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Sermon preached on Ephesians 5:1-2 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 05/31/2026 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
Today’s verses confront us with the love God has shown us in Jesus Christ. In response, we are called to show such love to others. Our passage begins, with the word “therefore’. That connects us with last chapter which described our new life in Christ, and especially the forgiveness of sins that we have in Jesus. In other words, chapter 4 spoke about the love we’ve come to know from God in Christ. Therefore, we are to look to imitate God by walking in such love.
If you’ve already heard me mention the word “love” several times, it is because today’s two verses speak in such terms. You will notice three forms of the word “love” in these two verses. They all come from the Greek root word of agape. I will structure our sermon today around those three occurrences of love. First, we’ll consider how we are beloved children. Second, we’ll consider how Christ loved us. Third, we’ll consider how we are to walk in love. It would be tempting to just quickly read past these two verses but let us appreciate this theme of love. May we be encouraged by how much God loves us. And may we be spurred on in love for others.
Let’s begin then by considering how we are beloved children. Verse 1 says, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” This verse assumes our adoption. Every born-again Christian has been adopted by God into his heavenly family. Paul already taught us this back in chapter 1, verse 5, that God “predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.” In the same vein, chapter 1 went on to describe the divine inheritance we now have as sons of God. Likewise, chapter 2, verse 19 said that we Christians have now become members of God’s household. God is now our Father, and we have access to him by the Holy Spirit, chapter 2, verse 18.
Let us appreciate why God adopted us. According to verse 1, it is because God loved us. That’s what it means when it says we are beloved children. This is also the reason given in chapter 1 (vs 4) for why God predestined us to adoption, that it was done “in love”. Remember how chapter 2 further developed that, saying, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ; by grace you have been saved.” So, God’s love for us was the basis for his adoption of us. And yet, we might ask, “Why did God love us?” That, we are not told. Romans 9:13 recounts how God said, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I hated.” Romans there makes the point that this was a matter of divine election, that this love was not rooted in anything Jacob did to warrant God showing mercy to him over Esau. That chapter in Romans goes on to apply that to all Christians. If we belong to Christ, then that confirms God has in love chosen to save us even before we were born. Let me make this very clear, that Ephesians teaches that God’s love for us is not because there was something loveable in us. Ephesians 2:3 says that before we were born again, we were by nature children of wrath. In other words, what we were inherently should have caused God to hate us. But yet, from before the beginning, God already set his love on us. Just pause and take in the love of God. How wonderful that the God of all the world loves you personally. Thank you, Lord!
Let us then appreciate what verse 1 has in mind when it commands us to be “imitators of God.” It means we are to love others just as God has loved us. It also means we are to forgive others, just as God has forgiven us. That’s why verse 1 connects imitating God with the fact that we are beloved and then verse 2 goes on to further speak in terms of love. God has shown us love, so we are to mimic that love. This idea of imitation further proves that adoption is in view here. For this is what children commonly do, they imitate their parents. Indeed, wise parenting tries to model how to live for their children, and teaches their children to follow their example. God here, as our heavenly father, tells us the same thing. We are to see how God has loved us and look to so love others.
Now, stepping back, we’ve seen that God loved us from eternity. Yet we’ve also noted that before we were saved, we were by nature children of wrath. In other words, we were not God’s adopted children from before eternity. Rather, we were alienated from God, because our sin. Despite his love for us, we could not be his adopted children until our problem of sin was dealt with. John 3:16 summarizes what God then did. “For God so love the world, that he gave us only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
That leads us to our second point, to consider how Christ has loved us. God’s love for us resulted in his sending Christ to us to save us. Christ, in turned, love us. As verse 2 explains, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” God showed his love for us in sending Jesus. Jesus showed his love for us in dying for us.
We refer to Jesus’ death on the cross for as a substitutionary atonement. This verse teaches this. We see the idea that Jesus was our substitute when it says that Jesus gave himself up for us. You see, if Jesus had not suffered and died in our place, we would still be in our sin. He took the punishment for us, and put away our guilt. This was ultimately Jesus’ gift to us, since it says that he “gave himself for us.” Again, it was Christ’s love that motivated that gift. Thus, Jesus was our substitute when he died on the cross for us, showing his love.
As for the idea of atonement, that is described by this language of Jesus being a sacrifice and offering. We can think back to the Old Testament and all the different kinds of offerings and sacrifices there were under the old covenant. The book of Leviticus especially describes these. Now the word here in verse 2 for offering is the broad term that could be used to describe any gift brought to God as an act of worship. The emphasis on that word is on the giving. While many offerings under the old covenant were required by God, they were not to be treated like something exacted by force or as a tax. Yes, sometimes people give to God like that, but that’s not supposed to be our attitude. We are supposed to give from a heart of genuine worship. Because, again, look to Jesus. Jesus freely gave himself to God as an offering in our place.
So then, the word for sacrifice in verse 2 further explains this offering. The word for sacrifice is the language to describe something that involves death. In the Old Testament, the sacrifices involved the shedding of the blood of an animal to make atonement for the forgiveness of sin. The guilt of our sin is covered by the blood of sacrifice by paying the penalty of death in the place of the person offering the sacrifice. Hebrews, makes the point that no sacrificed animal could truly atone for a humans’ many sins. Yet, Hebrews describes how the perfect Jesus, the Son of God, was able to make perfect and complete atonement for all the sins of God’s elect. Hebrews so emphasizes this, that it says in 10:14 that Christ only had to make a single sacrifice in order to accomplish this. That is why when we take communion, it is not in any way a re-sacrificing of Christ. Instead, we remember the once for all sacrifice of Christ on the cross. His once offering up of himself was sufficient to atone for our sin in our place.
