Ephesians 5:1-21 by Houston Tucker

How can understanding our identity in Christ transform the way we live and love? Discover the answer as we kick off our episode with a heartwarming update on the Lapham Book Drive. Started in memory of Jean, a beloved librarian, this initiative has blossomed into a beacon of community spirit, bringing the joy of reading to hundreds of children with the help of Eastside Church. Listen to the moving stories and profound impact that collective love and effort have made in keeping Jean's legacy alive.

Next, we delve into the essence of Christian ethics through Paul's teachings in Ephesians. We unpack the idea that knowing who we are in God's eyes shapes our behavior, emphasizing the importance of imitating Jesus rather than merely avoiding sin. This episode offers a fresh perspective on Christian sexual ethics, urging us to view our actions as reflections of our identity in Christ. By understanding and embodying the positive pursuit of becoming more like Jesus, we can lead a more genuine and fulfilling Christian life, much like a child naturally imitates their parents.

Finally, we reflect on the dangers of self-centeredness, drawing insights from Jesus' critique of the Pharisees in the Gospel of Matthew. The episode highlights how legalism and self-righteousness can lead us astray from true righteousness, which centers on imitating Christ. We provide practical advice on pursuing Christ in daily life, emphasizing the transformative power of understanding God's immense love for us. By focusing on positive actions and embracing God's love, we can break free from a restrictive mindset and live out our faith more fully and joyfully. Join us for an enlightening conversation that promises to deepen your understanding of faith and righteousness.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:36

All right, good morning guys. Good to be with you guys today. My name's Houston. I'm one of the pastors here.

Speaker 1: 0:45

First, before I do anything else, I want to tell you about the Lapham Book Drive. So, as you guys know, we've been collecting books, preparing for this. I got the chance on Thursday to help set up for the drive. Helped Lisa, who's one of our contacts here at Lapham, set out over, I think I set out something like 500 picture books and it was insane and they had enough to where, like, every kid got to go home with like four or five books total over the summer. Super sweet.

Speaker 1: 1:20

And what I want to tell you, what gets me really excited about this, is why they do the book drive. I found this out that like five or six years ago, their old librarian her name was Jean died of cancer, I believe, and what they did is she was beloved, they wanted to celebrate her and they wanted to do something that would like keep her memory alive and so they started this book drive uh, call it book swap, and so every summer the idea is that they're sending kids home with books that are like just right for them, because that was her whole thing. Super sweet, her husband was there helping, you know, set up the, the, the tables and do all that, and he's super involved. They're super sweet. And another thing that gets me really excited about this is they print out these sheets to tell parents about the book drives. They said that in the past kids would come home with a load of new books and parents would be like, where did you get these from the library? And they're like, okay, we have to give these back. What is going on here? And so they sent them these info sheets and at the top of the sheet it says these books are your child. There's this picture of Jean on there Tells her story. It's really sweet. And at the bottom it says thanks to our partners for supporting the book drive and donating. And you know Lapham's staff is there. And then Eastside, eastside Church we're like number two on this list of people they're thanking. And so this is really encouraging to me because I just want to say, like I talked to like a couple different staff members at Lapham when I was here, like they love us, they're like thank you so much, like we love you guys, we love that you're here, we love what you're doing, we feel super supported and loved by you and, like you know, 250 kids just went home and had thanks to Eastside Church in their backpack. So super cool. I mean this is exactly what we talk about, right? It's like these kinds of little things that we're doing, just showing up, serving, doing this kind of stuff is getting us out there and serving our community Super encouraging. So next year they're going to do it again. Lord willing we're still here. Next year we're already collecting books. Now they said the kinds of books that we brought, the chapter books are like exactly what they want. So gear up. Next year we're going to. Let's be number one on the list. No, no, no. Okay.

