"Imitating God"

Scripture: Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Preacher: Rev. Ross Purdy
Date: August 13, 2006

When I was ten years old I went for a walk with my uncle in Scotland one day.   We decided that we were going to hike to the top of a hill overlooking Loch Lomond.   As we journeyed, I found myself, with my ten-year-old legs trying desperately to keep up with my uncle who was athletic.   As we were traveling up a hill, I fell behind and soon saw his head disappear over the top of the hill.   No worry, for me, now I could slow down a bit.

But on that hill I stepped into an area where the ground moved underneath.   It was a patchy area of mud and I slowly began to sink.   My feet were stuck and I couldn't free myself.   In a few seconds I knew what was happening.   You see I had watched Johnny Weismuller and later Ron Ely in Tarzan episodes.   I knew that people sank in quicksand and I began to panic.   My feet were soon covered.   My shins slowly slid down into the mud.   I struggled, but I couldn't free myself.   As a ten-year old I began to see my life flash in front of me.   "Uncle Hamish.   Help!"   No response.   I cried again, this time louder.   "Uncle Hamish, Help!"

In a few seconds I saw my uncle come running back across the hillside.   Then, as he saw me he stopped.   "Help.   I'm caught and I'm sinking."   He stood there a short distance off and called out, "Come on.   Come up here."

What a cold-hearted uncle!   Couldn't he see that I was approaching death?   Before long he'd see me up to my neck, then I'd disappear.   Well that would show him!   Fear gripped my heart.

"Ross.   Stop playing around.   Come up here."   I was so angry at his lack of mercy in the face of my impending death.   So angry, that I took a step and found my foot free...then the next one...then I was out of the quicksand.   It wasn't quicksand at all.   It was a bog.   Then, when I looked down, I wasn't stuck up to my knees.   My ankles were a bit muddy.

I thought I was dying.   I couldn't free myself.   But then I had to free myself and I did.   I was caught in a bog and I had created, in my mind, a situation where I was trapped.

Do you ever feel trapped?...Caught in quicksand?   Does it seem as though you're stuck in a rut or even feel as though you're not growing in your faith?   What's the problem?   It might be a factor of many things.   But I want to address one, this morning.   Unbelief.   You are God's child and God has given you the power to do all things.   "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13)

Do you know the power you have, in Jesus Christ, to overcome all situations?   You have already been given the power to control your world.   The problem, for us, is that we don't believe it.   This morning I am asking you to suspend your doubts for a moment and say to yourself this statement... "What if I really am more than a conqueror in Jesus Christ?"   What if I really can change my life and experience perfection in the Spirit?   What if when I confess that I am a sinner, which I know I am, I settle for the reality instead of laying hold of the promise that I can stop sinning?; that God wants more of a relationship from me than prayers of forgiveness.    God wants prayers of victory asking for things that are far beyond realistic expectations...things such as laying hold of this city for the Kingdom of God, asking for healings, raising the dead, you name it.   God wants me to take charge and transform my world and the world around me.

This is the assumption that Paul makes regarding his friends in Ephesus.   He expects that they'll be transformed.   He says to them words that are hard and straight-forward:

• Put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor.
  "But I'm a sinner. I can't do it."   Stop it.   You're a child of your heavenly Father and God expects more.
  
• Don't give the devil a foothold.
  "But the devil made me do it."   Stop it.   The devil doesn't have power over God's children.   Stop excusing yourself.   You ended up sinning because you wanted to sin.   If you're a believer in Jesus Christ and find yourself in sin, take responsibility for it.   Otherwise you make God out to be less than honorable.   Confess your sin and turn from it.   God doesn't expect you to resist sin unless He's given you the power to resist it.   All of God's children are empowered.   If you're not empowered, you're stuck in a bog.   It's not quicksand. Get out.   Listen to God saying, "Come up here."   Go to the top of the hill.   That's where the view is.
  
• Stop stealing.
  "Well, I'm off the hook on that one."   Are you?   Are any of us?  
  
• Do not let unwholesome talk come out of your mouth.
  "Oh boy...never?   Even in the privacy of my home?"   Never.   Unwholesome talk always produces evil.   Always.   It begins in the mind, it exits through the mouth and it becomes a reality.   Always.
  
• Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.   God wants to work in and through you.   Stop resisting.  
  
• Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, fighting and slandering, along with every form of malice.  
  
• Here's the positive, all the rest have been "don'ts".   Be kind and compassionate to one another.   Remember that we're all in the same boat.   We all have hard days and the next time sometime is short with you, try encouraging them.   Let them off the hook.   Seek mercy for them first, not justice.   Experience the power of kindness.   Kind actions sometimes produce kind responses.   When someone jumps on you, try kindness.   You might have a very spiritual moment that follows.

Then Paul gives the real concentration for success, as if to summarize his words of guidance.   It is hard to concentrate on the exhortation he gives...I have to remember not to steal, be kind, get rid of bitterness, etc., etc.   So he says, "here's the clue:   Just be imitators of God."

There was a man named Charles Caleb Colton.   His name is probably not one that you've heard.   He was born in 1780 and died in 1832.   Charles was an English clergyman, writer and eccentric.   He fell into a very difficult bog.   Although he was a minister, he chose a life of degradation.   He left the ministry and turned, instead, to gambling.   He spent far too much time partridge hunting and collecting paintings.   Before long the creditors were after him. He moved to America, then to Paris.   But no matter how far he went he couldn't flee from his pursuers, his critics or his failings.   He just couldn't get out of the bog.  

