A True Imitation

Isaiah 58:3-12; Ephesians 4:11-20

Rev. Chris Harbin, Rocks Baptist Church—Pamplin, VA

02 October 2005

I have been getting emails about replica Rolex watches. They are designed to impress with a sham of taste, wealth, and status. Regardless of the supposed quality of the imitation, they are not authentic. They are designed for pretense and appearance, not for quality. There are many who display a sham of faith, along the lines of these watches of pretense. There are those who make a show of Christianity, yet fail to do more than bear a false name. What does true faith look like, anyway?

If faith is a relationship of trust and dependence upon Christ, it is also about living in accord with Jesus’ example. Jesus talked about knowing the true believer by the fruit of one’s life. The true believer produces a life and the effects of faith. It’s not about saying the right words, but living according to the manner and character of Christ Jesus.

Isaiah’s message came to a people who were very religious. They participated in the cultic rites and rituals of worship, but their hearts were not in tune with God. They went through the motions of worship. They sacrificed. They even fasted. Despite their actions of worship, their actions did not follow through in giving priority to God’s will. Isaiah proclaims their fasting to be the wrong quality. He claims that their fasting was about manipulating God, rather than aligning their lives with God’s will. They practiced the officially right and good things, but ignored the issues of looking beyond themselves to the needs of others. They focused on self rather than service.

Worship had become a pretense. It was a tradition. Rituals and sacrifice somehow overlooked how God wanted to change the focus of their lives, turning them inside out. Feeding the poor and protecting the powerless had long been headline statements of righteousness. It wasn’t so much the act of feeding the hungry or defending those who had no protection. These were good and important things. The concern runs deeper, however than these specific external actions. God’s concern is with the attitude that propels these actions as a way of life. This is an attitude that places the needs of others ahead of our own. It is an attitude that drives one to seek ways to serve others.

“When you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,” was the hallmark of worship in Isaiah’s words. God steps in to meet our needs when we have given our all in Godly service to others.

Such is the attitude of Christ Jesus as Paul describes it in Philippians chapter two. It is God’s attitude that led not only to the incarnation, but also to the cross. It was the motivation behind the daily actions of Jesus. This is why Jesus healed the sick, taught concerning God’s reign, accepted women on equal footing with men, invited sinners and the marginalized to share his table and company. It is the very message of the Sermon on the Mount.

In Ephesians chapter four, it is this same attitude of Christ Jesus that Paul highlights as the example for the church. More than an example, it is to be the goal of our lives. We are the body of Christ, called, designed, and knit together in order to emulate the attitudes and actions of the Jesus we call Lord. We are not called to be cheap replicas, but to live the very essence and attitude of Christ.

After detailing the gift of the incarnation, Paul reminds us that God indeed gifted the church with the kind of well-rounded leadership that it needs. He is not speaking of the church as an institution in the manner we recognize it today. Paul speaks of the body of believers in Jesus Christ—that full expression of those for whom Christ died. To this body God gave gifts.

First of all, God gave Himself. In the incarnation, God descended from a rightful place and position down into the lowest parts of the earth. God walked among those we would overlook, ignore, or otherwise exclude from our company. Jesus lived among a sinful generation and accepted them in grace—the same grace that we are now to exude.

In granting the immediacy of divine presence, God also gave others to lead in the roles of envoys, preachers, evangelists, and shepherd teachers. God equipped the body to grow and fulfill its calling. Paul states that the purpose of gifting the body was enable its mature into the example of Christ Jesus. This is no small task. It is not an optional accessory to the Christian life, either. It is the whole point.

If we miss the purpose of our calling, have we not missed its very essence? Perhaps we have done the gospel a disservice when we proclaim too emphatically that it is for our own benefit. While the gospel is undoubtedly in our own best interest, its purpose is to distract our focus off ourselves in order that we might give priority to the needs of others. Confidence in God’s care and provision should release us from concern for self in order that we might live out of concern for others.

Our materialistic society does not like that concept. A greed-based economy struggles against the foundational character of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The sacrifice and attitudes displayed in the life of Christ Jesus are a harsh contrast to our normal patterns of living. Our society, economy, media, and business practices equate living to please self as the highest value of all. The gospel claims the opposite. If we are to live in accordance with the design and purpose of Christ Jesus, we must change the basic motivation and attitudes our lives display.

The most refreshing part of my recent disaster relief trip to Slidell was seeing this basic gospel concept in action. As people recognized so poignantly that their lives depended upon God’s grace and mercy, they were drawn to focus on meeting the needs of others rather than their own. Self-absorption gave way to selfless service and the sacrifice of love. Such is life in the Reign of God as Jesus preached it. Such is life under God’s reign as Jesus lived it. Such is the model and example for our own lives—the way of the cross, and nothing less.

When does faith become more than a sham of pretense? When do our lives become more than cheap imitations? When do our lives become more than a collection of routines, traditions, rites, and rituals of religious observance? It is when faith becomes a matter of the heart. It is when the have allowed the inside to be so radically transformed that our actions speak in concert with our words of faith.

This is the maturity of which Paul spoke, taught, and wrote. This is how we learned Christ. This is who we learned Christ Jesus to be. Now it is time to live in accordance with what we have learned. Will we have the courage to allow our faith to be more than a cheap imitation? Will we allow the Christ of the gospel to so change us on the inside that He flows through our actions at will? Will we imitate the One we call Lord in a manner worthy of our calling? Anything else is a sham

—©Copyright 2005 Christopher B. Harbin

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