DO NOT IMITATE THE IMITATION (Eph 5:1-2)

Christ the Rest for the Weary

There's seats in the center that are available. If you could squeeze in a little bit, we're trying to get everybody up in this area that we can possibly get into here, and that way everyone can find a seat comfortably.

Thank you. Jesus said, come to me, all who labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He then went on to say, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. You see, for those of us this morning who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, we are recipients of that glorious rest in Christ, aren't we?

And you see, one of the ways that we experience that rest is through one of the common means of grace, which is this, the gathering of the saints, the coming together in corporate worship. And outside those doors, and we say it often, you and I, who are in Christ, are sojourners.

We're foreigners out there, aren't we? And we feel that, don't we? At times, when we're out there, we forget that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. I do. I forget. I forget, and we take up our old chains, kind of like in the text we talked about last week in Ephesians, putting off the old man and putting on the new, but we often go back to those old chains, thinking that somehow that might fulfill us forgetting about his goodness.

Don't give me that holy look. We know we're all guilty of this, constantly. Oh, but then we get something like today, where we come in to these doors, and we enter onto our embassy, our kingdom soil here in a foreign land, where we get to come together, gathering around brothers and sisters, gathering around other citizens of this glorious kingdom, and are reminded, we're reminded of his goodness, we're reminded of his mercy, we're reminded of his grace.

And if you are here this morning, and you have never experienced that freedom, you have never experienced that grace, we are glad you're here. We're not foolish enough to think that everyone in this room is truly regenerate and a follower of Christ.

But we're glad you're here, because what you are going to hear today, what you are going to experience and see in today's service, all throughout, through the things we sing, the things we pray, the things that we read, and the things that we say, through the things that we do, all of this is the absolute truth.

It's the only truth. Out there, you're not gonna find any truth. You're gonna find lies, and distortions, and deceit, but in here, you will find the only truth, and that truth is great news, the glorious news of Jesus Christ, and the hope.

As we see in our call to worship today, that great news came to us, in that the creator of all things sent his own son to seek and save the lost. So let's stand as we go to the Lord in a call to worship.

If you are new with us, this call to worship structure that we use is a read and response, as we read through the text together. And we're going to go through Isaiah nine, that commonly known passage there in Isaiah, where he is prophesying of the coming Messiah.

When he says there in verse six, for to us a child is born, and the government shall be upon his shoulders, on his name shall be called, of the increase of his government, and of peace. On the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, to uphold it with justice, and with righteousness, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Amen, and amen. Oh, what a great truth, because that was written long before that child was born, before the Messiah came, and become like man, the creature, the one that he himself created, long before he said it was going to happen, and it did, and it did.

And today, as we worship, those Old Testament saints may have been looking to that promise of the guarantee that he would come, but we look back knowing that he did come, but we also look forward because he's coming again.

He's coming again, but not as a child, not in obscurity, he's coming as the reigning king that he is. Praise God. Let's go to our great God in a prayer of adoration. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning, and we acknowledge our great need for you, for you are our sustainer, you are our help, you are our creator, you are the one worthy of all praise.

You did not leave us to ourselves. When you created man, and man railed against you, and sinned in the garden, and you said the day you eat of that tree, you will surely die, but did not die in your good grace, but died spiritually, oh, but then you promised, you guaranteed right there in Genesis three, I'm gonna send hope.

I'm gonna send my own son to redeem you so that I may purchase you back from sin and from death. Oh, what a glorious God we serve. We ask that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you would be honored in this place today.

You would be honored not externally, not outwardly, through emotions or through just an adherence to your faithfulness and greatness, oh, but from a heart that sees and knows that you are good. Oh, Father, help us.

Help us to worship you as you desire to be worshiped. Help us to worship you as you are worthy to be worshiped. As we sing these songs, as we read your word, I pray that it would be a sweet smelling aroma coming up before you from your children, in Christ's name, amen.

Amen.

The Incarnation and the Birth of Jesus

Kind of prepare our hearts and thinking and processing this season of looking back at the coming of the Messiah, the incarnation, the God-man becoming flesh there. And so I wanna read a portion from Luke chapter one of the birth of Jesus that is being foretold.

There, starting in verse 26, says in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David.

And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, greetings, oh, favored one, the Lord is with you. Oh, but she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high.

And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end. When Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I am a virgin?

And the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son.

