Imitation (Ephesians 5:1-21)

(August 16, 2009 - KNU International English Church)

Some people say, “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” In other words, if someone imitates you they are paying you a high compliment.
I guess I should feel pretty flattered, then. Sometimes, Emma tries very hard to be just like me. Sometimes, when we're sitting together reading a book, I'll notice that she has her legs crossed just like I do. Sometimes, I am shocked to hear her say the same words I say. (Usually, they are good words. But most parents know that they have to be really careful what they say around their kids because those kids are sure to say the same things later on!) Sometimes, Emma even gets dressed up in my clothes. [[picture]]
And she even learns quickly when we are wrestling and play boxing. [[video]]

Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Imitation is also the highest form of worship. God has made us to be like him, and it pleases him when we are. Let's read Ephesians 5:1-21.

Imitating God – living like God – is best thing we can possibly do. If we follow through the passage, imitating God sounds pretty good:

• “Live a life full of love” (5:2).
• Be thankful (5:5).
• “Live as people of light” (5:8). Be radiant!
• Be “good and right and true” (5:9).
• Be wise (5:16).
• Make the most of your opportunities and time (5:17).
• Sing together and make music from your hearts (5:19). Go to Nore Bangs!
• Tell God, “Thank you,” all the time (5:20).
• Live together with respect and mutual submission (5:21).

I think we would all agree that this is a beautiful way to live.
But it is also difficult. As beautiful as the God-life is, it is still difficult to actually live it in our day to day lives. Paul gets this! As soon as he tells us to imitate God's life of love, Paul starts giving warnings:

• “Don't allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices or bullying greed … gossip … dirty or silly” talk (5:3-4, The Message).
• “Don't let yourself get taken in by religious smooth talk. God gets furious with people who are full of religious sales talk but want nothing to do with him” (5:6, TM).
• “Carefully determine what pleases the Lord” (5:10).
• “Don't waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose those things for the sham they are” (5:11).
• “Be careful how you live. Don't live like fools” (5:15).
• “Don't live thoughtlessly” (5:17).
• Don't piss your life away with drunkenness (a rough paraphrase!) (5:18).

God's life is in us. Verse 8 reads, “but now you have the light from the Lord.” This actually says, “but now – in Christ – you are the light.” That's why we're supposed to live like people of light! We are light!
We were originally created in God's image, created to be like God (Genesis 1-2). Unfortunately, we all went our own way and did our own thing, and now we don't look very much like God. But God has reclaimed us. He has chosen us again into his family as his dearly loved children. Now God wants to breath his Spirit into us, just like he breathed his Spirit into the very first Adam. He wants to make us come alive with God-ness. We are like balloons waiting to be blown up. We are like wax statues waiting to come alive. We are like human-robots waiting to have a real heart and a real mind.
What does it look like to come alive with God's life? Verse 1 gives us the overall summary: “Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love.”
But in the Greek text verses 18-21 are one long sentence. Paul loves long sentences. What we have is, “Continuously be filled with the Holy Spirit” and then several modifiers, explaining what a life filled with the Spirit is like: singing together, making heartfelt music, giving thanks all the time, and submitting to each other.
This gives us a reverse image of God. God is passionately loving. God is joyfully singing and making music. God is deeply thankful. God submits and serves. If we imitate God (live the God-life), then we will live like this too. And this is a goooood way to live.

But, alas. We are not so good at living the ways we want to live. We intend well, but we don't follow through. We start well, but somewhere along the way we lose focus. We get sidetracked or distracted, or we just get tired of the effort. And we often end up living in ways we never wanted to live. Sometimes we live in ways that are completely opposite to how want to live, ways that are completely opposite to the God-life which is in us!

Our life is like a garden. God planted us with the seeds of his character. God put his life deep in our souls. We share the task of tending the garden with God.
But we have not been careful. We have gotten distracted. We have not tended to our garden regularly. Weeds have come in. The stakes holding up the tomatoes and peppers have fallen over. The soil has become dry and cracked. In one place, a piece of plastic trash has grown over the strawberries, and they are starving for sun – yellowing beneath the plastic.
We have not been careful, and the God-life is dying within us.

Our life is like an old gas street lamp. We burn with the life of God. We give light to the world. We give joy and peace and safety in the darkness.
But we have not been careful. We have been lazy. We thought our light would keep going out without any attention from us. The smoke has dirtied the glass on the inside. Pigeons have pooped on the outside of our lamps. One one side, a kid threw a rock and cracked the glass. The light is still burning, but it doesn't really help anyone. The light is still in us, but not much light goes out.
We have not been careful, and our lives block the God-light from shining through us.

