we might conceive of
- So we have God’s purpose for us
- To fulfill our part of His purpose as fellow heirs
- And fellow workers of the Lord
- But most of all as worshipers
- Who have set themselves on the altar
- In order to be used by God for His purpose
- That is work out our salvation/ reconciliation
- (god wants to make us more and more like Christ)
- To worship him in every act, every day, bringing glory to His name
- Totally surrendered to Him for whatever He asks or brings
- What a glorious calling we have
- What a glorious God we serve
Prayer
Invitation
