Imitating the Love of God by Guest Pastor Costi Hinn (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Good morning, wonderful to be with you all and it has been a wonderful weekend of ministry and getting to enjoy one another together.

I want to say thank you to my dear friend Jim, it technically is

Ausman, historically his last name would be pronounced

Ausman, let the record show. And the two Canadians, any other

Canadians here? Oh yes, we're strong, though few.

The Canadians, both myself and his dear wife, have gone through the halls of history to discover.

It's Ausman. So grateful, very grateful.

And yes, I would affirm and agree if you're watching this and you are from California, don't move here.

Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5. We're going to read verses 1 to 5 in Ephesians chapter 5 and then spend our time focusing primarily on verses 1 and 2.

The text we're focusing on is all about love and Christian love at that, not worldly love, not finicky, shallow, transactional love, but the kind of love that you and I are to have for one another because we are a part of the body of Christ, because our

God is distinct from every other God. And this is the kind of love that you have signed up for and are committed to if you are a follower of Jesus Christ.

Let's read together, we'll pray, and we'll jump right into our time of study in the

Word. Paul the Apostle writes, Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

But immorality and any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among saints, and there must be no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.

For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

That is God's Word to us this morning. Let's go to Him together in prayer. Father, right in the middle of this section where Paul is giving practical instruction to the

Ephesians, we find a way of life filled with tenderness, kindness, love.

We find that bitterness and wrath and slander and malice and anger are to be put away.

We find the warning that people who reject you and that are living in habitual sin are not going to inherit the kingdom.

And in the midst of a dark world where so many are living that way, and they love themselves and they love this world, we are a people called to love

You and love one another in a particular way. Teach us, guide us, correct us, convict us through Your Word here and now.

Help me to be a faithful servant to my brothers and my sisters here, to be clear, to be faithful to Your Word, and to exhort and encourage them and also myself as we meditate on Your Word and what it means to imitate

Your love. We pray and ask all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

The title of the sermon is Imitate God's Love. And I was listening to a very faithful preacher recently on the subject of love, and he said this, when you're looking for a real church, you're looking past the doctrine, past the theology, and to how much affection these people have for each other and how much love do they demonstrate.

Now before you think, whoever I'm quoting has left the reservation. Doctrine, theology, don't matter, look past all those.

The man I'm quoting is John MacArthur, so relax. His point was, and he continues in it, people will say,

I want a church that's doctrinally sound. That's fine, but you've got to get beyond that. That doctrine has to have a dramatic impact on the heart.

This type of teaching is in many New Testament letters and often mentioned multiple times in various ways, making it clear that we always need this reminder as the church, and that's what

I want to encourage you in today. We'll take some application notes, if you will, throughout this, but there's one main heading, and it is this, we are called to emulate

God's love. We as believers are called to emulate God's love.

Paul writes, therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love.

Let's understand the directive here to imitate God's love and to walk in love, since that's what we're commanded to do.

What does he mean by imitate God? Well, there's a way that the Christian is to live, and there's an example that the

Christian is to look to, none other than our God. This is the whole point of the

Christian life. The word he uses for imitate, it's a word where we get our English word mimic from, so you're literally supposed to look at God and the way that he loves and the way that he operates, and you are to say,

I'm going to copy that. I'm going to mimic him, different than the world, different than my feelings, different than even the best example of love you might have.

You would still, as a believer, say, I look beyond all of those things to God, and I copy his love.

You may say, well, Costi, I am very, very sinful, and I am, of course, human.

How in the world am I to imitate God's love? I can't mimic God the way he is, and you're right, you can't, but this is where we need to understand one particular rabbit trail that's worth going down, and it's to do with the attributes of God, in which we have

God's communicable attributes and his incommunicable attributes.

Let me explain these to you. You have incommunicable attributes, which are things that, no, you cannot imitate like God.

For example, his holiness in the sense of his perfection. You'll never be perfect.

Don't try. You'll fail. His immutability. You, you change. You, you're finicky.

You, your emotions are going to sway you here, there, and everywhere. God's immutable. He's unchanging.

That is incommunicable. We don't copy that. His omnipotence, all -powerful.

Don't try to copy that. You'll come off just arrogant and full of yourself. Most dictators and tyrants try that and fail.

His omnipresence. Some of you are parents of perhaps many children like me. I have five, and while we wish we were omnipresent, you never will be.

You can't be everywhere at the same time. His aseity, that's his self -existence.