And this is the sixth month with her and who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her.

For nothing will be impossible with God. A man brought sin into the world. That seems hopeless. But nothing is impossible with God. Let's continue to sing. Lay our head on our pillow into the hand of a sovereign.

God who ordains every molecule of the whole of the universe but has then bought us peace in his son. I'm gonna read the account here in Luke chapter two of the birth of Jesus Christ. And I want to challenge us not to check out because you've heard this account so many times.

I remember as a child, every Christmas Eve, we were up in Rector at my grandparents' house and felt like half the community would show up in that little living room and my grandfather would sit and open his Bible to Luke two and he would read this account every single Christmas Eve.

And I, as a young child, could recite it backwards for you. And I would find myself checking out. Oh, but that repetition was used by God in my mind to remind me over the years of what he has done for me.

So as we read this, I would ask you to examine these words, this truth. This is a eyewitness account of this amazing, magnificent truth. In Luke chapter two, starting in verse one, Luke writes, in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria and all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee and from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David.

To be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn.

And in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were filled with great fear.

And the angel said to them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Front to you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord.

And this will be a sign for you. You'll find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased.

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger.

And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who had heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

And the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them. At the end of the eight days when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus. Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

There is so much there. You realize that this account from Luke of all that came into play was all fulfillment of prophecy of the coming Messiah. Every little bit of it from having to go and move because God was working in the governing system to make them go to where God had prophesied they would go and where they would come.

And all that goes along with it had been prophesied thousands of years before and it must be fulfilled and it was. And then on top of that, do you realize the significance of the shepherds being told first?

That's you and me, the broken, the weak, the ones that were forgotten by society, forgotten by the world that he didn't come for the great among you, came for the weak.

Praise the Lord.

Oh, there's so much magnificent truth in this narrative account, this gospel account of this. As we continue to worship, I want you to ponder those truths, ponder those words, because we're gonna sing a song that we introduced a couple of weeks ago.

Oh, come you unfaithful. We were the shepherds out in the field insignificant. And Jesus says, come to me, all who are weak and are heavy laden. All who labor, I will give you rest. And we are the unfaithful, he's the faithful, amen.

Let's sing this together.

Fulfill those promises that you came to save us. God, as we continue this time of worship and offering, Lord, I ask that you would prepare our hearts for the service, Lord, for the sermon. God, that you would open our hearts to receive the word.

God, that you have prepared through Nathan this morning. Thank you for this church body, this church family that meets here to worship and honor you, God. In your name we pray.

The Hallmark Christmas Movie as a Cheap Imitation of Love

There is an epidemic that plagues our culture every single year at this time. It makes its way into nearly every home. It makes its way into many of our hearts and our minds. And this scourge is known by all of us as the Hallmark Christmas movie.

You didn't expect that, did you? Who in here has been subject to such an atrocity every year, right? Every single year. I think that we all have been sucked into one of these train wrecks. It's a train wreck because you can't seem to look away as it's on the TV.

And if you've seen one, you've seen them all, right?

You've seen them all.

It's always the same thing. It's that successful businesswoman living in the city and her priorities are a little out of balance and she goes back home, back to her small town only to find out the importance of family, the importance of community, and then ultimately to meet the love of her life, right?

That's the move. That was forgotten. Yes, that handsome and seemingly weirdly successful blue collar man. And this man shows her what true love really is. You see, there's a reason we're all drawn to this.

We're drawn to this because these are all good things. They're not bad things. Family, community, significant other, all grounded and established in love. These, that we're all created with the desire to pursue.

It's within us. Because after all, we are created in the image of God. Created in the image of God, a triune God who is in perfect communion and perfect love within the Godhead. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

And we are to emulate and imitate that communion. But even though we are created in his image, sin has marred that image. Sin has distorted it. And though we still have a longing for those good things, the good things like family and community and fellowship, we look to and we settle for family, community, and love that completely misses the mark.

Thoroughly misses the mark. We often settle for a cheap Christmas Hallmark movie version of a good thing. And when our life doesn't pan out into that happily ever after, like the end of that movie, we're often left discouraged, disillusioned, and jaded.

We think that all of that is hopeless and we might as well give up on all of those things. And it's because we settled for something lesser. And the fact that we were imitating the world's cheap facade of reality.

And make no mistake, what the world has to offer is nothing more than a cheap Christmas Hallmark movie. There's nothing there. It's hollow. It's lifeless.