Speaker 1: 3:40

So today, you know, we're continuing in Ephesians. We're continuing this series that we call Renewed and if you remember, you know we started this year in the book of John and we're looking at biography of Jesus and we're asking the question who is Jesus and what is he about? And we saw a lot of answers to that question through the book of John and so, after we were done with that, we went to the next question, the next logical question who are Jesus' followers and what are they about? And that's what the book of Ephesians is really meant to answer. You know, paul wrote this to go to churches all across the Mediterranean to give kind of fundamental Christian basics to people, to help us or to help them know what it means to be a Christian and to follow Jesus. And Paul wrote this letter to teach people the fundamentals of who they are, who Christians are, and then what it means to follow Jesus. And I say those in that particular order because Paul makes a very big deal of that order. Paul makes a big deal that it's important that we know who we are before we ask the question what do we do? And if you remember the whole first three chapters of Ephesians, it was all Paul just telling us things that are true, telling us things that are true about God, telling us things that are true about us because of what God's done. It's all statements, no commands. There it's because Paul knows, and we should know, that we have to know what is true and what's true of us before we can even talk about what we ought to be doing.

Speaker 1: 5:27

And when we read this passage today, I mean you heard it the Christian sexual ethic is a big part of this passage, not the whole thing, but it's a big part of it of this passage Not the whole thing, but it's a big part of it. And what I think is that when some of us, when we hear the preacher start talking about these things, our eyes glaze over and I can just imagine some people going oh great, now we're going to listen to this archaic document talk to us about sexual ethic and man. I thought this was a cool church and blah, blah, blah. And here's the deal. We are a cool church? No, but here's what I think when we hear the Bible talk about this stuff, we tend to bring certain baggage to these conversations. We tend to bring certain ideas to it. And what I think is that if we think about how Paul approaches this, like if we think about the order that Paul approaches this who we are because of what God's done, then informs what we do then I think we have a different. I think it's got a different feel altogether. It doesn't change the sexual ethic. I think that's important. What Paul said is true this is it, this is what we do, but I think the way we get there matters a lot when we're talking about these things.

Speaker 1: 6:51

Really, what I want us to see today is that Paul is not just addressing the Christian sexual ethic. He's addressing Christian ethic in mass. He's talking about all of it. He's talking about how do we live our lives and what do we do. And what I want us to see is that Paul has a very specific idea of what our Christian ethic is supposed to be like. And you know, in the church we call this different things, like Christian ethic, I think that's like a non-Christianese way to say it. We would call this like righteousness or holiness or goodness, these big words. But it's all this idea of what do we do. And what we see in this passage is that Paul aims us squarely, squarely, at an idea, and it's the idea that Christian righteousness is more about imitation than restriction. I'll say that again Christian righteousness is more about imitation than restriction.

Speaker 1: 8:05

And we're going to unpack a lot of this. We're going to unpack what this means. We're going to talk about what it means. We're going to talk about why does this even matter? And then we're going to talk about how this can be true. We're going to jump into that, but first let's pray.

Speaker 1: 8:25

Lord, I just thank you for this day. I thank you for this time we get to spend together. Lord, I just thank you for this encouragement that we got from Lapham this past week. Lord, we're just thankful you opened the doors for us to be here. You've got good plans for us here and I just pray that you would keep working out this relationship so that we can glorify you in our time here at lapham. And, god, I just pray, as we open your word and we talk about some difficult ideas and man, some difficult things to do, uh, just that you would give us grace, that you would open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to your word and that you'll help us to see what you have for us today. We pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen.

Speaker 1: 9:59

Okay, so first I want to talk about what does it mean? What does it mean that righteousness is about imitation, not restriction, and the shortest answer to that is that Christian righteousness, our ethic, is about trying to be like Jesus, and again, it's more about trying to do something than trying to avoid something. And so let's look at our passage, look at the first two verses, chapter five, verses one and two. It says this therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. And so Paul begins this long passage.

Speaker 1: 10:53

You heard a lot of do's and don'ts in this passage. You heard a lot of don't do this. You heard a lot of don't do that, you heard some do this, but we all have to see that Paul starts this whole thing with these lines Very simply, we need to imitate God like children and walk in love like Christ. And spoiler alert this is two ways of saying the same thing. This is one idea that Paul is getting at, and I want you to see this. Paul's thesis statement is not don't do this thing. Paul's thesis statement is not don't be this way. His thesis statement is be like Jesus. And so, like so often, all of these things that we hear in this passage, we think of this in terms of restriction, but what we should see is that Paul is talking about these things as not lining up with who we're trying to be. In other words, we avoid these things, not simply for the sake of avoiding them. We avoid these things because Jesus didn't do them. Jesus didn't do these things why? Because he was perfect, he was whole, he was good, blameless. We say this he did human right. And the illustration that Paul uses to describe this is that we're supposed to imitate him, imitate God, like beloved children and man. Parents. We know this picture right, this is a beautiful, really sweet picture. We know this.

