Walking In Love Series

Here this morning we are moving our message series from Sunday nights to Sunday morning. Because I believe that this mini-series is one that our entire church needs to grapple with and I am praying that this concept will grip your heart. That when God calls you and I to walk in love, to walk in light, to walk in wisdom and to walk as a family; to walk at work and to walk in the World…he is calling us to do something that in and of our own strength we are unable to do.

Here this morning we consider the fact that Walking in Love is As Easy As Walking On Water. That is the premise behind this series that will see us through February and into March. If you haven’t been following along with our Sunday night series we have seen that Paul is writing this letter to a people that have a special love for him. Paul spent over 3 years of his life teaching, healing and ministering to the people there. While he was there idolaters became God fearers, broken lives became whole; feuding families found peace. Paul’s ministry was effective and in the first 3 chapters of this letter Paul recounts for the Ephesians believers all that is there’s in Christ Jesus. He reminds them that they have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus and that forgiveness is there’s because of the cross. That they have been brought into the family of God, that they now have a new home, a new heart and a new hope; all because of Christ’s redeeming and unimaginable love. In Chapter 3 Paul prays a hinge prayer whereon all that he has said and will said rests; a prayer that at the heart of it begs God to intervene in the believers’ lives and allow them to comprehend the width, the length, the height and the depth of God’s love. Do you know that God love you here today? Some of you need to hear that because you are having a hard time feeling loved…God loves you friend. Some of you need to hear that because you are having a hard time loving the unloveable…you need to remember God loves YOU. And God loves ME. Oh, why would we be so blessed to receive God’s LOVE?

God’s love is costly, caring, committed, conspicuous, and consecrating. And here this morning we are going to consider God’s command on our life to WALK IN LOVE.

• …be imitators… the word is mimetai—we get the word MIME…and in many ways the idea is expressed that we aren’t to merely imitate in words, but in deeds as well.

• Our children often imitate our mannerisms and the way we do things becomes ingrained in them without us ever teaching them…

When Paul says “BE IMITATORS OF GOD” you and I have to realize this isn’t a call to action in order to gain acceptance; but rather, it is a call to action that flows out of our adoption.

In 2015 I was invited to write a spoken word for an event called Compassion. The premise behind Compassion was the fact that Compassion that doesn’t lead to action is merely an emotional reaction and ultimately a distraction.

In that poem I am reminded of these lines here in Ephesians 5…

The Gospel is a message of love that God clearly has spoken, to the needy, confused the scarred and abused, to any and all who are broken. And in his great love we were predestined to a most glorious adoption, in our new family silence and indifference are simply not an option. It’s not who our Father is and it wasn’t how we were raised; no in His unfathomable love we were resurrected and this love has the power to amaze. And not simply to amaze, but to turn entire worlds upside down, for the love hope and peace that others desperately seek, in Christ we’ve already found. And this great treasure is far too valuable for us to bury, but with hearts that are steady and feet that are ready we must be willing to carry, the good news of the gospel to the diseased, the dirty the dying and the dangerous, telling them the story of God’s unchanging love and how He has changed us.

When we are told to imitate God, we are in essence commanded to live holy lives; unstained and untattered by the world; we are to be different in how we walk this life; and in a simple phrase Paul sums up the call to imitate God when he says; “AND WALK IN LOVE.” If there is one command that sums up all commands it is this one here…WALK IN LOVE.

For we recognize that the 2 commandments that Jesus said were greater than all commandments were, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. And 2nd is like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself.