Eternal God,

Eph. 4:32-5:2

This morning, we join with other faith communities in the area, to observe BLUE RIBBON SABBATH. Strong Communities, a project of the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, encourages congregations to observe this day as a time to focus on keeping children safe and as a time to deepen efforts to provide support to families with young children. The theme this year is “LEAVING NO FAMILY OUTSIDE.” This theme is in step with the sermon series on loneliness that Michael has been preaching. We have all experienced to some degree, the pain that comes from separation…separation due to sin, death, broken relationships, illness, distance, prejudice, injustice, or ignorance. Separation IN ANY FORM causes pain because WE WERE MADE TO BE IN COMMUNITY. The Strong Communities organization understands that families often feel separated and isolated from the communities in which they live. Research shows that child abuse and neglect occur most often when parents and caregivers are alone – when they lack the social and material resources needed to care adequately for children. When parents do not perceive themselves as being able to properly care for their children, a sense of helplessness often develops. They are less likely to have the energy to invest in their children’s care and supervision, and they are more likely to strike out in frustration. They are less likely to invest in the upkeep of homes, lawns, and neighborhoods, less likely to have positive interaction with neighbors, and more likely to turn to crime and delinquency. In the early 1990s, the US Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect recognized the connection between conditions of isolation and incidents of child abuse and neglect. They recommended a system of prevention that is neighborhood-based, child-centered, and family-oriented. Their rational is that strong families help keep children safe. In 2002, the Duke Endowment made an award to Clemson University Research Foundation for the design, implementation, and evaluation of a pilot project, Strong Communities for Children. The goal of the Strong Communities project is for EVERY parent and EVERY child to be confident that SOMEONE will notice and SOMEONE will care whenever they have cause for joy, sorrow, or worry. Strong Communities recognizes that faith communities are in a unique position to lead efforts in this regard. They recognize that as members of the Body of Christ, AS THE CHURCH, we are called to live a life of love.

In the letter to the Ephesians Paul describes and celebrates the timeless role of the church as the full expression of Jesus Christ. He celebrates what the Church was MEANT TO BE when it was conceived in the heart and mind of God. From the beginning, the Church has been part of the PURPOSE OF GOD. The Church has been the community where God CHOOSES to dwell through His Holy Spirit. The Church has been the community where walls of separation are broken down in Christ.How fitting that Paul celebrates the Church! How fitting, also, that Strong Communities calls on the Church!

But, from the beginning, the Church has struggled with being what it is meant to be. The early Church was largely made up of Gentile Christians who came out of a pagan culture. In the Greco-Roman culture, there was a TOTAL DISCONNECT between religion and one’s life. What you did in the temple had NO CONNECTION with what you did in your life the next day. Paul attempts to break through this mindset in ALL his letters. He wants Christians to make, what we call today, a paradigm shift – he wants them understand that THERE IS A CONNECTION between what you believe in Jesus Christ and how you live your life. Paul explains to the Ephesians that the details of their daily lives are meant to CONTRIBUTE to “God’s plan worked out by Christ.” He urges them, “LIVE OUT WHO YOU ARE – WHO GOD SAYS YOU ARE!!” Hear it again: “LIVE A LIFE OF LOVE, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Paul understood the real challenge for the Church was a heart issue. Their hearts – the things they VALUED - had not been changed by their Christian beliefs. They tried to live out their lives with feet in both worlds; they talked the talk, but weren’t walking the walk. The Greco-Roman world valued wealth, power, beauty, and pleasure. Life was all about self-fulfillment… and they did not want to give all that up.You see, Worldly values can hijack the human heart, and take it on a lifetime journey of empty works. So Paul tells the Ephesians in 4:22 to put off their former way of life, their old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, and to put on the new self, created to be like God.

Fast forward almost 2000 years. Are things much different today? Are you and I much different? Like the early Christians, you and I live in a world that still values wealth, power, beauty, and pleasure. In our technological culture, it is ever more difficult to silence the world’s voice. We constantly hear and see the message that life is all aboutus - our wants and needs. Buy into the world’s thinking, the world’s values, and the things of God become a distant second. Paul was desperate for the Church to understand that what you REALLY believe in Jesus is worked out in your DAILY life… What you REALLY believe in Jesus is worked out in your DAILY life. If you want to know what someone really believes, do not ask them…watch them! What about you? What do you believe? What do you value? What would those who know you, who watch you every day, say that you value?

