Episode Transcript
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Let's turn in our bibles to a
chapter five of Ephesians. If you have
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one of the Pew Bibles, this
is page nine hundred and seventy eight.
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I suppose Pew is not the right
word cart bibles. That's a habit,
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I guess. So. If you
have one of the black bibles from a
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cart, this is page nine hundred
and seventy eight. I'm going to preach
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particularly on versus one and two,
but I'll go ahead and read a little
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further than that. Fesians five.
Therefore, the imitators of God as beloved
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children and Walk in love. Is
Christ loved US and gave himself up for
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us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice
to God. But sexual immorality and all
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impurity or covetousness must not even be
named among you, as is proper among
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saints. Let there be no filthiness
or foolish talk, nor crude joking,
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which are out of place, but
instead let there be thanksgiving, for you
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may be sure of this. Did
everyone who is sexually immoral or impure,
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or who is covetous, that is, an idolater, has no inheritance in
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the Kingdom of Christ and God.
Let no one deceive you with empty words,
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for because of these things the wrath
of God comes upon the sons of
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disobedience. Therefore, do not become
partners with them. For one time you
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were darkness, but now you are
light in the Lord. Walk as children
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of the light, for the fruit
of light is found in all that is
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good and right and true, and
try to discern what is pleasing to the
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Lord. Take no part in the
unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose
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them, for it is shameful even
to speak of the things that they do
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in secret. But when anything is
exposed by the light, it becomes visible
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for the anything, for anything that
becomes visible is light. Therefore, it
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says awake, O sleeper, and
rise from the dead, and Christ will
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shine on you. Look carefully,
then, how you walk, not as
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unwise but as wise, making the
best use of time, because the days
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are evil. Therefore, do not
be foolish, but understand what the will
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of the Lord is, and do
not get drunk with wine, for that
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is debauchery, but be filled with
the spirit, addressing one another in Psalms
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and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
and making melody to the Lord with your
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heart, giving thanks always and for
everything to God, the father, in
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the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence
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for Christ. May God blesses word
to us. You may be seated.
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So their number of things here in
this passage that we ought to pay attention
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to and learn and and study and
reflect on. One of the ways,
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one of the reasons I have for
saying that, are these words that are
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given here that we ought to in
verse ten try to discern what is pleasing
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to the Lord. This is our
goal, is Christians. Our job are,
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our act of service is to learn
how to please our heavenly father,
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or, to put it another way, as Paul puts it in the beginning
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of this chapter, how to be
like our heavenly father. What an amazing
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way to think about our lives and
our obedience before God. Be Imitators of
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God, as beloved children. First, Peter to twenty one says, for
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to this you have been called,
because Christ also suffered for you, leaving
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you an example so that you might
follow in his steps. Or John Thirteen
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thirty four, where Jesus says a
new commandment. I give you that you
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love one another just as I have
loved you, you also are to love
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one another. It is, of
course, wrong to think that all Jesus
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is is an example, to think
that Jesus is only a model and nothing
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more than that. Jesus clearly is
more than that. We read in these
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verses, in verse two, for
example, that Christ loved us. Yes,
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but he also gave himself up for
us, a fragrant offering and even
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a sacrifice to God. We wouldn't
be children of God if Jesus weren't more
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than an example. Jesus didn't just
teach us the way of obedience, he
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was obedience, and through his obedience
we have the very righteousness of God,
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not because we followed his example and
then became the righteousness of God, but
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because it was given freely to us. Notice, Paul says, be imitators
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of God as beloved children, not
to become beloved children. None of your
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children here earned their childhood, none
of that. None of our children were
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workers that slowly worked their way into
the family, they were born or adopted,
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I'm into our families and as children
then are called to act as children,
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and that's the way Paul expresses it
here. So my simple point is
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this is that, though we are
called to imitate, to follow the example,
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to follow in the steps of Jesus, of course Jesus is much more
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than that. He is one who
earns us the right and the place to
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follow in his steps. He is
the one who empowers us to do that
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by his spirit. But while we
affirm those things, we also don't want
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to deny that Jesus is an example. In affirming that he is more than
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that, we also don't want to
say that he is less than that,
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for the scriptures clearly testified to that, to this fact and that this is
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the way of our lives. Be
Imitators of God or, as I read
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in First Peter, because leaving an
example. Christ left an example so that
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we might follow in his steps.
