Eph 5:1-9
Why does the Bible command us to be holy? Why does it have lists and lists of things to do? We’ve just read: Don’t lie, tell the truth. Don’t steal but work. Don’t sin sexually, but be pure.
Isn’t this just a list of rules? Why is this good news? Sounds like bad news to me!
No, it’s not a list of rules – it’s a description.
You are alive. So there are things you do naturally. You breathe, walk, eat, sleep, talk, love, run, jump. Why? Because those are the things living people do! In the same way these lists of commands aren’t commands so much as descriptions of what people who are spiritually alive do. This is how we live.
Of course, if we are dead, breathing, walking, eating – all the things that a living person does – well that’s impossible for us, and we are foolish to try. And that’s the message in today’s passage. Imitate God, literally be like God in everything, because you are his dear children. Act like a living person because you are alive.
And if you are dead, that is not a child of God, not part of Christ. Well then, you will not inherit the kingdom of God because no-one who is dead (immoral, impure, or greedy) is allowed to be with the living. No corpses in the living room thank you!
If you are dead, you need to FIRST be made alive through Christ before you can live like the living.
1. Be perfect in everything
2. Only perfect people are allowed to know God
3. Christ, the perfect image of God
1. Be perfect in everything
5:1 Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. 2 Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.
Now some people have been taught that this means “try really hard and make sure you say sorry to God”. That the way to progress as a Christian is to be sincere, and to try hard (and don’t forget to say sorry, otherwise you’ll go to hell). Well, if you’ve been taught that, you’ve been lied to. The only way to be right with God, the only way to grow as a Christian...is to be perfect. To reflect back to God the perfection of God. 5 You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God.
“Imitate God!” commands Paul through the Spirit. in everything you do. Eph 4:24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. God is commanding us to imitate him, to be like him, to be reflections of Him – a little perfect image of God running around in the world. The word in v1 in the Greek is “mimeos”, where we get mimic. We are to mimic God, echo his actions, copy him. Like a reflection in a mirror, so we are to reflect the holiness and perfection of God.
Now this isn’t something new, or some weird thing only found in Ephesians. Jesus said it in his sermon on the mount: as he preaches to the people about the Kingdom of God he sums up his teaching like this “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48). In Leviticus 19:2 Israel was called to “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy”. 1 Peter 1:15 says But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy.
Imitate God. Be perfect. Be righteous. That is the standard to which we are called, the standard against which every person is measured. The standard is perfection. The goal is holiness. Not merely a bit more holy. But perfectly holy.
4:24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God. BE LIKE GOD. truly righteous and holy (v24).
Think about it. You, a being of pure goodness. No selfish thought ever crosses your mind. No evil desire. No harsh word passes your lips. You are perfectly honest, always truthful. You are sexually pure, not lustful, without shame. You are like a shaft of clean light, shining in the darkness.
That is what we are called to be. No less than as perfect as God himself. And if we are not, if we are immoral, impure, greedy – then we will not inherit the kingdom of God! 5:5 You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God.
We have often said that we should have a sign outside the church saying “no perfect people allowed”. And that’s right. Everyone is welcome to come and hear the Gospel preached. But the Heavenly Church, the Kingdom of God, has a sign outside its door.
And that sign says “ONLY PERFECT PEOPLE ALLOWED”
Imitate God in everything you do – and if you do not, if you slip into immorality, the tiniest impurity, a little bit of greed – then you are shut out from the Kingdom of God forever. You will not inherit the kingdom of God. Have I got your attention now? Am I saying anything other than what the Word is saying? No, it’s right there in verse 5.
2. Only perfect people are allowed to know God
5 You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6 Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him.
Now I have a problem. The problem is: I am greedy – the evidence is here around my waist. Therefore, I will not inherit the kingdom of God. I am not good enough. I can not be good enough.