You're not self -existent. You didn't start your life. You were born. You were created. And then his sovereignty, another incommunicable attribute.

Even the queen or the king of a country, while described as a sovereign, is not completely sovereign.

But there are God's communicable attributes, and these are ones you should copy. And holiness makes both lists, because we are commanded to be holy as he is holy.

And that means to be separate, to be consecrated, to live your life, and to express your

Christianity, your following of Jesus, in a way that is different than this world.

That's why Peter says in 1 Peter 1, 14 to 16, be holy as I am holy.

And he's quoting, of course, from the Old Testament, but says, as obedient children, don't be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.

But as he who is holy, you are to be holy in all your conduct. So we copy God's holiness, and that he's separate.

God's goodness is another communicable attribute that we seek to copy and emulate. That is, to be doing good to one another.

God's mercy, another attribute that we imitate and copy. That is, to give others what they do not deserve.

God's justice is another thing we copy, in that we seek to live righteously and live just lives, to see his judgments and his justice upheld in all matters.

And God's grace, of course, which is benevolent favor. It's unmerited favor. People don't deserve grace, and yet we would extend it and be gracious.

And then, of course, where we'll focus our attention here, love. God's love. His unconditional, non -transactional, never -ending, can't -be -separated -from -it, if he has pointed his love at you, love.

That's the kind of love that you and I are to imitate. And in this context, you've got to reach back and look at Paul's words leading into chapter 5.

And so, let's do that for just a moment together. You can go back to verses 31 and 32.

In chapter 4, he says, "...let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice."

There's this way of life that is sinful. It's aggressive. It's focused on you.

It is vindictive. It's filled with vengeance. It's the kind of attitude that says, you do what

I do or else. And that threat could be loaded with, or else I won't love you.

I won't serve you. I'll never forgive you. You want my kindness? Then do these things. Paul says, put all of that, this bitterness, this holding on, this wrath, all of it, the clamor and the malice, put it all aside.

Instead, be kind to one another, be tenderhearted, forgive one another, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.

So, there's this way that God has been towards you and I. And that's why he says, then, therefore.

So, based on that, therefore, walk in love, imitate God, be like Him, live your life, and express your love for one another

His way. That idea of walk is one of my favorite Greek words in the New Testament epistles.

It's the word peripeteo. It means to be busy about, kind of to be a busy body in a good way.

It's, you go about your business. You're going here, there, and everywhere, and you're very preoccupied with.

And so, walk in love is the command. Be very busy about love and loving one another.

He says, as beloved children, and walk in love. The two truths being conveyed here should motivate our love.

Number one, you're loved by God. He calls them beloved, as beloved children. You always want to remember that.

You are, as a believer, the beloved of God. So, you're accepted. You are valued.

You are prized. You are cherished. It's okay to say that. Many times, in maybe reformed or kind of biblical doctrine -heavy circles, we rightfully tell people, you are totally depraved.

You are sinful. You are a worm in the dirt. You're undeserving of God's mercy.

We say, yes, amen. I know, I know, I was a horrible person. No, no, you still are. Yeah, I know,

I know. Even on your best day, you're still nothing but a filthy rag.

I know, you're right. It's true. And yet, as beloved children, we can still say, what mercy, what grace that I am loved, that I am called, that I am known, that I'm cared for in God's providence, that is,

He's intimately acquainted with every detail of my life. He cares about me.

You can say that, that you are loved. In the same way that we might say in life by way of principle, hurt people hurt people, right?

Hurt people, they tend to hurt people. They're wounded, like an animal. Wounded, cornered, they lash out.

Well, we should also understand, loved people should love people. We are

His beloved children. We are cherished. We are cared for. We are known. We are called. We are secure in our

Father's love. So, as beloved children, we should be and are called to be the most loving people on planet earth.

In the same way that because we have been forgiven much, we should be forgiving because we've been loved by God, and we did not deserve it.

We are to be loving. And the idea here of children, why does he use that term? Well, it's just meant to help the reader think about how a child copies his parent.

Now, this is convicting, of course. If you as a parent are copied in every way, certainly you'll be looking over at your child saying, no, no, don't do that.

Not that. Copy the good things. Dump out the bad things. But with God, He is perfect in His expression of love.

And so you always have a perfect model and a perfect example for you to follow in your love.

And he says, just as Christ. So the comparison is rooted in God, no doubt, in His love.

And then by way of specific illustration, Paul then begins to unpack all of these truths about Christ.