Our life is like a stage, and we are bad actors. Some of my friends make fun of Keanu Reeves. The joke goes like this. This is Keanu Reeves when he is angry. [[bland expression]] This is KeanuReeves when he is sad. [[same bland expression]] This is Keanu Reeves when he is happy. [[same]] This is Keanu Reeves when he is terrified that he might die at any moment. [[same]] He never changes. No matter what's happening, his face is exactly the same.
Other actors or actresses change radically from character to character. You know sometimes, you can hardly tell it's the same person. They really get into it. If they are doing a prison role, they go live in a prison for a week just so they can understand what it's really like to be in prison. If they are playing a prostitute, they'll interview a dozen prostitutes so that the character comes from inside them and shows in their faces and all they do.
Not Keanu. No matter what role he is playing, his voice and his mannerisms are exactly the same. He's always just Keanu Reeves doing or saying something new in the same old way.
God has invited us into the drama of life, and he has given us a role to play. “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children … Follow the example of Christ … Be filled with the Holy Spirit.” What is our role? God wants us to play Him – God! We are the body of Christ, and together we present God to the world. God wants us to really get into character so that it is almost as if His character comes alive in us. God wants us to do character research: “Carefully determine what pleases the Lord,” and “Understand what the Lord wants you to do.”
But, unfortunately, we tend to be bad actors. We go into every situation just being the same old us. We don't shape our character to be like God. We have not done the research. We have not been spending time with God so that the life of God naturally comes out when we get on the stage of life. We haven't studied the script and thought about how God would say our lines. We just wake up and go out there and start acting.
We have not been careful, and we are not acting in line with God's character.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Our lives don't have to be a run-down garden. Our lives don't have to be a clouded-over, pooped-up street lamp. We don't have to be bad actors on the stage of life. We don't have to be careless about how we live. We can choose to be careful.
Let me suggest a few ways that we can be careful to live out the God-life which is in us.
1)Identify 3-4 basic practices that will help you live the God-life. If you are a gardener, you need to pull the weeds, water the plants, and provide supports. If you are a lamp-lighter, you need to clean the glass and make sure the lamps stay lit. As people of God's light, as gardens of God's seeds, what do we need to do to live the life of God. What do you – you in particular – need to do every day or every week or month to make sure that you are living the way you really want to live? Take some time and write those down.
2)Be accountable to a trusted friend. Form a group of 2 to 6 people. Tell them what your 3-4 basic practices are. Then ask them to make sure you are doing those. Meet together every week or two and talk about it. Are you tending the garden of your life? Are you faithfully representing (acting out) God's character in your world?
3)Look for God moments. Paul said, “Make the most of every opportunity.” Pray that God will give you eyes to see when he wants to act through you, when he wants to do something especially loving or grace-filled through you. Every day, the opportunities are there, but we miss them. Let's ask God to make us more aware. Let's ask God to help us listen a little more closely and to take those opportunities for him to shine through us.
4)Lastly, thank God more often. Did you notice how much this passage talks about thankfulness and joy? Let there be thankfulness (5:4). Sing together, make music in your hearts, and give thanks for everything (5:19-20)! Joy and thankfulness are fundamental to the life of God. Usually it's a choice to be joyful, so choose joy. Act out the character of our joyful God. You may just find that life is better that way.

Let's go back to those three basic images we talked about earlier.
What will the garden of our lives be like if we are careful? What will it look like if we carefully tend the garden, pulling weeds, picking up the trash, making sure all the plants get enough water and sunlight? “What happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find our selves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely” (Galatians 5:22-23).
What will the street lamps of our lives be like if we are careful? What will it look like when we clean up our lamps? It might look like Isaiah's words to Israel: “Arise Jerusalem! Let your light shine for all to see. For the glory of the LORD rises to shine on you. Darkness as black as night covers all the nations of the earth, but the glory of the Lord rises and appears over you. All nations will come to your light; mighty kings will come to see your radiance. Look and see, for everyone is coming home! … Your eyes will shine, and your heart will thrill with joy” (Isaiah 60:1-5)
What will the stage look like if we really get into the character of God as good actors and actresses? It might look like Paul's words to the Corinthians, “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, 'Come back to God!'” (2 Corinthians 5:19-20)

“Wisdom … has prepared a great banquet, mixed the wines, and set the table. She has sent her servants to invite everyone to come. ... If you become wise, you will be the one to benefit. If you scorn wisdom, you will be the one to suffer” (Proverbs 9:1-3, 12).
“So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise” (Ephesians 5:15).
Be wise. Be careful to live out the God-life in you.