Speaker 1: 12:37

This weekend my parents were in town for part of the weekend and Friday morning they took Stella to Starbucks and of course they had to get Stella her own coffee right. It's this little eight-ounce vanilla, steamer, milk and sugar. So it's like you know. Of course she loved it and it was so funny because you know she's walking around and you can imagine. You know she walks around like she's queen of the world she might be and she's holding her coffee cup. She's got her sunglasses on, like she's living full life, right, and she keeps grabbing her cup by the top. She'd grab her cup by the top and then do this weird shake motion and we're like what are you doing? This is so weird.

Speaker 1: 13:17

We say no, no, stella, don't grab it that way. Grab the sides, steady, grip, hot drink. And she would listen. She would always listen, she'd do it. She'd grab it. All of her focus, do this. And she'd do it, she'd grab it. You know all of her focus, do this. And she'd walk around and then every time she'd set it down, she'd pick it up again from the top and shake it. I'm like, what are you doing here? And we realized. We realized that Kinsey and I, when we get coffee, we usually get cold brews, and you know that sugar, you know it settles at the bottom and we know this.

Speaker 1: 13:48

We always pick up the cup and shake it first. We do this exact motion pick it up from the top and swirl. And Stella, she wasn't being disobedient, she was copying us. She said this is how mommy and daddy drink coffee, because she never picks up any other cups this way. She doesn't pick up any other drinks this way. She knows this is how we pick up coffee, this other cups this way. She doesn't pick up any other drinks this way. She knows this is how we pick up coffee. This is what we do with coffee is we pick it up and we shake it. And you know we're less messy, but still it's just. It was so sweet. It was so sweet and it was really conflicting because you know she's like imitating us. It's very cute and also she is spilling her drink all over. But man, it's this really sweet picture right Of Stella was just copying us. She said this is how we drink coffee. How do I know? This is how mom and dad do it. This is how mama and dada pick up their coffee and they always shake it.

Speaker 1: 14:39

And this is what Paul is telling us to do. This is what Paul says. He says, christians, what should you do? What is your ethic? It's what your dad does. It's what your heavenly father does, why? Because we love him, we want to be like him, because he loves us. And we look to Jesus, because he's the perfect model of that, of how to do that, how to be that, what that means. And look, that means that we do avoid certain things.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Of course, an important part of imitating someone is that you don't do the things that they don't do. Sexual immorality is wrong because it does not align with who Jesus is and who the Father is. But look, even these things have a different feeling when we come to them this way. Even these restrictions, you might say, have a different sense to them. Look at our passage again.

Speaker 1: 15:39

Look at verses three and four. It says Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among the saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, these are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. You see Paul's logic in this verse, verse three. He says you don't do these things. Why? Because these are out of place, these are not what we do. And then he goes on to talk about our language, the ways we talk. He says no, no, no, we don't say these things. Why? Because that is not how we talk. Sounds a lot like how some of us parent our children, right, like, no, no, we don't do this, we don't do this, this is what we do.

Speaker 1: 16:33

And what I think is really interesting, you see, in verse 4, you see what he says instead. He says instead, let there be thanksgiving. And for some of us this feels like a weird non sequitur, like Paul is saying hey, don't do bad things, be thankful. It's like okay, paul, what does that even mean? It does not make any sense to me. But here's the Paul's being very specific.

