Part 8 of Ephesians: Be Imitators of God

Ephesians 5:1-21 (CSB)

1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. 3 But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. 4 Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable but rather giving thanks. 5 For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

6 Let no one deceive you with empty arguments, for God’s wrath is coming on the disobedient because of these things. 7 Therefore, do not become their partners. 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light— 9 for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth— 10 testing what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret. 13 Everything exposed by the light is made visible, 14 for what makes everything visible is light. Therefore it is said:

Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

15 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise— 16 making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17 So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit: 19 speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.

Last week we continued through chapter 4 and saw how Paul instructed the Ephesians not to live as the unbelieving Gentiles do, and to avoid becoming insensitive to sin so as not to grieve the Holy Spirit. He reminded them they were taught to put off sin and their former way of living. Now, in these first twenty-one verses of chapter 5, Paul is continuing his instructions.

Verses 1-2 say, “Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.” Paul wants the believers in Ephesus to follow God and walk in the way of love, imitating God. And he reminds them to remember how much Christ loved us: Jesus loved us so much He willingly died for us. I think he prefaces this chapter with this reminder, because some of the things he says in this chapter are tough to hear, but just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us and sacrificed Himself, so are we to live sacrificially for God.

Then he explains what this looks like. He says, in verses 3-5, Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, “But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable but rather giving thanks. For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”

First, I want to ask you, why do you think Paul calls a person who is sexually immoral or impure or greedy “an idolater”? I think that word is used because if someone is putting their fleshly desires before God, if they are making their fleshly desires more important than God, then they have made their flesh an idol. Anything that we elevate in importance over God becomes an idol. So, if someone is giving into their immoral sexual desires, or letting their appetites for greed rule over them, then they’ve made themselves an idol. They are obeying their flesh and not God.

Immorality, impurity and greed, “should not even be heard of among you,” Paul tells them. According to Strong’s Concordance, the Greek phrase “mēde onomazesthō” when translated says, “not even let be named.” To paraphrase it, I think Paul is saying Christians should avoid all forms of immorality and impurity so completely that we shouldn’t even talk about it. That seems to match what he says in verse 12 as well, when he says, “For it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret.” We should be so averse to immorality that we feel ashamed to even discuss what people are doing. I also think it can mean that he doesn’t want to hear any reports of inappropriate behavior from these believers, because they should behave as proper saints should. We must be imitators of God, not imitators of the world.

That’s why there should not be “Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking [which] are not suitable but rather giving thanks.” Does this mean Paul just doesn’t have a sense of humor? Is all joking prohibited? No, he’s specifically saying to avoid obscene, foolish, and coarse humor. This would be the kind of humor that’s, unfortunately, found most often in today’s entertainment. Even movies marketed to kids are full of this sort of garbage humor. Why do you think he says that there shouldn’t be this sort of humor? Isn’t it okay to joke about the ridiculous things people do today? If we are joking about immoral things with fellow believers, then we are making light of sin. Instead of seeing the immorality for what it is, we might become desensitized to it when we laugh about it. I think if tv had existed when Paul was writing this letter, he would have said that we are not to watch shows filled with obscenity and coarse joking. After all, that’s usually how these jokes and ideas live in our head. In our house, we describe this kind of immoral humor as “inappropriate.” We skip most kids’ movies today due to “inappropriate” content. We shouldn’t fill our minds with this way of thinking.

Why is this a big deal? It’s a big deal because all sin starts in our minds. We have to protect our minds from immorality. And Paul tells us why this is so important in verse 5, which says, “For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”

Then, in case we don’t believe that statement, he says it again in verse 6: “Let no one deceive you with empty arguments, for God’s wrath is coming on the disobedient because of these things.” 

This verse might seem difficult to understand. We usually think of God’s wrath as being reserved for unbelievers who never repent and so they incur God’s righteous judgement. It seems counter to God’s love and mercy to read about God’s wrath being directed at believers who are disobedient, doesn’t it? But if we properly understand this word, disobedient, that Paul is using here, then I think it makes sense. The Greek word for disobedient, according to Strong’s Concordance, is apeitheia, and it does mean disobedience. But, according to HELPS Word-studies, it’s little more nuanced than simple disobedience. HELPs says, “apeítheia–properly, someone not persuaded, referring to their willful unbelief, i.e. the refusal to be convinced by God’s voice. This is the core-meaning of the entire word-family: 543 (apeítheia), 544 (apeithéō), 545 (apeithḗs). All these cognates focus on man’s decision to reject God’s offers of faith, i.e. refusal to be persuaded in their heart concerning obeying His will (Word).”

This word apeitheia that Paul uses seems to infer that this person is willfully refusing to obey God. The idea is of someone who is not persuaded. That would suggest unbelief, right? Belief is another word for faith. Without faith, it’s impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). They are not believing in God’s word, for if they did, they would obey it. Therefore, their willful acts of disobedience displease God, and they face God’s wrath.

