“Be Imitators of God”
Ephesians 4:31-5:2

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
 Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost—August 12, 2018

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Our text is today’s Epistle Reading from fourth and fifth chapters of Ephesians, which we consider under the theme “Be Imitators of God.”

A newsmagazine recently published a bizarre photo of a large mob of thousands of Middle Eastern men, each viciously attacking himself with a long machete.  Blood was shown pouring out from serious looking wounds they had each made on themselves.  It turns out this is a supposed sacred rite, regularly followed by these men’s religion.

It may surprise you to learn that Martin Luther at one time did much the very same thing.  Before the Reformation, when he was still a monk, Luther would often whip himself severely, to punish himself for his sins.  When we visited Germany last summer, Terry and I saw the small cell where Luther lived as a monk in the monastery at Erfurt.  More than once he was found in this cell passed out from loss of blood, several times whipping himself almost to death.

Why would those Middle Eastern men attack themselves with machetes?  Why would Martin Luther whip himself so savagely?  And, especially, why would they do this in the name of religion?  The answer is found in our text: “Be imitators of God, therefore.”

Those Middle Eastern men are simply imitating their false god.  For they believe that God is angry with the world, and angry at them.  They believe that God is full of hate, and so they are full of hate too, even toward themselves.  That also explains the mindset behind the suicide attacks that we hear about in that part of the world.  They are actually imitating what they think God is like.

But, what about Martin Luther, a Christian monk, and the founder of our Lutheran faith?  At that time, he too was imitating what he thought God was like.  For, in the Dark Ages, the Christian God was often falsely portrayed as being angry at the world, full of hate for humankind.

Perhaps this misunderstanding comes from the many places in Scripture where it says we are to “fear” God, as the Psalm with which we began today’s service: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.”  But, that does not mean “fear” in the sense of being frightened, afraid, fearful of punishment.  The “fear of the Lord” is rather “fear” in the sense of reverence, respect, honor.  The word “revere” is actually derived from “fear” in this sense.

Luther says that as a monk he WAS afraid of God.  He says he did not love God, he hated God, because he thought God hated him.  And, so, Luther imitated a God he thought was full of wrath and punishment by punishing himself.

“Be imitators of God, therefore.”  But, Paul goes on: “AS DEARLY LOVED CHILDREN”!  Martin Luther was wrong; that Middle Eastern religion is wrong; ALL other false religions of the world, which all proclaim that God is angry and full of hate toward humankind, are ALL WRONG.  God’s attitude toward the world is not hate, but love; not anger, but forgiveness.  God’s attitude toward YOU is not hate, but love; not anger, but forgiveness.  “As dearly loved children.”

It is true that we are all like the wayward son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who went astray from his father’s ways.  But, the Good News is, like the father in the parable, your heavenly Father welcomes you back with open, loving, forgiving arms, welcomes you back into his family, as his dearly loved child.

You remember in the Parable of the Prodigal Son how at the end the eldest son grumbled and complained when the wandering son was welcomed home?  Unlike the parable, it was actually the eldest Son of God’s family who himself earned you the right to be welcomed back into the family of God.  “For my Father’s will,” Jesus says, “is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.”

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,” John says, “that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”  That is what YOU are, through faith in Christ, God’s own dearly loved child.

In the closing days of World War II, United States Army Lieutenant Peter Sichel, an intelligence officer, received special permission to travel with the forward army units advancing on the German city of Mainz.  For, although Lt. Sichel was now an American citizen and a U.S. Army officer, Germany was his native land, and Mainz his hometown.  A decade earlier, his family fled the Nazi menace and settled in the United States, forced to abandon their centuries-old, world-famous vineyards and winery at Mainz.

Fearful of the fate of a quarter-million bottles of wine and champagne as the German retreated and the victors celebrated, Lt. Sichel arranged to place the property under the protection of the Allied Military Government until it could be returned to his family, the rightful owners.  As one of the first Americans to enter the conquered city, he found the family business intact, and still bearing the sign “Sichel and Sons.”  The Nazis who confiscated it kept using this famous family name.

When a watchman at the gate, who was not aware of the Allied capture of the city, refused to let him in, Lt. Sichel pointed up to the sign and said, “It says ‘Sichel and Sons,’ doesn’t it?  Well, I am a son!  Now open the gate and let me in.”

Paul says in Galatians, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”  In Holy Baptism you were born again as a child of God.  You were adopted into God’s family.  At the gate of heaven you will be granted admission because you are a son or daughter of your heavenly Father.  As Paul says in Romans, “We are God’s children. And since we are children, then we are also heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.”

God’s Son earned you eternal life, he earned you the right to be welcomed back into the family of God, by suffering himself, in your place, all the punishment your sins deserved.  Paul puts it this way in our text: “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as an offering and sacrifice to God with a fragrant and pleasing aroma.”  In ancient times incense was often used in worship, and so a sacrifice with “a fragrant and pleasing aroma” means one that is accepted and favorably received by God.  Christ’s sacrifice was accepted as payment in full for all your sins.  As Hebrews says, “He appeared . . . to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.”  “Therefore,” Paul says in Romans, “since we have been justified through faith”—made right with God through faith in Christ—“we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The saddest thing about the punishment which those Middle Eastern men and Martin Luther inflicted on themselves is that it’s both completely meaningless and totally unnecessary. There is no punishment left to suffer for your sins because “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as an offering and sacrifice to God”; he has “[done] away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” 

The Reformation began when Luther, through studying the Scriptures, finally understood this Good News, finally understood that “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” finally understood that our God is not angry but a loving heavenly Father.  Luther writes, “[When I grasped that] through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith . . .  I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. . .  [in God’s] fatherly, friendly heart . . . there is no anger. . .  He who sees God as angry does not see him rightly . . .”

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children.”  You’ve probably seen how little children love to imitate their parents.  That’s not something they’re told to do or instructed to do, it’s just something that comes naturally.  That is really a wonderful illustration, which Paul uses in our text, of your motivation for living a Christian life.  In your everyday life, you WANT to imitate your heavenly Father, not because you’re ordered to or obliged to, but it’s a desire that comes naturally, because you are born again as a dearly loved child of God. 

In our text, Paul tells us the #1 way that you will imitate your heavenly Father in your own life: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”  As a born again child of God, live out your daily life imitating your heavenly Father, especially following him in the way of peace and forgiveness.

Children not only imitate their parents, they also like to imitate their older brothers and sisters.  And Paul tells us that as a child of God, you will also imitate the eldest Son in God’s family: “and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as an offering and sacrifice to God.”  Just as Christ sacrificed himself for you, like a child imitating a big brother, you will imitate Christ in your life, most of all by sacrificing yourself for others.  Paul puts it this way in Philippians: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.  Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as an offering and sacrifice to God.”