You are all liars. You are sexual sinners. You lose your temper and let your anger get the better of you. You tell coarse jokes and use bad language. You are impure. You are thieves, prostitutes, murderers, adulterers, greedy people driven by your appetites. In short, you are like me. Everything we’ve read that we should not do in chapters 4 and 5 – we do.
And yet we still think that trying harder will impress God! The Jehovah’s Witnesses try very hard. Very earnest. Very sincere. Desperately trying to be good enough for God, to please God, to be moral enough, pure enough. But He is not pleased. They will not inherit the Kingdom.
Catholics, they seem to live with great guilt, always trying to ensure they’ve prayed enough, said enough hail Mary’s, confessed enough sin. Many sitting in Protestant churches fall into the same trap. Have I done enough? Have I confessed? Have I been filled with the latest spiritual blessing? Have I sung enough praise? Have I prayed enough? Is God satisfied?
And the answer is NO! God is not satisfied. You have failed. You have not confessed enough, said enough hail Mary’s , gone door to door enough, sang praises enough, been “filled with the spirit” enough. You are still an idolater, you still think impure thoughts, you are still greedy, you are still not perfect. Our efforts are not enough.
And the same goes for Muslims, Hindus, Bhuddists, New Age, atheists, whatever. Full of sincere, lovely people, trying so hard to be good. Think about Islam. It sets very high standards of behaviour. You must do this at this time. You must not do that. Eat this food but not that. Give to the poor, help your neighbour, pray five times a day, declare the greatness of Allah and his prophet Muhammed, travel to Mecca (Hajj). What a high standard, a high calling. But it is not enough. The best Muslim falls short of perfection. The best Hindu is not good enough. The Dalai Lama (the best Bhuddist) is not good enough. For they do not imitate God perfectly. They are not like God.
6 Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him.
God’s anger will fall on all who disobey him. We saw that in Amos – Amos warning, pleading with the people to turn back to God, to seek him and live, to stop messing around with their religion and seek GOD. Because religion is simply trying to impress God. And God has already told us it does not impress him. Being religious won’t work. Being perfect, and only being perfect, will work.
Imitate God – or be shut out of the Kingdom.
Understanding the awesome, frightening HOLINESS of God is key for us to understand this chapter and chapters like it in the Bible. Understanding God’s holiness makes moralism “be a good boy, try harder” utterly ridiculous! That kind of “Christianity” is all over the place and it is a lie.
5:1 Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. 2 Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.
Well, we’ve seen that that’s impossible! For us. But there is one person who did imitate God. There is one man who is God’s exact mirror image, one who perfectly reflects the Father. As Jesus said to Philip in John 14:9 “to know me (Jesus) is to know the Father”.
We cannot imitate God, but v2 carries on, praise God, with these words: He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.
3. Christ, the perfect image of God (he is God’s mirror)
Feel the hopelessness of anything other than the gospel. For this is the truth. There is NO HOPE apart from Christ. Only he is the pleasing aroma to God. Only he can satisfy God’s righteous requirements. Only he is perfectly holy, perfectly good, perfectly righteous. Only Jesus has kept the law, perfectly.
Jesus mind is not dark (4:18) but light, not closed but open, his heart is not hard but soft toward God the Father. He did not, does not, follow lustful pleasure and sexual impurity (v19) but has thrown off lust and deception. Lust has no part in Christ. He did not and does not use people to satisfy his own sexual desires.
There is (v25) only truth on his lips, there is no unrighteous anger, he does not steal but works hard, his words are good and helpful and building up – he is kind, tender-hearted, forgiving.
In other words, Christ is the perfect Christian (the only perfect Christian)!
That’s why in these chapters about “this is how you must live” the gospel is almost randomly sprinkled in amongst this list of things to do. No lust and impurty - 4:23 Let the Spirit renew you, put on your new nature. Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t be angry, etc. 4:30 The Holy Spirit guarantees you will be saved. Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving, not bitter angry, harsh, etc. 4:32 Because Christ forgave you 5:2 He loved us. No sexual immorality, coarse jokes. 5:8 You were full of darkness, but now light – and that light produces what is good and right and true.
What we must do is realise we cannot do it, realise that he has done it, and ask him to cover our shame and failure with his glorious perfection – and that is exactly what he does.
In Eph 2 it says 1 Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins….4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.
You see, being a Christian is remembering that we are not dead but alive. The command to imitate God is not some sick joke, haha this is impossible, you’ll never do it, you can burn in hell – but this is saying to living people: breathe. Be what you are. Walk, talk, jump, laugh, live. For dead people, being commanded to breathe, to walk, to talk, is impossible. But if we are in Christ, we are not dead! We are alive!
So be alive! Christian maturity or growth is simply remembering that I am alive in Christ.
You ARE holy, perfect, in Christ. So let it out. Breathe! Walk! Talk! Be spiritually ALIVE, not spiritually DEAD. That is how we progress as Christians – we keep saying “wait, I’m not dead, I can move my arm, move my leg, breathe, talk, walk.” Dead people lie, but I’m not dead, I can tell the truth. Dead people steal - I’m not dead, I can work hard and give generously. Dead people use their words as weapons, I’m not dead, I can speak to build people up.
I’m standing and talking to a woman who I know will have sex with me. She is not my wife. I feel the lust within me. I desire her and she desires me. Wait! I’m not dead! I no longer have to 19 live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity. I am alive in Christ! So I fight sexual temptation with my hat – I grab it and run!
The same goes for images of sexually available women (or men) – flee from pornography! You are alive in Christ. As my Dad said a few weeks ago: stop it! Stop it! Breathe! Be alive. Be what you are, not what you are not.
This should be what people see in us: the life of Christ shining forth. Eph 5:8–9 (NLT) For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! 9 For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.
This light within us produces only what is good and right and true. That’s where the fruit comes from - from the light within. We were dark, but we have now become people of the light. The light, God’s Spirit, is the one who produces the fruit.
I’d like to end by telling a little story illustrate the point of this passage. This was originally told by Paul Tripp
Suppose I have an apple tree in my garden (I do). Now suppose it produces horrible bitter small apples (which it does). My wife would like big, juicy, sweet but still-a-bit-tangy apples. So she says to me “fix the tree”. “Yes dear”. So the next day I go out to the shops and come back with the following: a ladder, a nail gun, and a bag of big juicy apples from the shop. My wife watches me carry all this down to the tree with a concerned look on her face. You know the look which says “I think he’s finally lost it”. She becomes more certain of this fact when she sees what I’m doing to the tree. Because I am up the ladder, and grabbing each branch, I am taking one of the juicy apples I bought from the shop and nailing it with the nail gun to the branch. After half an hour I’m finished. The tree has juicy apples nailed to every branch. “Fixed it” I say to my wife.
Now many Christians, many people, are like that. We’re apple-nailing. And, if you are not in Christ, if you don’t belong to him, if he has not changed you from within, you are apple-nailing. Because how is that tree supposed to produce fruit? It needs to be changed from the INSIDE. It needs new soil, nutrients, it needs to be pruned, cared for, looked after. Nailing apples to the outside may work for a short while but it is not a solution – and it certainly won’t fool God!
A rotten tree produces rotten fruit. What the tree needs is to be made healthy again.
We need the gospel, we need Jesus not just to start the Christian life, but also to live it. Otherwise we’re just apple-nailing, fooling ourselves – and that will lead to being shut out of the Kingdom.
Only Christ is the perfect image of God. So repent of your sin, repent of trying to be “good enough”, admit to him that you need him, and accept him as Lord and King. And you become a beloved son or daughter of God, righteous and holy, by the power of his Spirit.
If you are in Christ – then be alive. Don’t live like you’re dead! Live in His power, live in the light.
And if you’re not in Christ – then you are dead, and this life is impossible. So turn to him to receive life and live in the light.
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