Discipleship Through Imitation

As I prepared the June Pastor’s Corner, I discovered an illustration relevant to the topic of discipleship. Tony Evans shared the following illustration:

Many people after our services on Sunday line up to get a CD of the message. When I speak on Sunday mornings, the messages are taped and made immediately available for purchase when the service is over. People each week line up to get the CD. What they get is a copy of the master. There is a master CD that holds the original recording; then there are the copies that are made available to people who want to listen to the sermon again or share it with someone else. All that people can purchase are the replicas. The replicas of the master sound like the master, look like the master, and feel like the master, but they are not the master. However, they are so much like the master, it’s as good as having the master itself.

Jesus is the Master, but what He wants to do is copy Himself onto His followers, so that when people see you or me, they are getting a recording of the Master, as we are committed to following our Master who has all authority. This is the essence of discipleship.

In Ephesians 5:1-7, Paul focused on discipleship as he taught the church in Ephesus that they were born again in Christ to become like God. Paul said that believers are to “be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph. 5:1, NASB). Instead of surrendering one’s life to the world’s pattern, every believer should surrender their life to a divine paradigm (example) that is an absolute standard for Christian living. To live by an unchanging standard, believers must mimic their heavenly Father. Why? In the natural world, children may inherit some  innate characteristics of their parents, so they act like or mimic their parents. Paul encourages God’s children to imitate, mimic, act like, and resemble their heavenly Father. 

Someone may ask, “How can we imitate God when we cannot see God?” In his response to Gnostic teachings, John provided an excellent response to this question when he said, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:18, NASB). The New Living Translation reads, “No one has ever seen God. But the one and only Son is himself God and is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us” (John 1:18). Jesus has revealed everything that we should imitate about God. In the Old Testament, people experienced God in the form of manifestations or signs  (Ex. 24:9-11). However, Jesus is the fullest expression and explanation of God to the extent that we can look to Christ if we want to know God (John 14:8-11; Col. 1:15-20). The Son has an intimate relationship with the Father that allows Him to perfectly reveal God’s image so that no one would have any excuse for not developing a personal relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6). In Ephesians 5:2-7, Paul offered at least three identifiers for those who make imitating God, through a relationship with Christ, their priority.

We Demonstrate Christian-Character

For Paul, those who imitate God for spiritual development through discipleship must obey the command to “walk in love” (Eph. 5:2a). When God’s children walk in love, they live by following Christ’s example of love. To follow Christ’s example of love, one must demonstrate the kind of love that gives sacrificially. We know that Christ loved sacrificially because He “gave Himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2b). Christ’s sacrificial offering pleased the Father (Eph. 5:2c, “fragrant aroma”). Whenever we follow Christ’s display of the Father’s character, we will display a life that pleases our heavenly Father.  

We Depart From Corrupt-Conduct

Paul contrasted a life of imitating God against a life of imitating corrupt conduct that is indicative of the world. Thus, Paul challenges all God’s children to have no association with ungodly conduct in the form of “immorality or any impurity or greed” (Eph. 5:3). As saints, those who imitate God must obey the command to be “holy…in all [their] behavior” (1 Pet. 1:15b). For those who practice a lifestyle of righteousness, they will break free from ungodly conduct as well as ungodly conversation. Paul identified ungodly conversation as “filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting” (Eph. 5:4), which should never be indicative of God’s children. Instead, those who live a Christ-like life should choose a life of thanksgiving (Eph. 5:4). Paul knew that believers could not fill their mouths with thanksgiving and ungodly conversation at the same time and resemble Christ’s character. Furthermore, ungodly conduct and conversation is not the lifestyle and language of God’s children; it is the lifestyle and language of a person who has found a substitute for God (Eph. 5:5). Every believer must never forget that children of the King display kingdom conduct versus worldly conduct.  

We Depart From Conning-Conversation

Paul knew the danger of worldly influence. Thus, he challenges all believers to be aware of those who try to convince them that ungodly living and ungodly language is permissible (Eph. 5:6a). One of the things that can severely damage a churches dedication to Christ-like living and one’s display of Christian character are people in the church who con and deceive God’s children into believing that His children should lower God’s standards and incur His displeasure and punishment (Eph. 5:6b). To ensure that one does not disobey God’s Word by lowering His standards, believers should never listen to and allow deceptive people to move them from alignment with God’s will to a position where they will receive His punishment in the present and in the future. The goal for every believers should be to imitate God through one’s everlasting relationship with Christ and spiritual development that lasts a lifetime.