EPHESIANS: What we Imitate
EPHESIANS Number 54
Ephesians 5:2 (KJV 1900)
2And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
Now we come to a description that clarifies for us what it is about God that we are to imitate. This is the example Jesus set for us. Sacrificial Love (agape’) is to be our manner of living. It is to characterize our lives.
My friend Ralph Harris recently wrote, “God is love—no one else is—and true love comes from Him (1 John 4). Our relationship with God is the only way by which we find authentic love. Original love. That’s why we become so attracted and devoted to Him—we do it for love. From there, everybody benefits because the pressure's off—we've found true love, and no longer look for it or demand it from anyone else.”
I could stop teaching on this verse right here, but you know me, I’ve got more on my mind. The verse tells us that we should live lives characterized (that’s what “walk” means) by the sort of Love Jesus exemplified for us. The kind of Love that resulted in Him giving Himself for us.
This is poignant for me because of late I have been helping someone navigate situations in which they are being very poorly treated by someone they love. There is great relational risk. When things are this hard, it can be more than challenging to respond in Love. It can seem that Loving sacrificially is simply too dangerous. It can seem that if one were to give oneself to another, even one greatly loved, the result might be complete loss of oneself.
When the Still Small Voice says things like, “don’t yell”, “don’t defend yourself”, “insofar as it lies with you, live at peace”, or “a gentle answer turns away wrath”, everything in the flesh bristles. That’s ridiculous,” it screams. But it is not ridiculous at all. Our Head, our Vanguard, the Lord Jesus Christ has modelled for us the incredible joy of giving up oneself to rescue, redeem, and restore another.
Romans 12:1–2 (KJV 1900) also call us to this. There we find that such Love is, as our passage puts it, “a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.” It reads this way, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
When we follow the example God gave us in the Lord Jesus, we display with flashing neon the character and majesty of God.