It's worthless.

And providentially today, here on Christmas Eve, we come in our study through Ephesians to Ephesians 5. You thought I was gonna stop and do a Christmas message, didn't you? Well, we're not gonna stop our study through Ephesians.

I think this is, what is this, week 42, 43, somewhere in that range of Ephesians. And we have finally made it to chapter five. So go ahead and open your copy of God's word. If you've got one with you, open it to Ephesians 5.

We're gonna be looking at the first chapter to verses of this text. Ephesians chapter five. Paul says, 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.

This is the reading of God's wholly inspired word.

Let's stop.

This is a serious matter.

This is his word.

We wanna be clear with it. We wanna be true to it. So please bow your heads with me. Let's pray that the Holy Spirit would illuminate our hearts and minds to this truth. Oh, dear heavenly father, we come to you now and we acknowledge that we oftentimes misunderstand these clear truths from your word.

We have trouble and at times we take our worldview of that cheap imitation and we look at your word through that lens and we distort it. Oh, forgive us, help us. Holy Spirit, I ask right now for all of us that you are indwelling in, and that you would illuminate these truths to us.

Guard my words from error, guard the ears of the hearers. We know that your word does all that it sets out to do and we pray that it would do its work, its surgical work on our hearts and minds today.

In Christ's name. Well, Paul knew that we all as humans settle for a worldly, perverted, corrupted version of reality. He knows this. And that's why he had told us back in chapter four in verse 23, look back at it.

In chapter four in verse 23, he tells us to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, right? To be renewed in the spirit of our minds, looking to God's word, the only truth, to change the way that we think, to give us an accurate view of everything.

For that's what Paul said, that God's word gives us everything we need for life and godliness, right? It gives us that perspective for everything. We must have our minds renewed, the spirit of our, the very inner being, not just intellectual ascent, but a spiritual ascent of his word working its way into our hearts.

And in doing so, we are putting off that old self like we talked about earlier, the one that is deceived by that cheap facade of reality, and we're putting on the new self created in the likeness of God himself, which is true righteousness and true holiness.

The only true thing. Putting away the worldly things and doing things like forgiving one another, right? As we get near the end of chapter four, he's like, hey, forgive one another as God and Christ forgave you.

And now, no longer being imitators of the imitation, right, no longer being imitators of the imitation, the world's version of truth and love, right? This word here, imitate that we see when he says, therefore.

Because Christ died for you, he says, therefore, be imitators of God. This word in the Greek, mimetes. You can probably hear the word that we get from that, mimic. We get this word mimic. Paul used this same word over in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, didn't he?

He says, hey, be mimetes, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Mimic me as I am of Christ. Paul is saying, look at my life, study who I am, evaluate me, examine what I do and mimic it. Do the same thing with your life.

And this is what he's telling us to do with God here in our text in Ephesians five. Say, mimic, look at, study, examine God and mimic him. Study him, learn him, know him. So the question I think that we have, because we all kind of know this, if we've been in the faith for any amount of time, we've read God's word, we're like, yeah, we're supposed to imitate God, I get it.

We're supposed to mimic God, we're supposed to look to God, I know. But how do we do that? How do we look to God in this way? Well, look at the text. There in verse 20, he says, he says, therefore, be imitators of God, mimic God as beloved children.

As beloved children. I think this is key. Remember earlier on in this letter, if you have been with us at the beginning, back in chapter one, Paul's giving us the theology of how we came into salvation, right?

He's given us the theology here, all of that doctrine that we've been walking through. But in chapter one, starting in verse four, if you remember, he says, even as he, God, shows us in Christ, right?

Because he's saying in him, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, in love he predestined us for adoption. Adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.

Children, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved, right? We're beloved children, and he has blessed us in the beloved. How has he done so?

By adopting us and making us children. So we are to imitate God as beloved children. If you are in Christ, you are now his child, right? If you are in Christ, he is now your father. He wasn't before. He was your judge before.

He was your creator and judge. Now he's your father. You've been brought into the family, and you are dearly loved. Dearly loved. You are beloved. You've been brought close. I think of a son with his father.

I know that some of us didn't have good fathers. Some of us might not have had fathers at all. Many of us did. We had earthly fathers. I remember being a child, and I watched every move of my father. Every move.