I wanted to check my line of thinking with someone far more learned than me. Renowned Bible scholar, N.T. Wright doesn’t even go into this being an issue of lack of faith. He takes Paul at face value and says about verses 5-6, “What Paul means, then, is that people who behave in these ways not only won’t inherit the final kingdom; they have no place in the present one either” (Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, p. 6). He also points out, “’God’s wrath’, in fact, isn’t just a punishment waiting for people at the end of the present age. It isn’t an arbitrary thing whereby God makes up some rules to stop people from enjoying themselves and then threatens to get cross with them if they go ahead anyway. God’s wrath is built into creation itself. There are certain ways of behaving which are so out of line with the way God made the world, and humans in particular, that they bring their own nemesis” (ibid, p. 59).

This is why Paul is making such a big deal about warning the Ephesians. He does not want them to fall into this immoral way of living. It will only lead to their ruin. He warns them not to let anyone deceive them into thinking immorality is no big deal. The warning is for us today. We must be on guard that we are not deceived by all the empty words that society throws around today, telling us that sin is okay. Paul says, don’t let them deceive you, but even more than that, because they will try to deceive you, verse 7 says, “Therefore, do not become their partners.”

Don’t be partners with those who would tell you sin is no big deal. They are just deceiving you. And don’t be partners with those who are living in disobedience to God’s ways. Don’t partake in what they are doing. He says in verses 8-10, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light— for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth— testing what is pleasing to the Lord.”

This metaphor of darkness and light is used throughout Scripture. 1 John 1:6-7 says, “If we say, ‘We have fellowship with him,’ and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” If we are children of light, then we will live as children of light. If we walk in darkness and live just like unbelievers do, then we are living a lie. It’s a pretty simple metaphor.

Then Paul says in verses 11-14, “Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret. Everything exposed by the light is made visible, for what makes everything visible is light. Therefore it is said: Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Again, don’t partner with people in sin. Have nothing to do with it. He says not only don’t take part in what they are doing, for even mentioning what they are doing is shameful, but “instead expose them.” The Greek word, according to Strong’s Concordance, is “elegchó” and it means “to expose, convict, reprove.” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines elegcho as, “to convict, refute, confute, generally with a suggestion of the shame of the person convicted.” I thought it was interesting that Thayer used the word shame. I think that gives a pretty clear picture of what Paul is instructing the Ephesians to do. He is telling them if believers are behaving immorally, the other believers must not look the other way and make excuses for them, or worse, participate in the immorality with them, but rather point out their error. They must show them where they are wrong in an attempt that shaming them will bring conviction. Again, I think it’s worth mentioning, that Paul had said in the previous chapter, we are to do this from a place of love. Our goal in exposing someone’s inappropriate behavior is not so they get angry and completely leave the faith. Our motivation should be that the person repents, finds forgiveness from the Lord, and follows Jesus in a way that “pleases the Lord.”

Paul doesn’t explain the specific tactic to take in exposing someone’s sin here in Ephesians, but he does in Galatians 6:1, “Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so that you also won’t be tempted.” Paul says we are to do this ‘gently.’

This echoes the very specific instructions Jesus gave on how to do this. In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus says, “If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. If he doesn’t pay attention to them, tell the church. If he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you.” I think this is why Paul says to do this gently. We are to start out by talking to the fellow Christian privately. We are to talk to them in person. This assumes that we have a relationship with them of some sort. I suppose if a fellow Christian is a public figure and they are promoting sin, we could privately send them a letter or message, but my guess is we won’t make an impact unless we know that person in real life. Jesus doesn’t speak directly to that situation, so this is simply my opinion, but I think if a person is a “public figure” they have opened themselves up to public scrutiny and in that instance, I think it’s ok to communicate to them publicly. Again, this should be done gently and from a place of love, with the intention being to see them repent and be restored. The purpose of exposing them is to bring them into the light so they wake up and see their error. But until they do repent, we should follow Paul’s directive to not partner with them. That means we should have nothing to do with them. If we “follow” them on social media, we should drop them. We shouldn’t buy albums or books if they make them. If we turn a blind eye to fellow Christian’s immorality and continue to support them, it makes us partners with them.

In MacLaren’s commentary on Ephesians, he said, “But let me remind you that the devil has no more cunning way of securing a long lease of life for any evil than getting Christian people and Christian Churches to give it their sanction. If only the whole body of those who profess and call themselves Christians would shake their hands clear of all complicity with such things, they could not last.” I agree. When we Christians participate in or give permission for immorality, impurity and greed, we are partnering with evil and encouraging its spread, which is exactly what Paul says we should not do. We should not partner with darkness. Instead, we must live in the light.

The key to living in the light is what Paul says back in verse 10. Paul tells us to “find out what pleases the Lord.” Before we do anything, what if we always asked the simple question: does this please the Lord?