He says in verse 2 there, just as Christ also loved you, and He gave

Himself up for you, and it was an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

There's three qualities of Christ's love that we seek to emulate. You can picture this as a child, if you and I are in God's eyes, we're

His beloved children. Picture a child tracing the lines. Here are the lines that you and I, we trace with regard to copying

God's love and what it looks like through Christ. Number one, Christ's love is unconditional love.

It says, just as Christ also loved you, using the word agape, and that is unconditional, non -transactional love that seeks the good of the one being loved.

That's unconditional love. It's the kind of love that is a gospel -centered love described in Ephesians 2, 4, that because of God's great love, it's without condition.

And how many of us find it so easy to love people that are lovable? I know I do. So much easier to love kind people, obedient people, good people, like -minded people.

It's easy to love people in the church that you get along with or you prefer.

And so we tend to get these little silos in which we might say, well, I really love these people.

I don't love a lot of them. These are my people, though. This is who I stick to.

We love people who agree with us and who are like us. But Jesus says in Luke 6, 32, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?

For even sinners love those who love them. And so this means if we're going to love like Christ and we're tracing the lines of his life and his love, to love unconditionally means that you and I, if we copy his love, we love the difficult people in the church.

We love the annoying people in the church. We love the repetitive people in the church. We love the frustrating people in the church.

We love the awkward people in the church and every other category that makes you feel uncomfortable. We love the brethren.

And it might be very helpful for us just to call unconditional love that, to describe the uncomfortable.

If you are not being made somewhat uncomfortable in your interactions within the church with people, it is likely that you are not loving like Christ.

And that is because, opposite the finicky love of this world, number two, it's not only an unconditional love, but it's an unselfish love.

And aren't we so selfish? Don't we just enjoy what we enjoy?

And we long to be comfortable. We long to feed ourselves. And the way that we want to be is the way that we would like things to be.

And yet Christ, his love is described here as unselfish. He says, and gave himself up for us.

This is his unselfish laying down of his own divine rights, his position in heaven, ultimately his laying down unselfishly his own life out of love for us.

He loved in order to give, not to get, if you will. Do we love people that way?

When we look at the model of Jesus and his unselfish love, you think about perhaps the people in your life, in your church here, people you serve with, spend time with.

We're going to have different perspectives. We're going to have different personalities, but like our common master

Jesus, we're called to live out what he commands and to love the way he does. It's an unselfish love.

John 13 verses 34 to 35, Jesus says, a new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

And he says, by this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if the condition there, you have love for one another.

One of the primary evidences of being a true Christian is loving one another.

You want to see evidence of life change. You want to know if you're saved evidence. No doubt growing in godliness, yes.

Bearing fruit of the Spirit, yes. Being more holy, most certainly.

But in all of that, you can keep the rules better than everyone else. You can look good on the outside and have it all together.

But if you don't love people in a way that is unconditional and unselfish, and you're not laying your life down for others, you must question if you truly love like Christ.

And you might even go as far and benefit from this as asking, am

I really saved? Am I really a Christian? Or am I just a very moral conservative person who is selfish and about me?

Love will be the evidence. So may it be that we are an unselfish people, loving like Christ.

And this can be hard, and you may say, this sounds like a lot. Well, of course, because third, we also see here, it's not just an unconditional love and an unselfish love, but it is a sacrificial love.

It's going to cost you. It costed him, he says, an offering and a sacrifice to God like a fragrant aroma.

Now, it seems a little outdated and a little weird in the way that he uses the language.

Like, it's like a fragrant aroma. Like, is God smelling this? Is it going up to his nostrils?

What's the picture here? The picture is from Exodus 29, 18, describing the sin offering and the sacrifices of Aaron, the original priesthood, and their offerings, their sacrifice going up to the heavens being acceptable to God.

It's described as a soothing aroma to the Lord. Now, you need to think about Jesus as the final atoning sacrifice and his laying down, sacrificing his own life, being an acceptable act that pleased the

Lord. Now, I want you to think about Romans 12, 1 and 2, in which

Paul says very simply that you are to be a living sacrifice.

You're not to be conformed to the patterns of this world. You'll be transformed in the renewing of your mind.

He says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to what? Present yourselves, your bodies as a living sacrifice.

So, your life is to be sacrificial in the way you love and live within the body, and that pleases the

Lord. You want to please the Lord? Yes, walk in righteousness. You want to please the Lord? Yes, have faith. You want to please the Lord?