I knew his walk. I knew the way my father walked. I knew the way he laughed. I knew the way he brushed his hair in the morning. As a child, I would examine everything. I watched the way he drove, the way he talked, how he responded to other people.

I studied my father. I believed every word that came out of his mouth. I believed every word that came out of his mouth as if it was gospel truth. You remember that as a child, right? Your dad could tell you anything and everything, and you're gonna take it as truth because he said it.

You believed it to be true. And I both consciously and unconsciously imitated him. When people know my father, they look at me, they can tell by the way I walk, they go, that's Roy's son. Because I grew up imitating him.

I studied him. I longed to be just like him. If I did that with my earthly father, who was a sinful, broken man, just like everyone else, how much more should I, how much more should we, both consciously and unconsciously, imitate our heavenly father?

How much more should I long to be like him? I don't know about you. Let's just, let's play the honesty game real quick, right? There's times I don't long to be like him. You're like, oh no, pastor's telling the truth here.

I don't always long to be like him.

Why?

He's good.

Because I'm usually not being like a child. I forget that I'm a child. I forget that he's my father, and I forget that he's the good father. Like I said at the beginning of the service, sometimes I'm out there, and I put on the old chains, and I live in the old self, and I forget that I tasted and saw that he was good, and I wanna be like the imitation.

I don't long to be like him. We all struggle with this, but why? Every single thing about our heavenly father.

Is pure perfection.

So how?

How do we imitate him? Right, we're building upon this, right? How do we do this? How do we imitate him? Like a child. Like a child being with and longingly watching their father. That's what we are. Hanging on to every word he says as gospel truth.

Because I'm sure a lot of things that came out of my dad's mouth were not gospel truth, but I still believed them. But every word that comes forth from God that is breathed out by God in his word is perfect and true and right, and then living our lives in light of it.

Childlike faith, right? That begins to bring on new meaning, doesn't it? Coming to him with a childlike faith. He is our father. He is altogether bigger, greater, holy, wonderful. But then that leads us to a question.

How do we know when we are truly doing this? How do we know when we are truly coming to our father in a childlike faith and longingly imitating him? Not being deceived by the world's imitation, but truly imitating him.

Look at verse two. And walk in love. And walk in love. If Paul had stopped here, we might be left to define what this means based on whatever our view of love is, which, let's be honest, is usually the imitation, not the real thing.

We'd be left to define what that love is, to walk in love, to live in love, for our life to be one that is a pattern of love.

What is love?

Oh, thank the Lord. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul went on. Look at it. He goes on to define it. He says, and walk in love, as. What is love? What is walking in love? As Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.

This defines love. This defines what it means to walk in love, he tells us, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. Jesus himself said in his earthly ministry in John 15, he says, greater love is no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

That's the greatest example of love that could possibly be given. You see, it's easy for you and I to walk in the world's version of love. I find that really easy. That's my default, right? We walk in the world's version of love.

That version of love is selfish. What's in it for me? That version of love is fickle and void of commitment.

Isn't it?

That's the love of the imitation, right? It's not real, it's hollow. We can fall out of love as quickly as we fell into it, can't we? At least what the world says is love. We can abandon our family and our friends because we felt wronged, or even worse, we just weren't happy.

Boy, what a hollow facade, always leaves us wanting. Oh, it looks pretty on the outside.

Oh, I fell in love with him, oh.

I wanna marry him, Dad. What's the guy like? He plays video games 60 hours a week.

It's fickle.

You fell in love, what do you mean you fell in love? What does that mean? That's the world's perspective of love, right? It's not real, it's not substance. It's not what God has described as love, what God emulates, not emulates, but shows us, what God is showing us because God is love.

We only know love because of God. We think, well, that relationship didn't turn out like the end of that Hallmark movie, so I must go find one that will. That's an easy walk, walk in that love. Let's make it a little bit closer to home, right, within the church.

Walk in love. I can love my brother and sister. I can love the people within my church until my pastor says something I don't like. I can walk in love until that person in the church does me wrong. I can walk in love until I'm gossiped about.

I can walk in love within the congregation. I can walk in this sacrificial love, but the world's version of love, until I need to pack my bags and go to another church, hoping that the end of that church is a good Hallmark Christmas movie happy ending, to only be let down at that other church that's full of a bunch of broken sinners just like you.

