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Week 6 Assignment: Read pages 193-214 in MacArthur and Ephesians 5:1-14 and comment on both posts.

This week we will study the 3^rd and 4^th Walk of Practical Unity in two posts.

1) “Therefore Walk” in Unity (4:1-16)

2) “Therefore Walk” not as the Unsaved (4:17-32)

3) “Therefore Walk” in Love (Ephesians 5:1-6)

4) “Therefore Walk” in the Light (Ephesians 5:7-14)

5) “Therefore Walk” in Wisdom (Ephesians 5:15-6:9)

Therefore Walk in Love (Ephesians 5:1-6)

My pastor, Arthur Blackburn, used to tell the story of a father walking out to his barn in the winter time in the snow to get a drink of whisky. He looked back as he was walking and saw his small son stretching his little legs as hard as he could to walk in his dad’s footprints left in the snow. The dad said to his son, “What are you doing son?” To which his son replied: “I am trying to walk in your footsteps, Dad.” The dad was so impacted by what his son said that he never drank a drop of whisky again.

In Ephesians 5:1-7, “Paul is simply arguing that children are like their parents, a fact that can be both encouraging and embarrassing to those of us who have children. Have you ever seen a child sitting in the front seat of an automobile, trying to drive like his father! Or, walking behind him, pretending to mow the lawn? Or, sad to say, imitating Dad smoking a cigarette or taking a drink of alcohol? Children probably learn more by watching and imitating than any other way” (Warren W. Wiersbe. Be Rich: Ephesians, Wheaton: Victor Books, 1977, p. 121).

In 5:1 Paul commands believers to imitate God the Father and especially His love: “Be followers (Greek mimatai from which we get our English word “mimic”) of God.” So the question is, “Who are we mimicking?” Who are our heroes or mentors directly or indirectly? If we could trade places with anyone in life whose life would we start living? Paul says mimic God’s love. When we do

A. We will imitate God (5:1-2) and

1) Be forgiving (5:1). “Therefore” in 5:1 pushes us back to 4:32: “Be kind one to another, compassionate, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven you.” How many times has God forgiven you and me and given us second changes? “Go thou and do likewise.”

2) Love unconditionally (5:2). We are to walk in love “as Christ also loved us.” According to Romans 5:6, Christ loved us “when we were sinners.” Do people have to deserve our love? If so then we are not loving as Christ.

3) Love sacrificially (5:2).

• Christ loved us by unselfishly giving “himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” that is a sacrifice that pleased and satisfied God’s just demands for sinners who broke His law.
• God loved us sacrificially and unselfishly when He “gave His only begotten Son” for us at the cross (John 3:16).
• The Philippians followed Christ’s example when they sacrificially and unselfishly gave financially to Paul in his first Roman imprisonment (Philippians 4:18).
• When we love God we will unselfishly “present our bodies a living sacrifice” to God (Romans 12:1-2).

B. We will not imitate the Unsaved (5:3-6).

If love is unselfish, then sin is selfish. Paul contrasts the sacrificial love of God with the self love of the unsaved.

1) We will not imitate the actions of the unsaved (5:3).

   a) Which includes Fornication or sexual or Hollywood immorality.

    b) Which includes Uncleanness or impurity which is broader than fornication.

    c) Which includes Covetousness or greed. The first two are external and greed is the selfish internal source of selfish appetite. Paul says at the end of verse three that these sins should not even be mentioned among believers, because they are not being committed, not because the church should not deal with them in church discipline. Paul is going to call for church discipline in verses 11-14. Paul mentioned one of these sins in 1 Corinthians 5, when the church had refused to excommunicate a member committing incest.

2) We will not imitate the words of the unsaved (5:4).

   a) Which includes “Filthiness” or general obscenities. The believer’s talk is not corrupt but edifying (4:29).

    b) Which includes “foolish talking” or stupid and senseless talk.

    c) Which includes “jesting” or coarse joking so often heard in Larry the Cable Guy “Blue Collar” Comedy. Our words reveal our character. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

“Two indications of a person’s character are what makes him laugh and what makes him weep. The saint of God sees nothing humorous in obscene language or jests” (Wiersbe, p.124).

3) The remedy is the unselfish “giving of thanks.”

Giving of thanks is another result of unselfishness. Selfish people rarely say, “Thank you.” Paul wrote Philippians in part as a “Thank you” letter to the Philippians for their unselfish giving.

C. Paul issues two warnings.

Do not imitate the unsaved “For” this reason in 5:5 and “for” another reason in 5:6.

1) Because persons who practice these sins are not saved (5:5).

Paul repeats the three sins from 5:3 that characterize the unsaved and adds that the covetous man is an “idolater.” Greed makes gods out of possessions. Paul has given this warning before in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Galatians 5:17-21. The person Paul has in mind is the person who habitually practices sin not the Christian who occasionally commits sin. As Wiersbe says, however, “A Christian is not sinless, but he does sin less—and less—and less” (p.127).

2) Because persons who practice these sins will experience God’s wrath (5:6).

The unsaved “children of disobedience” are also the “children of wrath” in 2:3. Paul warns, “Let no man deceive you with vain words” that sinners will not experience God’s wrath. That warning would include Evangelicals, like John R. W. Stott, who do not believe in the eternal conscience suffering of the unsaved in the Lake of Fire. Be not deceived.

See the next post for Week 6: “Therefore Walk” in the Light.”