Imitating God

A Sermon Preached in St. Columba's on Sunday 20th February 2011 at 7pm Service

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be now and always acceptable in thy sight O Lord our strength and our redeemer.

This evening I would like to look briefly at our Episitle reading, from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians which you have in front of you.

The first word from this portion of the letter is “Therefore” and in college we were always advised to ask of the text when we see this particular word ... what is it there for!

in other words we need to ask what comes before it.

In our case this evening ... it is linking a description of new life in Christ - which has great advice for those who have become new members of the Ephesian Church.

There is just before this passage an imperitive to cast away the old nature, former things and to put on a new person created in God’s Likeness - righteous, holy and true.

Paul does not beat about the bush in this letter - he says in the last two verses of Chapter 4
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words as well as all times of malicious behaviour - instead be kind to won another, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven you.”

We see in this passage in front of us we have to take this prior advice and get on with it

we are called to be imitators of God as beloved Children - I know when I was growing up one of the ways I learnt to do things was by copying my parents and grand parents.

Back in Banbridge, my grandparents had a big vegetable garden and grew all sorts of things - loads of people from our local area came to buy lettuce, beetroot and lots of the other veg in season. In that garden I learnt so much from dealing with people to planting carrots. but a lot of it was learnt by copying what my Grandad and Granny were doing. Using the same words, the same actions.

Children pick up so much from the adults around them, their words, actions and values.

We all are called to be imitators of God

This morning in our Gospel reading we were challenged by the words - Be Perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect - that is a huge ask for any of us. However this evening this is broken down into a little bit of an easier step.

We simply have to imitate God as children imitate their father.

So what does that look like?

A few years ago - there was a fad going around with young people who went to church - they would wear wee bracelets on these was the letters ... WWJD which stood for ... what would Jesus Do? - the idea is that when faced with any circumstance they would ask the question ... what would Jesus do if he found himself in my shoes today.

It is a challenging question to ask ourselves.
Each one of us here this evening will face decisions this week which will challenge us to think about right and wrong

Perhaps simple choices, perhaps life changing choices

We are all called, every single day to decide where we go and what we do, what our attitude is, what our reaction will be.

Should we forgive?, should we make allowances for sombody’s mistake?, should we go where we know that we shouldn’t go? ... what should we do?

We are called to cast off the darkness and instead be people who are open, who are loving, who are imitators of God.

The word Christian began as a derogitory word from the romans which means “Little Christ”

May we by our words and example imitate Christ by all that we think, say and do this coming week.

AMEN