10-7-2018

Good Morning All,

             Ephesians 5:1; “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.”

     I remember when our oldest grandson turned three.  That seems to be a very transformative age.  I warned his dad.  You see, at the ripe old age of three my grandson had announced that he was going to help his dad “fix stuff” this summer.  It was and is interesting watch.  His dad has lots of cool tools to “fix” with so his dad will have to always pay attention to where he put a tool down at because it probably won’t be there when he gets back.  There is a certain amount of irony in this because his father was the same way.  He wanted to “fix stuff” like grandpa did.  I hope his parents are ready; it only gets more interesting.

    It is one of the most interesting things to watch, especially in a farming community.  Young boys, from about three or four on up, help their dad do farm work.  Now this help is usually little more than riding in the pickup into town but they watch their father act and interact.  Soon the young guys pick up their father’s mannerisms, voice patterns, and common phrase usage; sometimes they even dress like their dad.  It can be fun to watch; adults walking around with miniature of themselves walking beside them.

    Our verse for today speaks to us as being imitators of God.  This verse suffers from poor chapter division.  It really belongs to the chapter preceding it.  In the last part of the fourth chapter speaks of new life in Christ and what it means to us.  This section concludes with the following verse. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”  So we are to be imitators of God by forgiving one another and then to love one another in a sacrificial manner.  This comes about because we are new creations because of Jesus and his sacrifice.

    So we see that imitating God is about love; our new life is about the sacrificial love that God poured out upon us through Jesus.  We are to turn from the selfish and turn toward the selfless.  God calls us and empowers us to do this.  We see it in part when we look at another person who is in pain or suffering and we feel the twinge in our stomach and we think “someone should do something to help.”  This is the start to the reaction of the new creation.  God moves us to feel, to have compassion on our fellow man.  Yet God wants us to move beyond feeling for our brother and sister.  He wants us to act on behalf of our brother and sister.  When we see pain we should offer healing and when we see sorrow we should offer comfort.  This is how we are imitators of God by loving our fellow man.

Father, teach me to imitate you.  Teach me to love my neighbor and to bear others up.  We see so much pain and sorrow in this broken world; lead me to be an agent of healing.  Lead me to love my neighbor and to see that in this action, I find solace.  Lead me to love those in need.  Lead me to those people who need me that they may meet you.  In the precious name of Jesus, our risen savior we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret