8/6 Sermon

Walk this way! (1)     [Ephesians 5:1~2]                                                                                            
 
Last thing we talked about in the retreat was the cross that Jesus bore for us. The cross has two members, one vertical and one horizontal. The vertical member represents the relationship between you and God, the horizontal members represents the relationship between brothers.
Now, we are on the chapter 5, Paul refocus the relational issues back to the vertical relationship. Because what good is the amazing horizontal relationships with your brothers and sisters if you don’t have the good vertical relationship with our Lord Jesus. Another words, even if you have good relationships with your friends and family, yet you don’t have the love of Jesus in your heart, it is just a social gathering or a relationships that is bound to fail and hinder you.
From the chapter 4 of Ephesians, we talked about how we can unite in Christ.
What were those? Do you guys remember? There were:
Humble and gentle, patient and bear with one another in love.
So, today, the chapter 5 of Ephesians, we will talk about how to walk as a Christian to further improve the relationship between your brothers and sisters, based on the vertical relationship with our Lord in Heaven.

Todays’ title is “walk this way” this may remind you of 80’s Aerosmith, But I think this tile perfectly summarizes what Paul is trying to say in Ephesians chapter 5.
There are 3 ways of walk that Paul teaches us. We are only going to talk about the first one, which is “Walk-in-Love” we will hear about the other two next time (Walk-in-the-light, and Walk-in-wisdom)
 
5 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
 
5:1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children.

1. Imitator of God:
   1. Does not mean “be” God. You cannot become God; that is not what Paul is talking about.
   2. This means have a heart of God

i.See how God sees human being with love and compassion,
ii.And do things out of sacrificial love and compassion and do things with excellence (we talked about that during the retreat)

1. As beloved children
   1. Not in order to become children of God; because you already have been made a beloved child

i.Other religion will teach you that you have to keep god’s law and follow them in order to become a child of god or belong to the god
ii.Christianity reverses that! We already have become child of God by God’s grace and act of adaption by God, while we are broken and lost

1. We should be imitator of God because we love God and we are so grateful for saving us from eternal hell

i.As children of God, we adore the beauty of God, and we naturally want to become like him.
ii.I remember wanting to become like my dad when I was a boy. He was a strong in character and strong in body, and he was so musical. And now, I sometimes see him in myself. And that’s okay. Because I love him anyway and I always wanted to become like him anyway.
iii.Those of you who are in relationships, you want to please your significant others and you want to honor that person, because you love that person. When you fall in love, you naturally want to follow the one you love. Like the same things and hate the same things. It is the same here; You want to imitate God, not because you have to, because of you love God.

• I think the worst thing you can do is to imitate God when you don’t really love him or have his heart.
• Because it is more than just imitate his behavior, I need HIS HEART!
• Any walk we do in Christian living, we must start here. You are imitator of God. You have heart of loving God.
• We cannot just tell you to change this or change that, or do this or do that. It becomes “DO-DO” sermon and it stinks.
• Have the heart of God; that is how you imitate God.

 
Walk in Love (verse 2)

• And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 
There are three words that we can pull out from verse 2. LOVE, GIVE, and Forgiveness. These three things we see here describe how to walk in love.
 

1. Forgiveness

i.Christ died, gave himself up for us, to save us from the eternal hell. It started from forgiving our sins. Without the forgiveness of our sins, we are not able to approach God.
ii.So this forgiveness is very important in Christianity and being saved and all.
iii.But we do not practice the forgiveness in our lives…
iv.How many times does Bible say we should forgive our brothers? 7  x 7 x 7 x 7 (unlimited)
v.Worldly response: our forgiveness is conditional.             

