Transcript

At age five, John Gilbert was diagnosed with Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic, progressive, debilitating disease.

At age 25, the disease claimed John’s life. Every year John lost something. One year, he lost the ability to run, so he couldn’t play sports with the other kids. Another year he could no longer walk straight, so all he could do was watch others play.

He lost the ability to do all the outward things that we think of that make us human. Eventually, he even lost the ability to speak….

Once he was invited to a National Football League fundraising auction. When it began, one item in particular caught John’s eye: a basketball signed by the players of the Sacramento Kings professional team.

John so desperately wanted that ball that when it came up for bid, he felt his hand raise up in the air. Not having the funds to participate, John’s mother quickly brought it back down. They watched the bidding go up and up and up.

It rose to an astounding amount compared to the value of the ball and especially compared to other items at the auction. Finally, a man made a bid that no one else could possibly match, and he won the prize. The man walked to the front and claimed the basketball.

But instead of going back to his seat, the man walked across the room and gently placed it into the thin, small hands of the boy who had desired it so strongly.

The man put that ball into hands that would never dribble a ball down a court, never throw it to a teammate, never fire it from the foul line. But those hands would cherish it for as long as they lived.

“It took me a moment to realize what the man had done,” John later wrote. “I remember hearing gasps all around the room, then thunderous applause and weeping eyes. To this day,” John said, “I’m amazed.”

God desires that we “walk in love,” and pursue His love in each step we take in life. We demonstrate His love to others by giving of ourselves and putting others first, showing care in how we treat others, by showing concern and compassion to those who are in need, and by little acts of selfless and sacrificial kindness to those around us in life.

Ephesians 5:1 says, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.”

Paul wrote, “Be ye therefore.” The “ye” refers to the members of the Ephesian church, and it refers to the Church as whole, to all the members of the Body of Christ.

The “therefore” looks back to the last verse of chapter 4: “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

Paul teaches the church to be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving, and these things virtues are characteristics of God.

Thus, for these things to be a reality in our lives, Paul wrote in verse 1 of chapter 5 to “Be ye therefore followers of God.”

The Greek word translated as “followers” is “mimetes” and it means an imitator. We get our word “mimic” from the Greek word “mimeties,” and you can see the word mime in it.

A mime is one who acts a part with gestures and actions. Mimes don’t say anything. They just suggest action, character, or emotion without words, using only gestures, expressions, and movements. A mime lets their actions speak in place of their words.

Like a mime, we are being taught here to not just talk about God’s kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness, and love, but to imitate it, live it, and express it, to let our actions speak in place of our words. We are being called to do as God does, and live these virtues out before others and the world.

Verse 1 is a grace command for the Church, which calls for divine imitation to be our way of life, for us to continually mimic God’s attitudes and actions.

God called Israel under the law to imitate Him as well. In Leviticus 19:2, the Lord told Moses, “Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy.”

The Lord Jesus in His earthly ministry to Israel called them to “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

And here the Body of Christ under grace is called to imitate God’s kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness, and love.

Paul does not instruct us to be followers of God and to imitate Him in every way, but only in certain ways. This is because there are parts of God’s attributes and character that belong only to Him and cannot be imitated, and then there are other parts of God’s attributes that can be imitated.

These are what are called the communicable and noncommunicable attributes of God.

Communicable attributes of God are those attributes that man can also possess, although only to a finite extent.

Incommunicable attributes of God are those attributes exclusive to Him. And mankind cannot share or imitate these incommunicable attributes.

Regarding God’s communicable attributes that we can imitate, God is the God of all grace (1 Pet. 5:10), and we can be gracious.

God is also just, and we can have a sense of justice and can carry out justice. Some other communicable attributes of God are love, mercy, goodness, truthfulness, and longsuffering.

God’s incommunicable attributes are those things that only God possesses and that make Him distinct from creation. For example, God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent, omniscient (all-knowing), sovereign, eternal, transcendent, and self-existent.

These incommunicable attributes of God are cause for us to revere, worship, trust, and praise the Creator. The communicable attributes of God, however, are the ones we are called to follow and imitate in our walk.

Paul calls on the Body of Christ to “Be ye therefore followers of God, AS DEAR CHILDREN.”

