Holiness: Imitating God

Please read Ephesians 4:25 – 5:2 and then pray; Almighty God, as I come before your holy word, teach me the meaning of true holiness, and lead me toward the holiness of heaven. Amen!

In Ephesians we have been discovering the apostle Paul’s maturest thoughts about the Church. Paul never played down the relevance and the glory of the Church. On the contrary his intention was to lift our thoughts about the Church to new heights, and to drive home the importance of the privileges, responsibilities, and joys of Church membership. Have we truly grasped what it means to be a Christian, to be adopted into God’s family, and to be a part of the body of Christ (4:4) and the bride of Christ (5:32). The Church which is the body of Christ today on earth will one day be the spotless, blameless, radiant, holy bride of Christ. (5:27) The bridegroom will return for his perfect bride.

Paul had two towering concerns for the Church, whether it be the Church in Ephesus or the Church in Gloucester. His two concerns were for the unity of the Church and the holiness of the Church. The Church must stand out in the world. The people of God are called to be distinct and different – the salt of the earth, the light of the world. (Matthew 5: 13-16) Jesus wanted His Church to show the world what true reconciliation and unity looked like, and what true holiness and wholeness looked like. His new community filled with the Holy Spirit would be markedly different to the world. (2:22)

Last week, we considered the importance of unity and how Paul wrote about those qualities that make unity possible and powerful. The qualities which promote and maintain unity are humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance in love. (4:2) If unity is a table, then these qualities are the four legs which support and stabilise it. But Paul also teaches that those qualities are centred around and upon no fewer that seven points of being ONE. There is, proclaims Paul, only one body where there is one Spirit present and one future hope. There is one Lord, one faith in Him, and one baptism into Him, through which all believers identify with Him. There is finally one God and Father who is over all, through all and in all. All these “ones” hold and bind the Church together in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. (4:3)

Just as there is perfect oneness in unity and community in God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so there must be unity in the community of the Church. After focusing on unity, Paul proceeds to write about the call to holiness. God is Three in One in community, but God is also holy, holy, holy, and it is to holiness that Paul now turns – and this takes up the largest section of the letter (4:17-5:33)

What is holiness? How would you answer that question? And how is the Church to pursue holiness? We are helped by our reading today because Paul presents us with one of the greatest definitions and descriptions of holiness in the NT. Listen to this at the beginning of chapter 5;

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love just as Christ gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (5: 1-2)

Paul defines holiness by defining and describing love. If we can understand love, we can understand holiness in all its beauty and glory.  The first challenge Paul presents here is staggering – it sounds impossible. Be imitators of God. How can mere humans imitate God? How can humans marred and messed up by sin imitate a God who is perfectly holy and loving? Surely this is out of the question and we are out of our depth. Not quite.

There are attributes of God that we can never copy or imitate. There are some aspects of God’s nature and being that are not communicable. We can never be like God is His glory! Impossible! We can never be like God in His majesty and sovereignty! We can never become like God in His omnipotence, His omniscience, and His omnipresence. However, because God made us in His image, we can seek to imitate and live out aspects of His moral nature. We can demonstrate God’s love by our love. We can copy and imitate God’s compassion, kindness, goodness, patience, forgiveness, justice, and righteousness. This is true of all humans – for all are made in His image, but it is especially true of Christians who Paul writes in this letter have been reborn in Christ’s image (4:24) and sealed and filled with the Holy Spirit and the power of God. (5:19) We can seek to imitate God, we can live a life of love because of the grace of God in Jesus and through the power of God’s Spirit living within us.

What especially helps us and guides us and inspires us is the example of Jesus. Jesus was God incarnate, God with us, God among us – “God with skin on.” He perfectly mimicked His Father. Whilst on earth Jesus perfectly represented and reflected His Father’s glory and being. (Hebrews 1:3) Jesus only said what he heard His Father saying, and Jesus only did what he saw His Father doing. Notice that phrase in Ephesians 5:2 – just as Christ. Christ revealed and lived out the love of God in this world among the poor and ordinary people. Christ gives us the blueprint to follow. As Christians, we are “mini-Christs” – we are to be copies of Jesus in the world. We are his disciples, his followers. And although we will not reach his perfection in this life and in this broken world, we can strive to be like him in love, compassion, forgiveness, gentleness, holiness, and faithfulness.

This is why in the previous verse at the end of chapter 4, Paul presents this challenge which saints can respond to; Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ God forgave you. Copy Christ God who forgave you! Forgive one another! It is possible to make progress, great progress as we lean on His strength and grace and know the power of the Holy Spirit working in us and through us. It is possible to be like God, to be like Jesus, to walk in the Spirit. Be imitators of God.

The biggest factor that motivates this desire to imitate God writes Paul, is the fact that we are His beloved children. Be imitators of God as dearly loved children. Christians want to please their Father who has welcomed them into His eternal family life. We want to be like our Father and His Son our Saviour. We do not want to let the family down or discredit the family name.

