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).
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.
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