Strippers for Jesus (Ephesians 4:15 - 5:2)

(August 9, 2009 - KNU International English Church)

About five years ago, some of my friends started a new church in Gardner, Kansas. Gardner is a small but growing suburb in the center of the USA. Trinity Family Church is a lot like our church. They are progressive Nazarenes. They have a good band, and people wear casual clothes. They have a young pastor and mixed group of people. In many ways, they are very similar to us.

But Trinity Family has one thing we don’t have – a ministry to strippers. Yes, I said strippers – women who get paid to take off their clothes.

A few years ago, some of the women at Trinity Family felt called to love and to serve people who were never going to walk through the church door on their own, people who normally don’t feel comfortable or welcomed in church. Their attention focused on the two strip clubs in town, and they started a ministry called Love Wins.

In 2007, some of the church ladies went to the strip clubs with homemade cookies and gift bags. This scene was repeated again and again. The church ladies brought Christmas gift bags, chocolate covered strawberries, lotions, all kinds off stuff – again and again. They didn’t ask them to come to church. They didn’t tell the people at the strip club that they were a bunch of sinners on the fast track to hell. They just gave them gifts and talked to them and loved them.

They also gave them the opportunity to be equals. When Trinity family was collecting money to help struggling families have a good Christmas dinner, they allowed the strip clubs to donate too. (In the past, other churches refused to take the “dirty money” from the strip club workers.) When Trinity family did a service project at a local homeless shelter, they invited the staff of the strip clubs to join them. Strippers and bouncers and ushers and Sunday School teachers worked side by side, planting flowers and painting walls. It was beautiful!

This beautiful story has all four of the big themes of today’s passage from Ephesians: stripping (or taking off clothes), putting on, truth, and love. Listen for these themes as we read Ephesians 4:15 – 5:2.

OK, so let’s unpack this. We’ll start with the stripping theme – of course! I know the version we read doesn’t use the word “stripping,” but that’s what it’s talking about. “Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life” (Ephesians 4:22). The word is the same word for taking off clothes or burdens, and the word for “old” means “worn out” or “worse for the wear.”

And while we’re at it, let’s be clear about putting on, too. “Put on your new nature, created to be like God.” This is a word for clothes, too, and the word new here means “fresh, unworn, or unused.”

Paul is saying, “Strip off that old worn out way of life, and put on a fresh, custom made God-life.” On the authority of the Word, I declare today that God wants us to be strippers!

But what exactly are we supposed to strip off? Paul gives us quite a list of actions to strip off. In fact, “stop telling lies” is literally “strip off lies or falsehood.” Verse 22 gives us a good summary: “Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life which is corrupted by lust and deception.” Lust and deception – these are opposites of truth and love. The old worn out way is lust and deception. We want to use everything and everyone for our own purposes. That’s not a very acceptable way to live, so in comes the deception. We have to hide our lust from others and also from ourselves. This way of life gets old fast, but we’re well trained in patching it up.

Really all of the other sins listed fit into these too. Stealing is a combo of lust and using deception to get it. Our lust for stuff and people pushes us into “foul or abusive language,” out of control anger, and all sorts of bad stuff.

Now, as church people, we can be really good at deception. We can focus all of the attention on those bad people out there who do the really bad stuff. When we think of lust, we usually think of things like – well, strip clubs, and the people who go there. We can jump all over this word “lust” and poor burning judgment down upon “those” people who are “ruining” our society.

But all of this judgment and criticism can actually be a secret form of lust and deception. We lust for power and for value. We want to have power and value over others by condemning them. We are attempting a magic trick called “slight of blame.” They are the real lusters. My look down a girl’s shirt when she’s bending over is innocent male instinct. My hunger for money and clothes are natural and justifiable. Look at them! Look at those SINNERS!!! (I wonder if sometimes we scream so loud about the sinners because we secretly are secretly angry that they seem to be having so much fun.)

This is a complex form of deception. The simple truth is we are all sinners. We all struggle with lust for power, sex, and money, and we all try to hide it through deception. The truth is we all need grace and healing.

Here’s the amazing part. For those church ladies in Kansas to go to those strip clubs in love, they had to start stripping first. They had to strip off their pride. They had to strip off their concern about what others think: “What will people say if they see me in a place like that?!!” They had to strip off their judgmentalism. They had to strip of their harshness. Maybe some of them had to strip off their anger and bitterness because the threat a strip club poses to their men and to their marriages.

Before we can love people who are different from us, we have to strip. We have to strip off our old worn out way of thinking and acting.

OK, but what do we put on? “Put on your new nature, created to be like God – truly righteous and holy” (4:24). If we stop here, this can lead us into judgmentalism and hypocrisy again. -- We are righteous and holy, and you are not! -- But if we keep reading, we find out what righteousness and holiness really are:

“Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God” (4:32 – 5:2). What is holiness? What is righteousness? It is to be like Jesus: to be kind, to be tenderhearted, to forgive, to love, to give.