I’m old enough to remember when WWJD- what would Jesus do? - first became popular. Christian bookstores sold signs and bracelets; people probably wrote books about it. Then those items were ridiculed and relegated to the bargain bin. I wouldn’t want “Does this please the Lord?” to succumb to the same fate, but the sentiments of both are valid. Would things change if we evaluated choices through the lens of “Does this please the Lord?” or WWJD? The key is not just considering if something pleases the Lord or not, but actually acting according to that answer. With WWJD, it became a joke in society. People would say it and laugh and then say, ‘well, Jesus might not do this, but I’m not Jesus, so, oh well.’ I think Paul’s directive to find out what pleases the Lord is so much better. Not just because WWJD is not actually in the Bible, but because we can’t excuse ourselves. This directive speaks to God’s judgement. Is He going to be pleased with us or displeased with us? This idea of God being displeased with us should give us pause if we respect Him and honor Him.

That’s part of the problem though, isn’t it? Do we respect God? Do we have a healthy fear of the Lord? While we should rejoice in the fact that as believers, we can approach the throne of God with boldness because we are adopted into the family of God through faith in Jesus’ redeeming work on the cross, that doesn’t give us license to willfully displease God. While our actions do not earn our salvation, our actions prove our faith. Our actions that displease God could lead to our destruction. If we willfully continue in sin, Paul says we will incur God’s wrath. Hebrews 10:26-27 warns, “For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries.”

I can hear the people who will say, “Yes, but we don’t have to worry about any of this. We are saved by grace, and this is not of our own doing.” Yes, I agree. We are saved by grace, through faith, and if we are saved, then the Holy Spirit will be working inside of us to cause us to be and do for His good pleasure. He will lead us and prompt us to obey Him. But, if we refuse to obey Him, and walk in the way of darkness and participate in immoral behavior, coarse inappropriate talk, behaving improperly, then we are not walking in the light. And if we keep living like the unbelievers do, then we won’t recognize the sin in our lives and we won’t repent. If we don’t repent, there can be no forgiveness.  

We are given freedom in Christ, not to sin, but to be freed from sin. As Galatians 5:1 says, “For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.” That yoke of slavery means being a slave to sin. We have been freed from sin through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Why would we let ourselves become enslaved to sin again? A person’s sinful actions lead to the destruction of their temporal life. Sin ruins relationships. It hurts us and the people around us. It leads to sickness and early death. Sin causes addictions and pain. The list goes on and on. That is why Paul says, “find out what pleases the Lord” and do those things. Act that way. Live in such a way that pleases the Lord. Don’t live in the way of darkness, but live as children of the light.  

But, if we find ourselves in this place of sin, we do have hope. As verse 12 said, we are to wake up, rise from the dead place of sin, and Christ will shine on us. If we repent, and turn away from our sin, He will forgive us and shine His light on us, bringing us from the path of darkness leading to death, back to the path of light that leads to eternal life with Him.

Paul emphasizes again, in the last paragraph, more specific instructions. In verses 15-17, he says, “Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise— making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” He is saying that we must be very careful. In MacLaren’s Commentary, he says about verse 15 that, “Freedom consists in obeying from the heart the restriction of love; and walking punctiliously.” As MacLaren rightly noted, we must strive to meticulously obey God’s commands. We must be intentional and purposeful in the way we live. We must use wisdom to know what things to avoid. Paul says to make the most of every opportunity. That means we are not to waste our days or time on foolish things that displease the Lord.

Then, in verses 18-21, Paul gets specific and says, “And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit: speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.”

Paul starts by telling them not to get drunk. I would add that anything that alters our minds or clouds our judgement is to be avoided. Instead of filling up on wine, we should instead, “be filled by the Spirit” and make music from our heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything. As a musician, I love these instructions. Both wine and music have the potential to gladden our hearts and bring joy, but wine, of course, is easily abused. Instead of drinking, hoping to bring temporary happiness, songs offered to the Lord do far more to bring joy and thanksgiving to our hearts. Also, if our minds are filled with scripture and thoughts about God and how good He is, that will help us keep our minds on Him. If we are keeping Him at the forefront of our minds, we will be less likely to tell inappropriate jokes or use coarse language. Having our minds focused on Jesus will help us be repulsed by sin and to want to avoid its influence. If we are singing songs to the Lord, out loud or in our minds, being led in our thoughts by the Holy Spirit, then those Bible verses and spiritual truths will help us keep on the path of love, as Paul said in the beginning of this chapter.

As Paul also said, we must be very careful how we live because the days are evil. The devil, our flesh, and all of society want to tear our faith down. Now is not the time to become complacent about how we live. We must submit ourselves to God’s ways and walk in the light. Now is the time to proclaim to each other: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” We must heed the Word of God and have no part in the works of darkness, for the sakes of our society, the Church, and our own faith. We must submit our whole selves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and not make idols out of sin.

Next week, we will look at the rest of this topic and learn even more about what it means to be imitators of God, and submit, not only to God, but to one another in the fear of Christ.

Pray: Heavenly Father, we thank You for the love You have shown us through Jesus Christ, Your son. We pray that You would fill us with Your Holy Spirit so we can be led by You. Please fill our hearts and minds with songs and praise to You. Help us keep our thoughts upon You. Help us be imitators of You. Please forgive us when we fail to recognize the things that displease You. Please speak to our hearts and convict us so we can better follow You. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.