Paul did not want the Church to be deceived. The church of Christ is not to imitate the world, the Church is to imitate God! This is the command he gives in our text today. He tells them: “Therefore be IMITATORS OF GOD, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love.”

The Greek word the NIV Bible translates “imitate” is the same Greek word we translate “mimic.” When my girls were little, they loved to play the “mimic game.” They would copy our words, intonations, expressions, and actions exactly. It would bring them great delight! It was one of those games that we tired of long before they did! But this is what Paul is calling us to do in our text this morning. We are to imitate Jesus in word, action, and spirit. To be able to imitate us, the girls had to keep their eyes on us constantly so they could detect every expression, every action. They had to listen to us carefully, to hear each word and each slight intonation. Their delight was found in looking and sounding just like us. Church, THAT is to be our delight, our treasure…to look and sound just like God! God never tires of us copying Him. This was His plan when He created us. He made us in His image – His likeness – to look just like Him.

Be imitators of God and live a life of love . Paul uses the word, agape. LIVE A LIFE OF AGAPE. Agape is the highest form of love. It is a selfless love that empties self for others. It is the love Jesus demonstrated on the cross. Jesus emptied Himself in every way. Jesus had the form of God and gave it up to become man. Jesus became a servant – an obedient servant – all the way to death – to death on the cross. He did it for you, and me, and for those who despise and reject Him. THAT is agape! Jesus is the living example of God’s love – the love that is forgiving, the love that is giving, the love that is active. You can love in this way only as God’s grace and activity moves in you. Our scripture this morning exhorts you to fix your eyes upon God – focus upon Jesus. As you contemplate the God of heaven and earth, The Holy Spirit moves within you. Your soul responds with the deep desire to glorify God through every action, word, and thought. Thus yoked with Christ, you learn to live a life of love.

The Strong Communities organization has called on us to be the Church to families in our community. They have asked us to demonstrate the same intentionality of love that Jesus did in his earthly ministry. Jesus never confined his ministry only tothe synagogue; rather, He took it to the streets. Can we do less?

Jimmy Carter told a story about the question he could never answer. He told about his first meeting with the venerable, but rather stern, Admiral Hyman Rickover, Father of the nuclear submarine. Carter had applied for the nuclear submarine program and Admiral Rickover was interviewing him for the job. They sat in a large room by themselves for more than 2 hrs. The admiral allowed him to choose any subjects he wished to discuss. Very carefully, he chose those which he knew the most about at the time...current events, seamanship, music, literature, navel tactics, gunnery. He tells how the questions the admiral asked him became increasingly more difficult, until he recognized that he knew very little about the subjects HE had chosen. He described how Admiral Rickover always looked him right in the eyes and never smiled, and how he was soaked in a cold sweat. Finally, the admiral asked him a question that he thought would redeem him. “How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?” the Admiral asked. Carter proudly answered, “Sir, I stood 59 th in a class of 820. He tells how he sat back and waited for congratulations which never came. Instead, the question, “Did you do your best?” He started to say, “Yes, Sir.” But then he remembered who this was. He recalled several of the many of times at the academy he could have learned more about our allies, our enemies, weapons, strategy, and so forth. He finally gulped and answered, “No Sir, I didn’t always do my best.” The Admiral looked at him a long time and then turned his chair around to end the interview. Admiral Rickover asked one final question, THE question Carter said he has never been able to forget OR answer. He asked, “Why not?” Carter sat there, shaken, then slowly left the room.

I heard the story as I driving home from Erskine this week. Sermon thoughts began to swirl through my mind. The thought came to me, that one day, you and I will stand before One greater than the Admiral. Almighty God might ask, “My child, did you do your best to love as Jesus loved?” When you look in the face of Him who asks, you may have to say,” No Lord, I did not”.