This is the way that we perceive so often we're imitating the imitation. We're missing the mark, we're missing the point. Jesus spoke of this love, or I mean John spoke of this love, Jesus did through John, in 1 John.

As a matter of fact, turn to your Bibles with me, to 1 John chapter four. I want you to see this definition and what it looks like to love in 1 John chapter four. We're gonna look at verses nine through 12 this morning.

If you've ever read John's first letter there, you probably feel the weight in your own Christian life, like, oh my goodness, am I living out this Christian life the way I should? Am I even a Christian?

Because we see such a clear representation of what it means to walk in love. So there in 1 John chapter four, in verse nine, he says, in this, the love of God was made manifest.

Among us.

John's already implying, you didn't see love before this. You had no concept of love before this. You had no ability to even comprehend the love of God, true love, real love, until this moment. What is that?

That God sent his only son into the world. We just read that passage from Isaiah earlier in our call to worship, didn't we? For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

This, this is what showed us love. The love of God was made manifest among us. It became flesh among us. Christ, the second person of the Godhead, dwelt among us, showing us love. And yes, God sent his son in the world as a baby, but you gotta remember that eternal second person of the Godhead, he condescending to be made like the creature is not just here to be a pretty little nativity set.

That's not the purpose. For what reason did he send his son in seemingly obscurity when there wasn't any room for him in the end? There wasn't room for him being born with animals out in a stable. What was the purpose of it?

So that we might live through him. How? Because of his life, Adam brought death into the world, right, and death was all we knew. The facade was all we knew. The imitation of what God created was all we knew, and we were all spiritually dead and spiraling towards physical death, towards eternal punishment and judgment.

But Christ came. Christ came so that we, his beloved, might live through him, through his life, his death and his resurrection. You can't have the birth of Jesus without the resurrection of Jesus. Just the birth of Jesus still leaves us in our hopelessness.

But that birth of Jesus was tied into something that would be fulfilled and was prepared before the foundations of the world, that God, God would pour his own wrath out upon his own son for you and I.

Oh, saints, this, this is love. God sent his only son. Look at verse 10. In this is love, right? That he sent his son. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son. And what did he send his son for?

To be the propitiation for our sins. There's a $10 word for you, right? What does this mean? Well, keep your fingers there in first John. We're gonna look back at the rest of that text in a moment, but look back at our passage in Ephesians 5, okay?

Ephesians 5. We're gonna see what it means to be the propitiation for our sins. And what Paul says in Romans 5 to the second half. Remember, he says, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.

A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Our sin was so heinous. You realize that, right? You know that. The law of God's written on all your hearts. Our sin was so heinous. It is cosmic treason against an almighty creator.

All of us have broken God's holy perfect law. We are all guilty. Every single person guilty. And we all deserve his rightful judgment, don't we? Oh, but God sent his son into the world. The one who fulfilled that law perfectly.

The perfect spotless lamb that would be sent to the slaughter given over as a fragrant offering for you and for me.

What does that mean? What does that look like?

What does he mean a fragrant offering? You see, if I, Nathan Hargrave, apart from Christ, if I were to be put on that altar and burned, I would still not be able to make amends for my treason against God.

If I were to be put on that altar and burned, I would most certainly not be a fragrant offering to God. I, in my sin, would be a foul stench coming up into the nostrils of the almighty. For my greatest righteousness is as filthy rags.

It's disgusting before God. Oh, but God's son, Jesus Christ, in his perfection, he was the perfect spotless lamb. He went to that, he went to that death, that sacrifice willingly, and his sacrifice came up before God as a fragrant offering, fulfilling God's righteous demand of judgment and justice.

We put our trust in godly, perfect sacrifice.

On behalf of us who would believe. So we're not on the altar. He's on the altar. And he paid for all that were his. Don't get lost in the baby, Jesus narrative. If you get lost in anything, and get lost in the fact that that baby grew perfectly, died, and rose again and now reigns at the right hand of the Father.

That's the good news. All of it, it's a package deal. Can't have one without the other. Well, look back with me at first, John. I told you to keep your fingers there. I wanna look at verse 11 there of chapter four.

He says, beloved, there it is again, right?

You're loved.

Beloved, saints, children, those that God loves so dearly that he sends his own son to purchase you and to bring you into the family. If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. There's your walk in love.

Love one another. Earlier on in first John, chapter three, he says, by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. You see what we're to imitate?