This language of following God and being his
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children goes all the way back to
genesis. We were made humans, were
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made in the image of God.
We were called to be his son,
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called to be children of God and
walking in obedience. Adam, of course,
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failed in this task and instead of
obtaining a glory and consummation and and
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and and a glorified state, he
fell. He fell into sin, he
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fell under the wrath of God was
separated from communion with God. What he
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and Eve cast out of the garden, still bearing God's image and yet marred,
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an image that was there, and
yet they were unable to fulfill the
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task that God had placed on them. And it's in this context that Paul
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has been speaking to us when he
said, for example, in verse two,
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and you were dead, or,
I'm sorry, Chapter Two of Ephesians,
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and you were dead in the trespasses
and sins in which you once walked,
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following the course of this world,
following the Prince of the power of
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the air, the spirit that is
now at work in the sons of disobedience.
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You were, by nature, Paul
says, children of Wrath, but
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now we are something different. Now
we are called beloved children, adopted through
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the beloved son of God, Our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and
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it's because of this status, and
it's within this status now that Paul talks
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to us in chapter five and says
now, let me tell you how to
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live as a child. How do
you live as a child? You imitate
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your parents. It's the natural way
of things, isn't it? Children imitate
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their parents. Sometimes we wish they
wouldn't write. Do as I say,
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not as I do, but nevertheless
they do. Sometimes we wish they would
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imitate us more. Please, please, I'm trying to show you the way
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and you're not following. But all
of the incongruities that happen in between a
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human relationships are perfected in God.
God is a perfect father and unlike me
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and perhaps unlike you, he never
fails, he never missteps, he never
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has to say. Do as I
say, but not as I do.
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Everything that God says, everything that
God does, is perfect in every way.
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You can look at him and you
can study him from now and all
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through eternity and you will never find
one thing which you ought not to follow.
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Isn't that amazing? And what's even
more amazing is that we don't have
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to climb up into the mysteries of
God and speculate all kinds of things about
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who god is in order that we
might imitate him. If we ask,
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well, how do I imitate God, he tells us, he shows us,
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walk in love, he says,
as Christ loved US and gave himself
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up for us, a fragrant offering
and a sacrifice to God. How do
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we imitate God? How do we
act as a true son or a true
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daughter. Well, we act as
the Eternally Begotten Son of God did when
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he was in this world, in
Love, in righteousness. How far does
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that love go? How much should
we extend ourselves? How much should we
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give ourselves? He tells us that
as well. What did Jesus do?
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He gave himself up for us as
a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
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The act of Jesus, when we
study him in the Gospels, what do
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we see? We see at every
point, moment and in every way,
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Jesus acting with perfect love, with
perfect goodness. We ought to follow him,
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we ought to study him as our
savior, as our model, and
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the extent to which he gave himself
up is quite great. On Paul makes
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the arguments and Romans that maybe somebody
might give their lives up for a friend,
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but who gives their lives up for
an enemy? Jesus did we read
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in Romans that Christ died for us
while we were still enemies? He died
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for the ungodly, while we were
still at enmity with God. As I
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was saying earlier with regards to our
adoption, Jesus didn't say now I'm going
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to give you these five, six, ten million things to do and if
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you prove yourself well, maybe I'll
call you mine, maybe I'll adopt you
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into my family. What have we
been reading in Ephesians? Ever since the
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beginning of the chat, ever since
the beginning of the book, God has
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been telling us that we have been
adopted before the foundation of the world,
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that the that we are love,
the love with which God has loved us.
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For example, verse five of Ephesians
One, he predestined us for adoption
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as sons through Jesus Christ, according
to the goodness and strength of your character.