Speaker 1: 17:01

Here he's talking about a specific thing, because the thread in these two verses is that Paul is talking about sexual immorality. Paul introduces it in verse 3. Sexual immorality and all these things must not be named among you, and what we have to see is this whole list of things is actually all flowing out of the idea of sexual immorality. And so, you know, when he's saying impurity, he's saying like extramarital affairs, these kinds of things, and it's the idea of of we're being corrupted, becoming impure by doing these things that we ought to not do. Or the foolish talk, the filthy talk he's talking about, like dirty jokes, right, crude joking, dirty jokes. And so when he says to be thankful, he's still talking about sex. And this is wild. Like when I read this, this blew my mind and some of you. This is gonna be the wildest thing You're gonna leave here and this is the only thing you're going to remember. Today.

Speaker 1: 18:10

John Stott translates verse 4 like this he says don't joke about sex, but rather give thanks for it. That's weird. That's weird. This feels absolutely wild for some of us, because so many of us have understood the Christian sexual ethic as being primarily about restriction. We have understood being righteous in this way, primarily by identifying what we don't do. But that's not what Paul does. What we don't do, but that's not what Paul does. You see, paul says that we ought to understand this primarily in how it ought to be, primarily how it's supposed to be. See, the Christian sexual ethic is not about restriction. It's about actually celebrating and protecting. Protecting something that is sacred, protecting something that is supposed to be in a certain place and not in other places.

Speaker 1: 19:14

And the idea here is like, hey, talking dirty, using filthy language. This is not appropriate, because this does not celebrate this good thing that God gave us. Instead, you should be thankful for it. And that's not some of our church experience, right, Like maybe none of our church experience, but that's what he says. Be thankful for it. Why? Because sex is a good thing that God made. He made this and he gave it to us. This is a good thing and that we need to keep it in the proper place. And the idea is that if we don't, we're not only defiling ourselves, we're defiling the sacred thing that God gave us. So you see, the thing about sexual immorality is not that it values sex too highly, that it values it too lowly. Do you understand what I'm saying? Like, this is a completely different perspective. It's not about restriction. It's about protecting, celebrating and putting it in the right place.

Speaker 1: 20:17

And there are a lot more things in this passage than just this. You know, he introduces sexual immorality, but there are a lot more things in this passage than just this. You know he introduces sexual immorality, but there are a lot of things in this passage that Paul talks about. He talks about how we speak. He talks about how we live, who we partner with. He talks about how we relate to each other, how we manage our time. As you can see, he covers the gamut. He's talking about all aspects of a Christian life. There are a lot of things to talk about when we talk about the Christian ethic, and so we don't have time to get into all of these.

Speaker 1: 20:49

I just want to encourage you, take some time, read this list. There are a lot of things here, and I know for a fact, because we're all human, that none of us aligns with this list. Perfectly right. So I want to encourage you, man, take time, talk with the Lord, ask him to point out which parts of these don't align with your life. Ask him what he wants you to do about that.

Speaker 1: 21:15

But I say all of this because I really just I want to drive home the idea, the single point, that Christian righteousness is about imitation, not restriction. Who are we trying to be and who are we trying to be like is a much more important and primary question than what are we trying to avoid? And primary question than what are we trying to avoid? And so I think the next logical question is why? Why does this matter? Who cares Like? I mean, I think we should recognize that someone who is trying to be like Jesus and someone who is trying to avoid doing bad things might have the same actions, they might have the same outcomes. And so we ask the question, you know, does it actually really matter the heart behind this, or is just the outcome matter? And my hope is that, sitting in this room full of Christians, you will all definitively know that no, it does absolutely matter. The heart does matter.

Speaker 1: 22:25

You know, in the Sermon on the Mount, jesus talked at length about this. You know all these examples. You know, jesus said you've heard it, said this. But I say to you that, and it's this pattern that Jesus keeps unpacking, where he shows us that our heart is just as important, if not more important than our actions. And when Jesus talks about sexual immorality, he says look, you know that cheating is not okay. I'm telling you no, the cheating is not okay. I'm telling you if you cheat in your mind, you've done it, you're just as guilty. And here's the deal.