Yes, seek to be holy and read the Word and walk in prayer, be devoted to prayer. Yes, and absolutely yes, but you want to please the

Lord? Love one another in a sacrificial way.

This is the kind of love we are called to have. In Matthew 22, 37 to 40, a lawyer asked

Jesus, which is the great commandment in the law? He said to him, you shall love the

Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Upon these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets. Jesus takes every complexity of the law and the prophets, breaks it down into two simple commands, love

God and love others like you love yourself. This is why Paul links our motive for love to the forgiveness of Christ.

He's pointing back to the way you've been forgiven and the way you've been loved and Christ's work on the cross, because when you don't love like Jesus, when you are selfish, when you're all about you, you and I, oh, we couldn't be more blind, more prideful, more ignorant to the very truth that we used to appreciate and used to motivate us to love, the cross, forgiveness, the gospel, his kindness, his love for you and his love for me.

And what would happen then if a church would love like Christ, unconditional, unselfish and sacrificial, oh, how many wrongs would be so quickly forgiven, wouldn't they?

How many people restored, cared for, disciplined, and also don't forget that we speak truth because we love people.

So how many more times then would instead we say, you know what, I don't want to tell them. And so you go tell someone else and that's just gossip.

Instead of going directly to the person, the best way to love people is to go to them in relationship and in unity.

Perhaps more powerful than what is happening internally would be also what happens externally as the love that is permeating the church then explodes out the doors to call lost sheep home.

The evangelistic passion, the driving love of people and others, how strong our witness and all of this would most certainly be blessed by the

Lord in whatever way he chooses. Why? Because this pleases the Lord in the way that Christ and his life and his sacrifice are a pleasing aroma unto him.

So it is that the loving sacrificial church that copies the example of Christ is also so pleasing to the

Lord. Perhaps one of the great examples of how the church is to love is in Romans 12 verse 9 after Paul has called the church to present ourselves as a living and sacrificial offering unto

God with our lives. He says in verse 9 of Romans 12, let love be without hypocrisy.

The word that he uses there is translated play -acting, like a two -face. You're putting it on. Let your love not be a show.

Let your love not be hypocritical and insincere.

He says, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in brotherly love, give preference to one another in honor.

If you want an illustration for what this kind of love will look like practically in the church, you're just giving preference to others constantly.

And you can see that example, of course, in Philippians 2, 3, where Paul says, do nothing out of emptiness or selfish conceit, but what?

You look to the example of Christ, he says. This is the way that we're to love and the we are to operate together.

He says, outdoing one another and showing honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the

Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.

This means that you are, as a believer, called to love in a way that keeps putting others in front of you.

You put a higher value on others. And often in the church, we put price tags on people.

We do this. That's why James says, don't be partial to certain types of people.

You got the rich, for sure, but also we got people that they serve, they do a lot, so we kind of value them more.

People that are longer in the faith, because they're easy, they speak to speak, they talk to talk, they know all the words, they know the insider language, they're not as weird.

They don't do things that make you go, well, all right, well, we're going to have to talk about that or meet about that.

Now you have time that you have to take. And so it's so much easier to love, to be patient with and to enjoy people and value them because they do and say the right things.

And then this one, and this is certainly convicting for me as a pastor, they're the people that aren't very messy.

You know, the old percentage, the 80 -20 rule, they say 20 % of the people cause 80 % of the problems.

20 % of the people take up 80 % of your time. 20 % of the people give 80 % of the money.

All of this, it can jade you and I. Jesus' example keeps calling us back to unconditional, unselfish, sacrificial love.

You see the person, you see the heart, the soul, who they are, and you simply love them.

It's the idea of, I really don't want anything from you. I just want something for you.

That's a love like Christ. And so we reject the temptation of this world.

We reject the temptation to be selfish. And we look to Christ's example of sacrificial love because that is what pleases

God. Perhaps then after understanding all of that, by way of illustration, is there not a more vivid and heart -wrenching visual than what we see in John 13 verses 1 to 16.

Let's turn there together and walk through this illustration and then talk about some practical applications for the church.

John 13, 1 to 16. John writes,

And so he came to Simon Peter and he said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet?

As if to say, no way. Jesus answered and said, what I do, you do not realize now, but you'll understand hereafter.

Peter says, never shall you wash my feet. Jesus answered, if I don't wash you, you'll have no part of me. And of course,

Peter, typical Peter, Lord, then wash not only my feet, my hands, my head, give me a full bath.