The efficacy of Jesus’ sacrifice for us is further explained in verse 2 when it speaks of this being a fragrant offering, specifically as an offering to God. This language recalls what we find described in the Old Testament for the burnt offerings. For example, Leviticus 1:9, describes the burnt offering as “a pleasing aroma to the LORD.” Imagine, when you go outside and smell someone BBQing something tasty, that’s something of the pleasing aroma. It pleases us to smell such a good aroma. Well, this says that Christ’s sacrifice pleased God. This is in contrast to our sin which was a horrible stench before the LORD. This description confirms that Christ’s sacrifice was acceptable to God. That is how we can confident of its efficacy. God received Christ’s sacrifice for us, and it pleased the LORD.
Thus, Christ’s substitutionary atonement put away God’s wrath from us. It reconciled us to God, making peace. We received this atonement when we first believed in Jesus. We were justified by God and also adopted into his family. Jesus’ sacrifice dealt with our sin so that we could be both forgiven and adopted. These two benefits are immediately in view here. Verse 1 implied our adoption. And the verse before that, 4:32 had just mentioned the forgiven of sins we have in Jesus. Verse 2 wants you to understand that this was all an expression of Christ’s love for us.
Let us now turn to our third point and use our first two points to drive home this third point. Our third point is to consider this command to walk in love. Our heavenly father has loved us, so we are to mimic his love. We mimic that love by looking to walk in love. Verse 2 explains what walking in such love should look like, it should look like how Christ has loved us.
So, let us consider how Christ’s love serves as a model for our love. First, Christ’s love for us is undeserved loved. As I mentioned, the word being used here is agape in the Greek. Agape love has a more unconditional sense to it. This is different than the Greek word phileo which is more of a brotherly or friendship love. While phileo love can carry a more emotional sense of fondness, the agape love is about where you choose and will to love someone. So then, God calls us to love our neighbor, and especially our fellow saints, with this agape love. This means we are to love them like this whether or not they deserve our love. God loved us from before we were born. Jesus loved us unto death, before we became his disciple. The love God has shown us in Christ has been unconditional. Let us so love others. When we seek to love others in such an undeserved way, it imitates our Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. It confirms that we are indeed children born of God.
A second way Christ’s love informs our love is that Christ’s love is sacrificial. He sacrificed his life to save us. If we will truly love others like this, it will involve sacrifice. Sacrificial love is when you have to give up something in expressing love to the person. Ephesians teaches about such sacrificial love in various places. Think with me of some of the expressions of this sacrificial love that we see in Ephesians.
One expression of sacrificial love is forgiveness. Remember Ephesians 4:32. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” It’s a sacrifice to forgive someone who sinned against us. Instead of harboring anger and resentment towards them, you will strive to be kind and tenderhearted toward them, despite how they treated you. If you have ever had to forgive someone who sinned against you, then you already know firsthand that this a sacrifice. You have to give up something when you bear the cost of their offense against you.
Another expression of sacrificial love can be seen in our speech. Remember Ephesians 4:29, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” It’s love when you take the time to speak words of grace to others, words that build them up. In order to be able to speak such words, you have to first spend some real time listening to the person and learning about their needs. Only then, can you actually speak the words they need. Such sacrificial love gives up the time to invest in the other person and encourage them with spoken words of grace.
Another expression of sacrificial love is in the giving of gifts. Remember Ephesians 4:28, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” People around us may have physical and material needs. When you work hard and earn money and then give some of that to someone else, that involves sacrifice. Now, while any gift is technically a sacrifice, let us consider the phrase “sacrificial giving”. When people talk about sacrificial giving, they are talking about giving in such a way that means you will have to make some sacrifices in order to give. Maybe you were going to go out to dinner and a movie and saw a brother in need and so you gave to them instead of going out that night. That is literal sacrificial giving. Let us remember that our passage today says we are supposed to love like Christ loved us. That surely calls us to true sacrificial giving.
So then, I’ve helped us to think about how we are to love like Christ loved us. His love for us was both undeserved and sacrificial. Let us so charitably love people. I gave you example of forgiveness, speech, and giving, but those are just a few of the recent examples we just read in Ephesians. Let us meditate further on what it looks like to love in this way.
But let me further add to this exhortation by point to the word “walk”. We are to walk in love. This doesn’t say that we should occasionally act in such love, as if it’s just to be something we do from time to time in isolated expressions of love. No, the language of “walk” here describes something that should characterize how we live our life in general. We are to be regularly walking in a pattern of love for our neighbor, especially for our fellow Christians.
Trinity Presbyterian Church, today’s verses are essentially to say that we should love others because God has first loved us. May the love of God indeed spur us on toward such love. Brothers and sisters, I do pray that we will all respond with renewed effort at walking in love for others.
Now while the context of today’s passage is calling us to love others, I do hope that today’s message will especially stir in your hearts a greater love for God. God has loved you so much, even when you weren’t loveable. May you love him all the more! Jesus has loved you so much, and sacrificed so much for you, even when you didn’t deserve it. May you love your Savior all the more! And so even though today’s passage is calling us to love other humans, it confronts us with how much God has loved us. How can that not grow us to love God more?
Indeed, this is so important for living out the application today. Loving other humans can be difficult. We will struggle to do it the way we should. We won’t always love people the way God would want us to love them. And surely, we ourselves won’t always be easy to love. We can struggle to love others and to be loveable. Yet, God has so loved us. May his love increase your love for him. As you abide in God’s love and God’s love abides in you, then you will find yourself growing in your love for others.
Today’s passage is a wonderful reminder that God is love. As his beloved children, he is growing us in his love. Praise be to our beloved God!
Amen.
Copyright © 2025 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