Speaker 1: 23:17

Some of us hear this and we go, oh, okay, now I know that I have to police my heart too, right, like we've actually just lost the point. Because what Jesus is saying is your heart matters in this, your focus matters in this. And then we go okay, now there's one layer deeper of things to avoid. Now I have to avoid feeling these things. Now I have to avoid thinking these things, not just doing these things. And the problem is that we have not dealt with the problem. We've actually just opened up wider the space of things to avoid and restrict, and we still don't know what to aim at and what to imitate. We're not putting the right thing in its place to pursue. So let me say it this way, let me refrain this a little bit If your ethic is based solely on avoiding bad things, then you are still primarily focused on yourself, primarily focused on yourself. But if your ethic is based on becoming like Jesus, you are primarily focused on Jesus. In other words, you can try as hard as you want to avoid doing bad things, but you can still be a fundamentally self-centered person.

Speaker 1: 24:37

Have you ever seen SNL Church Lady? Yes, okay, great, at least one of you know what I'm talking about, maybe two. Dana Carvey, classic SNL cast member in the 80s, late 70s, early 90s, 80s for sure. Dana Carvey had this recurring bit where he was the church lady and the whole bit is this like church talk show, you know, like the classic old, you know white hair. She does a little like info news thing for the church and it's him as the church lady sitting at the desk. Her name is Enid Strick, but they just call her the church lady and what she does is she would have different people come in and she would interview them.

Speaker 1: 25:17

And I watched this one recently where it's like this woman and she's talking about this like insane encounter she had because she was doing drugs and messing around and doing all this kind of stuff and it was, I mean, it was really about her realizing that she had like done this messed up thing and it's super dramatic and raisins were turning into demons and haunting her. It was funny and at the end of it church lady, does her signature phrase of it? Church lady, does her signature phrase. Do you know it? Does anyone know it? Yes, isn't that special. And man, you can just like feel the judgment right Coming out of her. It's like you have failed because you are not good. And it's like even in this story where this woman is talking about how she turned her life or why she turned her life around, it's like, ugh, you did those things and this is how we think about righteousness. But look what Jesus is saying. Or what Jesus says is that Dana Carvey's church lady is just as self-centered as the sexually immoral, the adulterers, the so on. Just the same, because this is what Jesus criticized the Pharisees for. Do you remember this?

Speaker 1: 26:25

In the Gospel of Matthew, jesus has this long roast in chapters 23 and 24 of the Pharisees and the scribes and just goes off on them and he says all kinds of things about them. He calls them whitewashed tombs Great picture. It's like the idea of you going to a cemetery and there's really pretty tombstones out and it's like, yeah, this place looks great but it's all dead inside. And one of the most, I think, scathing things that Jesus said about these guys is he says you tithe your mint and your dill and your cumin, but you have neglected the important things. And the idea is that these Pharisees they knew, they knew that the rules were the tithe, they knew that they wanted to avoid doing the wrong thing. And so what did they do? They built up the rules, they added onto it, they elaborated, they expanded because they wanted to make sure they were not doing the wrong thing. And so even their herbs and spices they tithe, they gave 10%.

Speaker 1: 27:36

Jesus says you missed it. Jesus says you missed it Because the purpose of that was to make you just and righteous and faithful and merciful people. But you missed it, he says by doing that. It was like you spent your whole life trying to strain gnats out of soup, all the while you're swallowing camels. You did not get it. Why? Because they were so concerned about not being something or not doing something. They were self-centered still, and they missed the point. The point was to focus them on God and His goodness so that they could become like Him. And they missed it.

Speaker 1: 28:27

Do you understand? Do you understand that the circumstances, like the predicament that we are in? You can work so hard your whole life to avoid doing bad things and still be condemned. That's what Paul is saying. It's the same condemnation in our passage. Look at verse six. He said let no one deceive you with empty words. He said don't let anyone talk you out of it.

Speaker 1: 28:55

For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. And this phrase sons of disobedience, he introduced that a few chapters earlier. Do you remember in chapter 2, when Paul says you were once dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of the air, following the prince of the power of the air, the course of this world. He said you were once sons of disobedience and what that means is that you were under the authority of spiritual evil. And what did that look like, do you remember? Looked like following your desires. It's like doing following the passions of our flesh, doing what we want. In other words, it looks like putting yourself at the center of your life. And this brings on God's wrath. See, because whether we're getting there through sexual immorality or coveting or drunkenness, we're getting there through sexual immorality or coveting or drunkenness, or whether we're getting there through self-righteousness, legalism, pharisaicalism, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 30:07

All of these things are self-centeredness. And in all of these things I am keeping me at the center. And all of these things elicit the wrath of God. And the problem is that we are, by nature, self-centered. We can't help ourselves, right? We know that whatever we put at the center of our lives, we warp our lives around. We put at the center of our lives, we warp our lives around. We know that being self-centered means that our wants and our desires and our comfort, our security, these things become ultimate and we act accordingly.