When I was a boy, I wanted to please my parents. I really wanted to please my father, and I was always  delighted and uplifted when my father showed his pleasure in my work and in my conduct. A “well done” from my dad always meant the world to me. I loved to imitate my father in the way in the way I tried to shine my shoes (as he did) and glide away shaving foam from my cheek which dad had placed there whilst I was sat in the bath and as he stood at the sink next to me washing himself after work.

The Christian wants to please and imitate their Father and their brother Jesus. As an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ, I want to please “Abba” – I want to imitate Him and bring glory to His name – the family Name. And we do that most by “living a life of love” – a life just like Christ lived – a life that was suffused with grace and truth. And we are told here that Christ’s love was not some kind of sentimental “fluffy” love, but a love that was sacrificial and very costly. Christ gave himself up. Christ gave his all for you and for me. Christ went to the cross for us. Our love for others in the Church and the world must imitate that love – a love that was unwavering and unconditional. Not just love for friends but love for enemies. Not just love for family but love for strangers. Not just love in fleeting moments dependant on one’s mood, but love that goes on, love which goes the extra mile.

In the next section on marriage Paul will challenge husbands to give themselves up for their wives. Husbands must lay down all out of true love for their wives. Just as Jesus gave up everything for them, husbands must sacrifice everything for their wives and serve them with all their hearts. Gaining respect and honour from their wives will not then be an issue for husbands who love like this!

Most of this section of the letter is filled with detailed practical instruction on how to show love and how to not show love. Paul reveals that love is not shown by lying, but through speaking the truth. Love is never shown through stealing but through hard work and generous giving to the needy. Love is not shown through unkind, censorious, divisive language but through words that encourage another person and build them up. Love is not shown through sexual promiscuity and immorality, but through faithfulness and purity. Love is never revealed through obscene language or behaviour but it is revealed through thankful and grateful hearts. Love is never shown through drunkenness, but through being filled with the Holy Spirit. Love hates to grieve the Holy Spirit. Love sings the praises of God. Love will not give the devil a foothold. Love is not shown in anger or through rioting. Love will live in the light and avoid the darkness. Love will be seen and known through kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. Love will be magnified when men and women imitate God their Creator, in whose image they are made, and in whose love they can flourish. Right now, the UK needs to hear the words Paul wrote to these Ephesians.

Are we willing to strive for a holiness that reflects and magnifies self-giving love and self-sacrificial service? Are we willing to be holy as Christ was holy? Are we willing to lay down our lives for others through our compassion, kindness, service, and tenderness? Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his lives for his friends. (John 15:13) Read 1 John 3: 16-20.

To conclude then, holiness to which we are called as Christians, is primarily marked, and distinguished by love – Christ-like love – which is self-giving, self-sacrificial and costly. It can be shown in a thousand different ways. We are to seek to be imitators of our heavenly Father. Jesus said at the very heart of his Sermon on the Plain; Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:36) In the Sermon on the Mount he exhorted his listeners with this challenge; Be perfect, therefore, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48) At the end of his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul urges this; Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. (2 Corinthians 13:11)

One of the most beautiful thoughts that Paul leaves us with from Ephesians 5: 1-2 is this: When we live holy lives, lives that are directed by the imitation of God’s love, then these are the lives that God most notices and blesses. Paul speaks of lives of love being like “a fragrant offering” to God. The lives that smell sweet to God are the lives that are purposefully lived out with self-sacrificial love, compassion, and kindness.

One of things that we are acutely aware of and we respond to almost instantly is bad smells and beautiful smells.  If we smell something horrible – we notice and we react. If we smell a beautiful fragrance, the fragrance of a rose, a waft of freshly baked bread, or a delicate perfume, we smile and sense joy. This is how God reacts to human love. When he smells love, love that copies the love of his Son, God’s nostrils are filled with a fragrant and beautiful aroma. God smiles broadly. But when he sees stealing, brawling, bitterness, malice, hate, immorality, and injustice – God is repulsed by the stench of human unkindness, ingratitude, hate, and wickedness. God’s righteous anger is kindled. (5:6)

The amazing thing about those sweet smells which ascend into God’s nostrils is that so many of them rise from places where there some bad earthly smells. What do I mean? When Mother Teresa worked on the streets of Calcutta with orphaned street children, there were bad smells but there was love sweet fragrance. When someone is lovingly caring for a dying person, there can be bad smells but there is the fragrance of tender love. When the homeless are being rescued and fed there can be bad smells, but love’s aroma prevails and is stronger. When refugees arrive, dirty and hungry, there can be bad smells, but warm and welcoming love freshens the atmosphere. Overcoming all the bad smells, there is a fragrant offering that rises to the throne of God the Father and the Son – the aroma and fragrance of love – costly and self-less love. This is the fragrance of redemption. The fragrance of hope.

Let us aim to live lives worthy of our Father, worthy of our Saviour, worthy of the Holy Spirit who has sealed us and filled us. Let us aim to be mimics of God, imitators of his love, compassion, forgiveness, and kindness; and the let the fragrance of peace and purity rise and fill heaven and earth.

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, 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.

Amen.

(Revd Peter J Clarkson 11.8.24)