• I will forgive when he pays me back my damages (example of Chris wracking my car)
• I will forgive when he admit his wrong doing
• I will forgive when he meets my terms, when I am ready (not mad any more)

vi.Forgiveness of Christ:

• Non-conditional
• Don’t have to pay it back
• Don’t have to recognize or not admit specific sins: how many time you sin against God and don’t realize you have sinned against God?
• But God still gave us a way to be forgiven: through Jesus Christ!
• All we have to do is realize that you are a sinner and ask for his grace. That’s it!

vii.Our new response:

• Our problem is we decide whom and what we can forgive. You put limit on the forgiveness. And you say “He is not worthy of my forgiveness”
• But Jesus is teaching us “You forgive him anyway”
• Imitate the forgiveness that Jesus showed for us. Practice that in your life!
• Love

i.There are so many things that we can talk about the love of Christ. And it will be just a review for you.
ii.However, again our problem is, we decide whom we should love and whom we should not love. You decide that some people are worthy or not-worthy for your act of love
iii.You have been loved and chosen to be child of God, and you get to decide whom you can love and share the act of love? No.
iv.We need to reach out all the brothers and sisters orbiting around our lives with the love of Christ!
v.The reason we love going to homeless center and nursing home and do some mundane work, YET it feels so good. Because you have the love of Christ in you.
vi.And that is the amazing thing. As we serve others, we imitate the love of God. And you and I know how fruitful our act of love could be, if you have the heart of God.

1. Give: if you are imitator of God, your attitude of giving should change

i.Your giving should be not based on the NEED, but your giving should reflect the first and the best of what you have.
ii.This is to recognize that everything you have is from God and to honor God

• You may be a multi-millionaire, write a check for $100,000 to a church. You may be the biggest contributor. Did you give the first and the best of your ability?
• You may make $100 a year. And gave $30 to God. It may be small and not make heck of a lot of differences, but if this giving was the first and the best of your ability, this was worthy respond to the gospel.
• Guy with $100,000 check, not so much. It would be unworthy, or improper respond to the gospel.
• This is saying it does not matter the amount of how much money or time you give to God. What matters is your heart.

iii.Bible shows the perfect response of giving to the gospel

• Night before Jesus was crucified, a women came and broke a bottle of perfume.
  People thought that it was such a waste. But Jesus recognized it was a perfect way to respond to the gospel.
  She gave the first and the best of her ability.
  And Jesus was so moved and said wherever the gospel was preached, the story of this women will be also told. Because her giving was worthy response to the gospel.
• Please note this: “Our acts of love toward others are ultimately for Jesus, even if they seem like they are being wasted on the person you are pouring them out on”

iv.Other example (sing mom-single son)

• Imagine a Single mom with a boy. She works so hard to raise him, clothe him, feed him. And teach him how to be a good person, how to give; how to be honest; how to be honorable; how to be generous.
  When time comes to a college age, this single mom gathers small savings she had and put him through a college. Boy graduates with honor and gets great job. But he never visit his mom. Yeah, he writes a birthday card or Christmas card and stuff...
  Sure, he is a good man, honest, and generous and living a good hard-working life. Is that okay?
  The boy might say, “what is the matter?, I am a good person…. “
  But is it good enough??

 
No!! He may be a good and live a good life and honest and hard working,
But if he ignores a relationship that matter the most and one person whom he owes everything, this is not good. This is not acceptable.
 
This is what is missing in our relationship with God.
We may do good things like serving at nursing home or homeless shelter, give much offering to church. Many Christians do the right things for God. But you are not passionately in love with God. This is what is missing in walk our Christian walk.
 
I am going to close the sermon.. Let us close our eyes..
 
I would say, this is the most important part of walking in Christian life.
We do many good things because they are nice things to do. But we lose sight of the reason why we do the things that “seem nice”
 
We talked about being humble and gentle and patient and bear with other to unite. But if you forget about the love of Christ, it is nothing. It gets you nowhere... Other religions can suggest the same things. Buddhists teach the same things.
Let us be reminded again, what this cross meant for us. It meant the love that God pours out to sinners like us.
It meant that he died for our sins to forgive us so that we are able to have relationship with almighty God.
It meant that we are able to love others with love of Christ.
It meant that we are able to give the first and the best of our ability.
 
We do good things in our live because Christ compels us to do good things.
So, let us forgive and let us love like Christ loves us and let us give the first and the best, not because it is nice to do, not because we have to, but because we are in love with God.
So, Let us imitate god by walking in love.