We put on the new us, the God-like, Christ-like us. We put on truth and love. Truth and love. Live the truth. Live love. Live God. “Put off falsehood, and tell your neighbor the truth.” Stop stealing and hoarding, and start sharing. Stop being rude to others, and start being kind. Stop tearing people down, and start building them up. Stop holding grudges, and start forgiving. Stop burying your anger; when someone hurts you, tell the truth in love.

Why? Why should we stop living in those old ways? Why should we put on truth and love in our every day life?

• Because God has a better plan for us. “Even before me made the world, God loved and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes” (1:4).

• Because we are part of God’s family (1:5). Family loves. Family tells the truth.

• Because God “gave us new life when he raised Christ from the dead” (2:5).

• Because “God saved us by his grace when we believed. We can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God … none of us can boast about it” (2:8-9).

• Because “together, we are his house … a holy temple for the Lord” (2:20-21).

• Because “we are all parts of the same body” (4:25).

• Because “God through Christ has forgiven” us (4:32).

• Because God uses us to heal each other.

“Instead we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love” (4:15-16).

I want to finish today with a letter from Guido, a part-owner in Bonita Flats, one of the strip clubs served by the Love Wins ministry in Gardner, Kansas.

As I get older, I realize that a lot of my views on life seem to change. One of them is the subject of religion. I grew up thinking that religion was all about control of the people, and if you didn’t fit the mold you were thrown to the other side of the line. Either you’re a good person or a bad person. Most of my experiences with churches have been bad ones. I believed: “You don’t bother me, and I won’t bother you.” They criticize you if you don’t follow their rules even if you didn’t know the rules.

From what I know of Jesus I thought he talked to all people and did not judge them but explained what they should be doing and let them figure out what they needed to change.

My opinion has changed over time, but more in the past couple years. A big influence in my thought change has come about because of a couple, who years ago I would have judged as those church people and avoided like the plague. It all started one day when my door guy at work called me and said some church ladies were there. I thought “Oh NO! Here we go again.” (Several years before some church ladies had been in our parking lot picketing and handing out negative brochures.) He said they were leaving some gifts for the girls. I think he asked them if they had paint bombs in them because he was also leery.

After talking to the employees and the staff I found it odd they would bring stuff to dancers and thought: “What’s their angle?” So this happened again. The ladies came to the door, dropped off gifts, smiled, then left. I thought, “That’s nice,” so I had my bartender put together a basket of nice things for the ladies and drop it off. I later thought to myself: “Wow! I’m interacting with church people”.

As time went on, our opinion of religious people changed. We discussed a volunteer project at Our Fathers House (a homeless shelter) in Paola. When we showed up, I think Donnie and Erin were shocked not only that we showed up but in good numbers also. Now, I’m a big burly guy who is not intimidated easily, but I will tell you - this was a situation that I’m not accustomed to. I thought: “Wonder what all these other church people think of working beside strippers and people of our sort?” Well, the answer to that is everything went fine. I actually talked to Donnie (the pastor) for a long time, and it was a comfortable conversation, and one of the best I’ve had in a long time. I really enjoyed our discussions. And I think it opened each other’s eyes a little. I know it did mine.

I like that Donnie and his group do things more like how I thought JESUS did things. We have done another day at Our Fathers House, and I hope we can do another one soon.

I have read the church blog, and I find it interesting that they were as leery of us as we were of them. The staff and the dancers have responded to the ladies in a great manner, and we all were happy to find someone to take our Christmas family donations because in the past we have been denied by other religious organizations’ because of what we do for a living. Also we felt the love enough the girls felt they should return the love with baby gifts for Donnie and Erin.

I think this program has even worked on me. One day Erin and the ladies came in. When they left, a new girl came up and said, “Why were they here? They’re just here to condemn us for what we do.” I told her that’s not true. I told her not to be so judgmental. Now she’s judging them like she thinks all churches do us. I told her that they are the nicest people you will ever meet.

Since then I have had two people ask me what I know about religion. They said they were never taught anything about God. So I told both they could call (Trinity Family Church), and these people would be glad to help with their questions without judging. Not in a million years would I have thought I would be sending friends to church people to learn about GOD.

So my opinion has changed a lot over the past couple years due to some very different people. So I guess the Love Wins ministry works, and I hope more churches learn from your great example. Thanks for giving us a chance to see another side of religion. Keep up the great work
GUIDO

No one else can speak your truth. No one else can love your love. No one else can wear the clothes of Christ the way you can. We need you to strip off that old worn out life. We need you to put on the God-clothes of truth and love, grace and forgiveness. We need your voice. We need your love. We need your life!