Jesus says, he who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean.

And you are clean, but not all of you. He has

Judas in mind. For he knew the one who was betraying him. For this reason, he said, not all of you are clean.

So when he had washed their feet and taken his garments and reclined at the table again, he said to them, do you know what

I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right. For so I am.

If I then the Lord and teacher washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly,

I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is the one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.

I am of the mind, biblically, interpretively, that Jesus washed all their feet.

Peter, the zealous and passionate friend, John, the beloved, Philip, the loyal follower,

James, the respected, his nickname became James the Just in the New Testament church, and Judas, the so -called friend, the so -called disciple, who

Jesus knew would betray him, was allowed to walk with him, allowed to eat with him, allowed to be a steward of even the money, and there allowed to even be at the last supper.

He was Judas, the betrayer, the backstabber, the most vile act of betrayal the world has ever known.

He betrayed the Son of God. And what scathing irony that those wicked feet were still quite possibly very clean as they went to do the evil deed that would then betray

Christ. Jesus modeled what

He told His disciples to do when He said, Love your enemies. He did.

So how should all this play out in the church? I'll give you a few simple applications here, three in particular.

Number one, embrace self -denial as an expression of love.

That's love. If it doesn't deny yourself, it's not love. Matthew 16, 24,

Jesus said, If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Your whole life as a believer is one of self -denial.

Your love for others is a love of self -denial. Just embrace it.

You don't need to complain about it. Philippians 2, 14 says, Do all things without grumbling and complaining. When you are loving on people, when you are having to deny yourself for other people, don't complain.

Don't murmur. Don't say, What about me? No. Just embrace it. And you can even tell yourself or your family or your loved one, or maybe it's one of your spouse or somebody or your child who's complaining or saying,

Why? And you say, Hey, this is just who we are. This is what we do. Self -denial, that's the path we're on because that's the path our

Savior already put before us as an example to follow. Number two, consider others above yourself.

Just get that into your mentality. An others -focused way of life.

Again, Philippians 2, 3 -5, Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves.

Don't merely look out for your own personal interests either. Don't merely. There's still things you do for you and you care for your family and you care for yourself.

And yet, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus.

Imitating that kind of love is not a what -about -me kind of love.

It is a what -about -them. You're thinking about others constantly, faithfully.

It's seeing someone and thinking you're more important than me. I want the best for you no matter what

I'm going to get out of it. How can I serve you? How can I help you? How can I advance you spiritually?

How can I help you forward and edify you? For no reason except because I love you.

You are my family in Christ. And number three, in order to do all that, follow what you know, not what you feel.

It was Elizabeth Elliot, the wife of the missionary martyr

Jim Elliot, who said, it is Christ who is to be exalted, not our feelings. Here's a woman who knew a thing or two about controlling her emotions when her husband is murdered on the mission field, only to then help an effort forward to see those murderers end up coming to Christ.

She says, we will know him by obedience, not by emotions. Our love will be shown by obedience, not by how good we feel about God at a given moment.

And love means following the command of God. Do you love me? Jesus asked

Peter, feed my lambs. He was not asking, how do you feel about me, Peter?

For love is not a feeling. He was asking for action.

You don't bow to your feelings. You bow to Christ. You don't succumb to your feelings.

You submit to Christ. And what we know, not what we feel, is that the

Lord who has loved us so much as his own would have us love each other in the same way.

And so we imitate him and we walk in that love. Let me pray for you, and then we'll sing to close.

Father, thank you for the way that you have loved us with an unconditional, everlasting love.

Thank you for my brothers and my sisters here that while we are from different places and even worship each week in different local churches, we are part of the same body.

I pray that through the words found in Ephesians 5, that you would fill them continually with a deep love for one another.

It has been so obvious throughout this weekend that there's a deep love and a deep care and an attitude of service and humility here.

And so I ask that all this particular message would do is energize that forward even more, that they would excel the way

Paul calls the Thessalonian church to, all the more. And that that would be the attitude and the culture here, that people from Sandpoint and the surrounding regions would be drawn not only to you in salvation, but to this particular body here in fellowship, knowing that not only is there truth, but there is great love.

And that is exactly the kind of church you have called us to be. We thank you,

Holy Spirit, for your work in our lives that you change us, you renew us, you fill us, and you empower us to bear fruit.

And that will most certainly include love. Do that in us for the glory of Christ and the good of one another.