In Paris, Charles Caleb Colton fell ill and needed surgery.   Knowing the methods of surgery and its ineffectiveness, especially in the area of pain-management in the 19 th century, he decided to take matters into his own hands and committed suicide.   He sank in the bog.   His life became a reflection of tragedy.   I wish it had been a better one.  

But out of his life came a beauty.   This man had the power of words.   Even though he couldn't get out of his troubles, his phrases have helped society for hundreds of years.   Not many know Charles Caleb Colton.   But many know the wisdom of his words.   Listen to some of his phrases:

• "When you have nothing to say, say nothing."
• "Men are born with two eyes, but only one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say."
• "Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner."  
  (I just threw that one in there)
• "It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends."
  (and, I'm sure you've heard this statement)
• "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".  

Colton, Lacon, (Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think)
volume I, no. 183

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!   The meaning, of course, is that to emulate something is to value it.   Those we admire, we begin to pattern ourselves after.  

This is what the Apostle Paul is encouraging us to do.   But please keep in mind that there is a vast difference between "imitating" and "mimicking".   Our passage is encouraging us to imitate God by being transformed inwardly and outwardly so that we look like God, we sound like God, we speak like God.   If we let the Spirit transform us into God's reality, people will begin to see God within us.   It is my goal in life to come so close to God's presence that my very presence is changed and people begin to smell the fragrance of Heaven whenever I come near.   I want to be just like Jesus, who was the perfect reflection of God, that I continually die to myself so God can live within me.   God needs more room in my life and I have plenty that I haven't given to Him yet.   So I desire to give more.   Do you?   I want people to see Jesus Christ through my life and my words.   When people look at me, I want them to see the passion of my Lord through my eyes and my presence.   Then, when I am mistaken for Jesus it can be said that I am truly a Christian.   The term Christian means "little Christ".   I want to imitate God, not mimic God.

There are Christians who mimic.   They say the words, but they don't have the power of a transformed life.   They quote Scripture and use it carelessly, hoping that by the vast verses they quote you'll be impressed.   Show me not someone who can quote the Words of God.   Show me the person who lives the Words of God.   These mimic-ers declare that they are bounding up the hillside to the top, but they're stuck in a bog.   No matter how many Christian words or actions they say or do, you can tell that they have no power to change their world or anyone else. They have not been authentically transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.  

I used to be a good mimic-er.   The art of mimic was one of my specialties.   My brothers and sisters will agree to this.   I remember the days of sitting in the back seat of the car with my brothers and sister.   My father was driving and my mother was in the passenger seat.   I remember the aggravation I caused my siblings, then my parents when I would mimic my sister Dorothy or brother Tom.  

"Dad, he's copying me."..."Dad, he's copying me."  

"Mom, tell him to stop."..."Mom, tell him to stop."

My poor parents.   My poor brothers and sister.   No one saw my imitation as an attempt to flatter them.   Mimicking is insulting.   There is a vast difference between mimicking and imitating.  

What mimic-ers lack are two things:

1. A willingness to humble themselves and ask for the authentic transformation of God.   The way you can tell that someone has been transformed into an imitator of God is because love appears.   God is love and those who abide in God abide in love. Love comes from God.   Whoever does not love does not know God... (see I John, esp. 4)
2. A heart for sacrifice.   Sacrifice has always been the way of God.  

In order for Abraham to become the "Father of Faith" he had to be willing to sacrifice the most precious thing in his life, his son, Isaac.   While God stopped the sacrifice of Abraham's son, Abraham shows us that the way into God's presence is to give up all things to gain God.   What are you willing to give up?

To imitate God is to become a sacrifice.   God loved us so much He gave His Son up for death.   Jesus loved us so much He, willingly, gave His life upon the cross.   It is not easy being an imitator of God.   To be authentically transformed in God's image requires sacrifice.   You must give up your life.   There is no other way.  

There is trend in American Christianity to make God more palatable.   That way will never work.   It will produce, at best, mimic-ers, not imitators.   There is an attempt to win converts to Christianity by making things easier.   Some are preaching that you can add God to your life, almost like an addition.   My heart was broken a week ago when I read in a Christian magazine that a great new way of getting members, and some growing churches have incorporated this method into their services, is to put holders in the pews that fit Starbucks coffee cups.   What kind of message is being sent to people when we think that by accommodating people's comforts for one hour they'll hear the Gospel...which, requires us to "leave things behind and follow Jesus."   That was the call Jesus gave to His first disciples.   He never changed the call.   What kind of Christians will we be producing if we don't preach the cost of discipleship?

I want us to be powerfully transformed into the image of Christ so that we can obtain the promise of Jesus who said,

" I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.   He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12)

Jesus, who walked on water, who healed the sick, who raised the dead said that we can do more.   Do you want "the more" in your life?   Do you want to imitate God?   That's authentic transformation.   That's possible.  

Someone once said that we should be wearing crash helmets when we come to church.   If we are encountering the very God of the universe with one another, we can't help but be different when we leave.  

The older I get, the more authenticity and power I desire.   Don't you?

If you have the courage to give up your life to find a different one, a more powerful one - one that pulls your feet from bogs - I want to encourage you to hold on to the promises of Christ.   I ask you to make this moment a moment of decision that from here forward you will imitate God and not mimic Him.   God is for you.   God desires more for your life than you desire for your life.   If you let go, give up, surrender all that you are to God, with the knowledge that it will be a sacrifice, not an easy path, I promise you that God will meet you here, today, and give you power like you've never had before.  

Get out of the bog.   It's not that big to God.   "Come up here!" God says, "I've given you the strength.   Let's enjoy the sights together."   Aren't you tired of looking up hoping to get to the top of the hill?   Wouldn't you like to look down from above?   Take a moment with me and offer yourself, once again, to God.

Amen.