Ephesians 4:29-5:2 12Th Sunday After Pentecost 08/15/2021 Theme: Be Like Christ!

Ephesians 4:29-5:2 12th Sunday after Pentecost 08/15/2021 Theme: Be like Christ! No one likes to be compared to people. It was not fun when your parents or grandparents did it with your siblings. It was not awesome when your teachers did it with your friends. It was not even okay when your coworkers compared you with previous people. No one likes to be compared, especially if the person that does it seems to be looking down at us. When we hear this morning to be like Christ, we may cringe at this. “How can we compare to the one true perfect God? How can we possibly do that?” We may throw our hands up in the air. That’s impossible God. We simply can’t do it. How can we compare to Jesus? Yet as Christians, we compare ourselves to Christ every time, we say who we are. We are Christians. We are Christians that are like Christ. We are Christians that belong to Christ. We are Christians that show him to the world. Brothers and sisters, as we study these important words this morning, we want to take to heart Paul’s encouragement: Be like Christ. As we heard last week, Christ did not die for us to live how we feel that we should live in this life. “We are not our own, we were bought at a price.” Now, Paul lays out this high and holy calling for us with details over the last chapters. This week shows us the importance of being like Christ. He says, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love.” We are mirrors. We reflect God in our lives. As dear children of God, we want to show that love in our lives, but it sometimes is not perfect. Sometime we shine that light clearly, but other times we are foggy, muddled, or down right broken. When sin destroys the life of love that God has called us for, we can make it worse. When people have sinned against us, it’s easy for us to hold onto that sin. It’s easy for us to cut someone down, when they have sinned against us. It’s all too natural to speak ill of someone. It’s all too easy to hold hatred in our hearts. That’s just the beginning of the problem. When someone sins against us, we can hold on to that sin and let it fester. It festers into malice, hatred and anger. We think that no one will notice the malice that we have there, but people do. They notice by the looks on our face, by the words that we say, and by the snide remarks that roll off our tongues. When we insult anyone, especially our fellow believers, all we really do is stink up the place with the smell of death. That’s the problem: we have been so used to the smell of insults, bitterness, and hatred that we don’t notice it anymore. We have gone nose blind to it. We see it on the programs on TV. It reeks in the Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook newsfeeds. We can even get the whiff of death in the courteous sounding “Bless your hearts.” We have fooled ourselves into thinking its only words, but that malice, that unspoken hatred permeates our words and actions. It stinks to heaven! If people can pick up that pungent stench, just imagine what God can smell. He gets the full perfume of the internal commentary that has run through our head. He senses the unspoken cut downs, insults, and glib remarks in our heads. He can smell from a mile away the times when we hide our evil actions with kind and caring words. He can discern when we truly care and when we are just doing it for show. He is honest with us, brothers and sisters. He tells us exactly what those words and thoughts do. They grieve him. They insult him. When we insult, cut down, and belittle a fellow Christian, we are insulting, belittling, and cutting down the Holy Spirit. When we call a fellow Christian “stupid,” “foolish” or any other insulting term, we are calling the Holy Spirit that word, too. It doesn’t matter what that person has done to us. It doesn’t matter. If we insult any Christian, we insult the Holy Spirit. That was his choice. He worked saving faith in that heart. He saved them and made them holy. He sealed them to the day when Jesus returns. How could we do that to our God and think that we will live! All we do is reek of death. Just like the muck from the barn, like the compost pile, all he will do is throw us out and burn us up on the day of redemption. That’s why we need Christ to be that fragrant offering for us. He loved us so much we wanted to cleanse us from our sins. He loved us so much he became a fragrant offering. Was he fragrant! He took up the stench of our sins and carried them to the hill of Calvary. He became the fragrant offering, carrying all of our sins. Yet, while he carried our stench of death, God called it a pleasing aroma. Christ carried each and every one of our sins, so that we could be lovely aroma of God. What lovely aroma we are, when we are not only reminded about the forgiveness of sins, but we remind others of the forgiveness that God has given us. When we burn up the malice that we have, when we get rid of the anger and resentment, when we place at the fragrant offering of the cross, then we get to speak words of peace and comfort. They permeate throughout our congregation. When we forgive each other like Christ has forgiven us, then we get to build each other up, not cut them down. When we have compassion on those in need, then we permeate that love of Christ in our community as well. Children of God, yes, God compares us to Christ. He wants us to be like Christ. This is how he says it. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” The word that Paul chose to start this chain is the word “kind.” It is very close to the word for Christ. Justin the Martyr, the early Christian writer noticed this, too. He said in not so many words that Christ was the Kind leader; we get to be the kind followers. We are kind, compassionate, and forgiving, not “kind of like” Christ was, but just as Christ was. That’s why we carry the name of Christ wherever we go. What a high and holy calling that God would remove the stench of death and give us the forgiving, sweet-smelling perfume of redemption. Children of God, what a high calling that we have. We get to be like Christ. We get to be the fragrance of Christ. We may be the only contact that people have with Christ. With the forgiveness that he has won for us, with the kindness and compassion that he has placed in our hearts, we will show that love in our actions and in our words. We will use our words to build each other up in that forgiveness that God has given us. We will permeate the love of Christ throughout our lives, our church, our school, our community and our world. To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen. .

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