When we trust Christ as our personal Savior, we become children of God. We are born into His family through the new birth of the Holy Spirit, being born again.

Paul taught the Body of Christ, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration,” or new birth.

Earlier in Ephesians, Paul had spoken of the person outside of Christ, and that they are “the children of disobedience” and “by nature the children of wrath” (Eph. 2:2-3).

But at the moment of salvation and trusting Christ, immediately, we are born into God’s family, and we become the children of God forever. As Galatians 3:26 puts it, “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

Paul says we are to be followers of God “as DEAR children.” We follow and imitate God not to become a child of God, but because we already are and always will be.

“DEAR children” literally means we are BELOVED children. We are the recipients of His love, who have experienced, and are experiencing, and will forever experience His love.

Thus our motivation to pattern our behavior after God, is love. Love should meet love. His love for us should be met by our love for Him in our desire to follow Him.

Children are natural imitators. Paul’s thought here is that, like children instinctively imitate their parents’ actions and behavior, we are called as the children of God to naturally follow and imitate the actions and behavior of our heavenly Father.

When my youngest son, Tyler, was very young, he had a love/hate relationship with our lawn mower. He loved the mower, but the noise of it scared him.

One time, when I was cutting the grass in the backyard, when I reached the end of the house, I noticed that in the front yard, Tyler was pushing his toy mower like I was.

When I got to the other side of the house, Tyler was there looking at me with his push-mower. He was going at the same speed and we’d see each other at the same time at each end of the house, time after time and row after row. He was imitating me.

Likewise, Paul wants the child of God to imitate God in his daily conduct. Godliness is about being like God, and to be like Him, we are called to imitate Him. That is the very purpose of practical sanctification, that we grow in likeness to God.

When a child acts like his or her parent and has the same characteristics, we sometimes say, “The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.” That’s what Paul would have said about us in our relationship with God.

Robert Roberts wrote the following: “Just as a child picks up traits more or less simply be dwelling in the presence of their parents, so the Christian develops tenderheartedness, compassion, humility, forgiveness, joy, and hope through ‘the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.’

“That is, by dwelling in the presence of God the Father and Jesus Christ His Son through His Word and prayer.”

We learn what God is like and we grow in our knowledge of Him by the Word of God. The Bible is the revelation of God to mankind. In order for us to follow and imitate God, we need to know Him.

Thus, this instruction to be imitators of God as dear children is also a call for us to spend time with the Word, and to grow in our understanding of God through the Scriptures.

The first half of Ephesians 5:2 reads, “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us…”

It’s been said well that “Love is basic to being Christian. This is not sentimentality or effusive feelings, but good old basic love that reaches out to heal the hurt of the world. Love’s simplicity is its attraction; its transforming power is its glory.

“Love is practical, yet transcendent; earthly, yet heavenly. Love is the essence of the divine Author and is to permeate the whole of our lives.” Richard Baxter

Paul teaches the Church to “walk in love.” As we are to be imitators of God, so it follows out of what we know about God from His Word, that we should then “walk in love.”

1 John 4:8 says, “God is love.” Thus, in our daily walk, in our journey through this life as heaven-bound pilgrims, Paul says to take step after step after step “in love.”

When God’s love becomes the deciding factor in our choices and the motivating power in our actions, we are walking in love.

And the life that is like the life of God is a life of love. As we imitate God, we become representatives of God. And as we imitate and walk in His love, we represent God’s love to a world that needs it, and needs it badly.

Paul exhorts the members of Christ’s Body to live and conduct themselves in the sphere of selfless, unconditional agape love, in the love that God is, in the love that is a fruit of His indwelling Spirit.

Rich McClean says, As a general contractor, I frequently visit “Home Depot.” Actually, it has become one of my mission fields.

I like to help people load their merchandise. Recently I was there and was on my way to my van when I noticed a guy who realized he had left his lights on. He turned them off, expecting a dead battery. And sure enough it was.

I jumped in my car and thought of helping him. Then I thought, No. It had been a bad day. I didn’t sleep well the night before and was running behind schedule.

I prayed, Lord, I don’t need this right now. You know that I usually would help, but, Lord, not today! Let someone else do it. Yes, I know I have a set of jumper cables right behind my seat, but not today!