Speaker 1: 31:01

The Bible says that whatever we put at the center of our lives is our God. And what do we do with our gods? We worship them. And man, when we worship, we sacrifice, don't we? No-transcript. What are we going to do when our gods of self demand twisted, immoral things? What are we going to do when our gods of self demand self-righteousness to appease our own fear, to appease our own lack of value? We're going to sacrifice for them. Right, we're going to offer all kinds of things up on that altar. We're going to offer ourselves, we're going to offer our friends, we're going to offer our children, we're going to offer our morality, we're going to offer our community Anything, anything that it takes, we're going to put on that altar to these gods of self.

Speaker 1: 32:01

And it is destructive. It's destructive, see, and that's the thing. Is that like when we hear self-centeredness in our culture, we think, oh, that's unattractive. Or maybe, as Christians, we think, oh, that's unspiritual. No, the problem is that self-centeredness is destructive. It destroys everything, it's deadly, it's a problem, it's a big problem.

Speaker 1: 32:35

So we've seen that the Christian sexual ethic is all about sorry. The Christian ethic in general, including sexual ethic, is all about what we put at the center of our lives. What are we striving for? And we know that the right answer is that it's about imitating Jesus, not just avoiding bad things. And that's great. But what do we do? What do we do? Because I think every person in this room I hope would know, would understand that that is not the name of our story, that is not our history. We as humans are very bad at putting God in the center of our lives. It might be impossible. And so what do we do? Is it too late for us? Are we SOL?

Speaker 1: 33:33

You know, we talk about righteousness being imitating God man. How can it be true for us? How can it be true for us? How can it be true of us? How can we put God in his rightful place, at the center of our lives, and how can we imitate him? How can we strive for that kind of righteousness? We need two things. We need two things, and we find them in the cross. And this is what Paul says.

Speaker 1: 34:07

Go back to the beginning of our passage, verses one and two. Again, it says therefore, be imitators of God as what, as beloved children, and walk in love Like what. Like. Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. The two things that we need in order for this to be true of us is that we need to see that God is our Father, because Jesus was our substitute. So we have to see that 2,000 years ago, god himself came down to us and look, he knew. He knew that none of us had put him first. He knew that we all failed to be God-centered in our lives, and so he took it upon himself to do it. Centered in our lives. And so he took it upon himself to do it. He did it. He lived the perfect life.

Speaker 1: 35:07

And look, when we say that Jesus lived the perfect life, I just want to caution us against this. I think what a lot of us hear is that Jesus didn't do anything wrong. That is true, but that is like part of the story. Jesus lived the perfect life because he did everything right. He did it all. What did Jesus do with his time. He wasn't sexually immoral, no, he wasn't idolatrous, no, but that's not how you define his time. What he did with his time, man, he healed the sick, he fed the hungry, he was with the lonely, he built, he taught, he loved. Do you see what I'm saying?

Speaker 1: 35:48

Like, jesus didn't just avoid every bad thing, he did all the right things. He was the perfect human, jesus said in the gospel. He says I look at the father and whatever he does is what I do. He was the perfect, loving child who imitates his good father. And when Jesus went to the cross, we know that he died for us. But do we understand that that means that he died because we couldn't put God in his proper place, so he did it for us? Do we know that on the cross, jesus gave us his status as a beloved child? That's theological talk.

Speaker 1: 36:26

For now, because of Jesus, god loves us as much as he loves Jesus, whom he has loved before time. It means that he cherishes us like he cherishes his beloved son, who was the perfect, flawless son who always loved him back. Just right, do we get that? No, no, we absolutely do not, because if we did, we would be flying through the sky and shooting lasers out of our eyes. It's this insane thing Like this is such a big, lofty aspiration that Paul, two chapters before, do you remember his like hundred word prayer? I pray that you might possibly know an ounce of a bit of a dimension of an atom of God's love for you. Why? Because if we did, we would be transformed by it. We would be transformed by it. It would change us, it would completely warp our lives in such a good way.