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No, according it says, to
the purpose of his will, to
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the praise of your mighty deeds.
No, to the praise of his glorious
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grace with which he has blessed us
in the beloved in Him. Verse Seven,
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we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of our trespasses, according
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to the riches of His grace which
he lavished upon us, and all wisdom
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and insight, making known to us
the mystery of his will, according to
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his purpose, which he set forth
in Christ as a plan for the fullness
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of time to unite all things in
heaven or all things in him, things
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in heaven and on things and earth, things on earth. This is the
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inheritance we have obtained as the adopted
sons and daughters of God, those who
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have been loved by Jesus Christ from
all eternity, those for whom he gave
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his life up on the cross.
And now we stand in all this grace.
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We stand as children of the heavenly
father. A lot of times we
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think about the sacrifice of Jesus in
gruesome ways, really, and that's not
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all wrong, right, he gave
himself, his blood was shed. We
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just read here, though, in
verse two, the Sacrifice of Jesus is
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put in a very positive way,
or the positive side of it is emphasized.
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It's not against the other pictures of
a sacrifice, but it reminds us
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that the sacrifice that Jesus Gade was
also ultimately a good one. This is
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important because when we love sometimes we
feel like we're losing we're giving of ourselves
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in love. Right, we give
and we give and we give. Our
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high and our money are energy,
are emotional resources. We feel tired,
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maybe feel like we're losing something,
but the way that Jesus sacrifice is is
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described here in verse, who is
a fragrant offering, reminds us of the
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the goodness in it. The sacrifices
would have smelt good, I think,
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when you put meat on the barbecue
and your backyard. It's a good thing.
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Right, if you go to somebody's
house and you walk and, let's
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say they invite you over for a
party, and you open up the back
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fence and you walk through, go
who, you've got meat on the grill,
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right, it's a good smell.
It's a pleasing smell. Hospitality,
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that act of love and sacrifice given
for another is literally of a delicious smelling
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thing, and the sacrifices were often
eaten by the priests and those who sometimes
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by those who offered them as well. The sacrifices, though requiring a death,
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ultimately achieved a fragrant thing, a
good thing. They brought communion between
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God and the one who offered the
sacrifice, fellowship, perhaps even around a
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table. Why? Because sin was
atoned for, in some cases, things
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that were separating from a separating us
from God. We're taking care of a
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by the sacrifice of these Old Testament
sacrifices pointed forward to the greater sacrifice that
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Jesus himself offered on the Cross,
a sacrifice of love, a fragrant offering
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a pleasing thing, and it's in
that same way that we are called to
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offer up our lives when we walk
in the love of Christ, when we
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imitate God in this way. We
may feel sometimes like we're giving, giving,
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giving, maybe we even say in
our minds I'm losing, losing,
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losing, but maybe you can let
another image capture your heart as you offer
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yourself up to the Lord. Think
of yourself as being as being offered up
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in the love of Christ, as
a fragrant offering something that is sweet,
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smelling to him and pleasing, a
pleasing to God. When we give our
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sacrifices in the name of Jesus,
we give ourselves and give ourselves to others
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and to God out of faith in
him. God is is pleased, it
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smells good to him, in a
way of in a manner of speaking,
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and so in the same way that
when your children obey you, or the
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kids when you obey your parents and
there's happiness and peace and joy, we
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find this in the family of God
as well. When we serve the Lord
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Jesus, when we imitate him,
when we walk in his way, according
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to His grace, according to his
power within US or his power in us.
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The Lord is pleased and instead of
as we read in Verse Thirty of
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Chapter Four, instead of grieving the
Holy Spirit, we please God again,
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not because of some mighty and wonderful
thing in us that we have achieved on
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our own, but because of him
working in us. He's like a master
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craftsman who shapes and molds and cuts
and designs and then looks at his work
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and is pleased. What a joyful
thing it is to be in the hands
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of God, to be crafted by
him, to be molded by him,
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to be his child, being fraught
brought closer and closer into his image.
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Let us turn to the Lord in
prayer and asked that he would treat us
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as his beloved children.