I slipped the key in the ignition, gave it a turn and…click, click, click. I looked down to see my light switch was on. Guess whose battery was dead now!

Unlike God’s love, our love and our walk in love can be imperfect and inconsistent.

Imitating God’s love is possible “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,” Romans 5:5 says. Walking in love is the outworking of His inworked love. But we need to yield to the Spirit’s help, empowerment, and enablement in order to faithfully walk in love and work that love out in our lives.

Romans 5:8 tells us God’s love, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

God’s love and the love we are to walk in and to show, is a love that goes out not just to the lovable but to the unlovable and the undeserving, even our enemies. It is to extend to every person, because out of His love, Christ died “for all.”

And like God’s love, it is a love that goes out even if it’s not received or ever returned.

Paul adds that we are to “walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us.”

Christ’s love is our example, a love which led Him to willingly sacrifice His life for us at the Cross. The eternal love of God finds its highest expression in the Cross.

The supreme example of the love we are to walk in is Christ’s love. In Him, and by His cross, we see what love truly is and means.

It is no ordinary love to which we are called to walk in. Whether at home, at church, or in the course of daily living out in the world, we are to imitate God and walk in love. But we are called to love “as Christ.” Our focus in walking in love is to “love, as Christ…loved.”

Out of Christ’s love, He “hath GIVEN Himself for us.” The Christ-like love God would have us walk in is about giving. It is a voluntary giving of self for the good of others.

And Christ’s love is about giving sacrificially. Christ’s love is self-sacrificing, as Christ gave everything, He gave Himself, as He willingly gave His life for us. Walking in love is about giving and making sacrifices for the Lord and as we minister to others.

Out of Christ’s love, He “hath given HIMSELF for us.” Speaking of the churches of Macedonia and their financial giving, Paul wrote this of them also in 2 Corinthians 8:5: “And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord…”

Christ, out of His love, gave Himself for us. And walking in the love of God, we are to give and surrender ourselves, our whole heart, our whole self, to the Lord and to others, so that we might be a blessing and a help to others.

Out of Christ’s love, He “hath given Himself FOR US.” Christ teaches us that love is for you, not me. In love, Christ gave Himself “for us,” meaning for OUR sake, in OUR place, as OUR Substitute. He died that WE might live, and live eternally with Him. Therefore, love is about putting others and their needs first.

As Galatians 2:20 puts it so beautifully, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, WHO LOVED ME, AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME.”

Missionary Ben Anderson, International Director at Things to Come Mission, taught a class and shared at chapel time while I was in Bible school at Berean Bible Institute.

At the end of his chapel time, he shared a story from a recent trip he had taken to Indonesia. He told of a certain village where there was a church-planting effort under way, in spite of the fact that the village was almost entirely Muslim.

One of the Indonesians, a recent convert, spoke with Ben and the president of the Grace Bible Churches in Indonesia.

The man was poor, and without shoes, estranged from family having trusted Christ, and he told Ben, “I want you to have my house for the church.” They at first resisted and said, “But that’s your house, where will you live?”

The man said, “I have a small goat pasture, I’ll sleep by my goats.” They asked him, “But why would you do this? Why would you give up your home?” The man replied, “Because Jesus died for me.”

This story, to me, captures what it means to “walk in love as Christ hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us.”

God’s love in Christ is a love that gives, that counts no cost too great. Christ gave everything in His love for us. And His love can move us to give of ourselves sacrificially, put others first, and be willing to give and do anything for Christ and others.

The second part of Ephesians 5:2 says that Christ “…hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”

Paul says Christ gave Himself for us as “an offering and a sacrifice to God.”

There are five main offerings described in the Book of Leviticus: the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering and the trespass offering.

The five main offerings then are divided into two specific groups: the sweet savour and the non-sweet savour offerings.

The first three: the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the peace offering were called sweet savour offerings, and were offered voluntarily. The last two: the sin offering and the trespass offering were non-sweet savour offerings and were mandatory.

Now, my wife likes candles. When she lights them at home, they give off a good aroma. They make the house smell good. It’s a pleasing thing.