Speaker 1: 37:33

When we understand, when we start to understand that we are God's beloved children, it is natural for us to try and imitate him. It's natural Because kids naturally imitate their children, their father, parents, when they love them and feel loved. And parents. We know this, we know this to be true. Right, it's at the end of those days when we have bonded with our children and we've done everything together. And it's at the end of those days where they know, bonded with our children and we've done everything together. It's at the end of those days where they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we love them and they know that they love us, that they copy us the most. Right, it's at the end of those days that Stella is my shadow on the side, shaking her coffee like Dada does, because she knows that she is loved and she knows that she is loved and she knows that she loves me and friends.

Speaker 1: 38:29

If we could grasp God's love for us, we could understand that even like this love that I have for Stella, which feels consuming, in comparison to God's love is approaching zero. It's so small, it's almost non-existent. That's how much he loves us. So I'm going to end with this Some of us don't know this love. We don't know this love of God, and whether that's because you don't know what Jesus did for you or that's because you need to be reminded of it, I just want to encourage you and find someone find me, ben, someone. Afterwards, let's talk about that. Let's talk about how wild God is for you, how much he loves you and the lengths he was willing to go to show it. They're infinite. He was willing to go to show it. They're infinite. I'll tell you that.

Speaker 1: 39:35

And then the other thing I want is some of us in this room, maybe a lot of us. We come from a background where being a good person or being righteous is again fundamentally about what we don't do, and in those contexts, being righteous tends to take on a place and an authority and a position in our lives. That is very consuming and it wraps us around it and a lot of us have that background, that church background, that everything is like the church lady, everything is about don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. And what I want to encourage us to think about is that a lot of us grew up understanding Christianity fundamentally by the don'ts and we know almost nothing about the do's, and what I mean by that is like we've been taught Christian righteousness, like I said, as being about what we avoid, what we scorn, what we judge, so on, and we have no idea how to be a human, like we don't know how to live our lives. And in my experience, in my life and other people's lives, like what I see is that like if this is our context, if this is our church background, we experience a lot of like decision paralysis, because doing something wrong is so like the thought of doing something wrong is so consuming that we have no idea how to discern what is right. We can only think in terms of, well, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, and the consequence is that we have no idea how to imitate Christ. We only know how to just destroy ourselves.

Speaker 1: 41:30

And I think this, like decision paralysis, is, in my experience, a clear example of that, because, again, you don't know how to discern what your life is supposed to look like, or who you're supposed to be, or how to make a decision of what to do, because the only thing that you can think about is the pitfalls that you're trying to avoid. And, friends, that is a miserable life. I think. That's, I'm confident, that's not the life that Paul is outlining and that's not the life that Jesus wants for us. Like we have to see.

Speaker 1: 42:07

Christian life and Christian righteousness is about pursuing Jesus and trying to be like him. Or, like John Mark Comer says, who would Jesus be if he was you, in your circumstance? And that has to be our aim, because, I mean, it's debilitating, it's miserable. Some of us know exactly what I'm talking about. It's not the good life, this is the life of Dana Carvey's church lady. This is not the life of Christ.

Speaker 1: 42:37

So this is big, this is hard, and this is true of too many of our stories, and so I just want to encourage you if this is you, if this is where you're finding yourself today, man. Spend some time with the Lord. The Gospels tell us that the more we're moved by or the Bible tells us the more we're moved by the Gospel, the more that Jesus is going to come to the center of our lives and the more natural it is to imitate Him and we skip a lot of those steps and try to manufacture the things he didn't do. So if this is you, I just want to encourage you, man. Meditate on how much God loves you, meditate on what he's calling you to be his beloved child, and then like grab me, grab Ben, somebody, and let's talk through. Okay, what does that mean in terms of what do I do now? And I should say again, we all need a lot of help putting Jesus in front of us as the aim rather than thinking in terms of restrictions. Let me pray.