And that’s what the voluntary sweet savor offerings were to God. They were pleasing to Him when they were offered in the tabernacle and the temple.

The offerings all picture Christ. In the sweet-savor, burnt offering, the whole offering, except the skin of the animal, was burnt and consumed upon the altar. Its unique feature was that it was all for God. As the smoke of this offering rose toward heaven, it was a sweet aroma to God.

This portrays Christ’s full devotion in offering Himself up entirely to God to do His will.

Christ said “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me,” and to do the will of God, He went to the Cross. Ephesians 5:2 says He gave Himself as a willing offering “to God,” and He gave Himself as an offering “for us” in paying for our sins. And this was a sweet-smelling aroma to God, and He was well-pleased.

In the sweet-savour, meal offering, there was no shedding of blood. Leviticus 2:1 says of this offering, “And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon.”

The fine flour pictured His sinless humanity with its evenness of moral qualities, the oil pictures the working and power of the Holy Spirit which characterized His ministry, while the frankincense is emblematic of the sweetness and fragrance of His Person and life.

In the sweet-savour, peace offering, part of the animal was offered upon the altar as “the food of the offering made by fire unto the Lord” (Lev. 3:11). This part was God’s. And part of the offering was food for the priests.

Thus, both God and man fed on the same offering, which speaks of the fellowship and peace which the believer in Christ enjoys with God because of Christ’s offering and sacrifice at the cross and His blood shed for sin.

The other two, the “sin offering” and “trespass offering” described in Leviticus, were not sweet savor offerings to God. Though they, too, depicted Christ, they depicted Him bearing the sin of mankind, and there is nothing sweet about sin.

For the sin offering, after the blood and fat of a whole bullock was put on the altar for God, the bullock was burnt upon the ground outside the camp of Israel.

This offering was for sin and pictures to us Christ who, when He was made sin for us, He endured the judgment and wrath of God against sin as our substitute.

The holiness of God and the awfulness of sin are seen in the bullock being entirely burnt outside the camp. It pictures Christ, the Sin-Bearer, being separated and forsaken by the Father.

The sin offering deals with the nature of sin; the trespass offering emphasizes the acts of sin. The sin offering deals with sin against God; the trespass emphasizes sin against God and man and emphasizes the satisfaction and reparation for the wrong committed.

For the trespass offering, atonement was made by the blood of the offering of an unblemished ram or lamb. This offering presents Christ who died for our sins and trespasses at the cross.

Christ death was an offering and a sacrifice to God, which the Father found to be “a sweetsmelling savour.”

This means that Christ’s voluntary act of love and His offering for sin was well-pleasing to God. Because the Cross was a sweetsmelling aroma to God it shows that He was satisfied and He fully accepted the offering and sacrifice of His Son for our sins.

Christ’s death was “voluntary, vicarious, and victorious.” In Christ’s death, sin was defeated, and it satisfied God’s justice and just demands against sin.

Ephesians 5:2 can be broken down in this way:

1. He gave Himself for us. He gave everything as a sacrifice in paying for our sins.

2. He gave Himself to God. His whole being was given in devotion to God and His will.

3. He gave Himself an offering and a sacrifice. As a burnt offering, He was devoted to God even to death, as a meal offering, He was perfect and sinless, and as a peace offering, He brought peace between God and man by His death and shed blood.

4. He gave Himself a sweet-smelling savour. His voluntary and all-sufficient offering was infinitely pleasing to God.

5. He gave Himself because He loved us. He died that we might live eternally.

6. He gave Himself that we should walk in love. His death revealed perfect love. We walk as imitators of that selfless, giving, sacrificial love.

As we, like Christ, give ourselves up to God and His will as a living sacrifice, and we give ourselves for others in love, this is walking in love. And this will be a pleasing sacrifice to God as well.

The fact that the Cross was a sweet-smelling aroma to God shows that the death and resurrection of Christ is the only way to God. It shows that this is where we must turn to find peace and reconciliation with God.

Have you trusted in Christ’s death and resurrection to save you from your sins?

The Scriptures tell us that just believing Christ died for our sins and rose again, we are saved, forgiven of all our sins, and we are ready for heaven. Please, believe the gospel right now.