Good morning Mission Grove Church. How are we this morning? All right. Listen, first hour was way better and that should really be disappointing. Okay, how are you doing today? Alright, fair enough. Fair enough. We'll warm up. Okay. Maybe by the end you'll be really actually hollering okay. None of this pity stuff. Uh yeah, my name is Craig Claudia. And what a blessing it is to be a part of mission growth. Thank you so much for uh, trusting in John's leadership and his vision uh, in three years of being open, his his goal was to launch a church in 3-5 years And our paths crossed. And it's been just a huge blessing for me and my family. We're looking at planting in the North Valley right around the I. 17 and through three areas. So if you know anything about that area, it's just Desert right now with about 30 cranes and they're busting through. And they're gonna be moving some property and land. And they're looking at being bringing around 5000 new families, new peoples to that north part. And it's going to totally transform the North Valley. So we live in anthem, which is now going to be connected to all of it. And we're gonna be one big happy family. So we're really looking forward to to being a plant there. And uh thank you so much for your support and your continued prayers for for us. Uh what's so great about planting, uh is that I get to be a part of Mission Grove and see three years what it's gonna look like. And I would be totally thrilled and honored if I had the team that john has and the people that john has? So that's a huge prayer for me. If you Are jotting anything down, please, please pray for us in that aspect, we're gonna kind of just jump right into the series here. We're in Ephesians chapter five today. But before I do that, let's pray and we'll get started. God thank you so much for today. Thank you for all that you're doing in the lives of us and the lives of Mission Grove and and through your leaders that you've called. Thank you so much that we have the opportunity to preach your word. Would you soften our hearts, open our ears and eyes to learn and discover some new truths that you have in store for us today. God, we believe that you are active in living in our lives and that your word is active in living and so would you speak to us today? Ever So clearly we love you and give this moment to you. Amen. Yeah. So right off the bat. Right and john or I did that first service to john right off the bat in Ephesians Chapter five verse one, we're gonna just kinda hit this one topic today because I think it's worth wrestling with for this morning and it says in Ephesians Chapter five verse one be imitators of God as beloved Children be imitators of God as beloved Children. Do you ever find it funny that the bible in the new testament especially describes christians as sheep and as kids. I mean it's awfully humbling as well to know that sheep aren't the brightest animals in the animal kingdom and Children aren't either. We're gonna laugh today because I have four kids. We just celebrated my oldest son's birthday on friday. He's now seven years old. So we have 74 and then we have twins that are two years old. So we're gonna laugh a little bit and I'm gonna make fun of the kids because I can All right, so they're in your face just just start to laugh because it's gonna be fun. Uh so that the question for me is it's funny how we're compared to sheep and Children. But what is so great about Children? No, seriously, what is what is so great about Children? Okay, Family, My own family is yelling at me right now. It was supposed to be a joke. Alright, Yes, kids are amazing. I love their innocence. I love a child's innocence. The Children see a world through a totally different perspective than what we do. We see a world totally broken. We see a world that is shattered, that is out of order and there's lots of chaos. But kids see it with this fresh set and they love everything that goes on around them? The new parks, the jungle gyms, the the new, the pizzerias that, that we go to, it is always the best day in my kids lives and I love that it really inspires me and, and, and I have this longing in Me too desire that same love and innocence that they have another thing that kids have uh this innate ability to imitate everything that you do and everything that you say, they imitate everything that you do and everything that you say. This moment of realization for me was when Camden was first born and in the hospital room as chaos is unfolding because we had an emergency c section that was not planned, obviously it's an emergency and I'm holding my new first boy in this overwhelming sense of being a dad. Hit me, you can read books on it, you can have people lecture you on how it's gonna change your life, but until you actually hold the baby for the first time ever in your arms, you realize this guy is gonna be just like me and then you're like this guy's gonna be just like me, right, you have that wonderful moment followed by that oh no! And uh that that moment hit me right there in the hospital and I and I realized all of a sudden now I am going to be a role model to my child and that he will look to me and he will seek me for direction and guidance and imitate that uh imitation is how Children learn and last week john talked about how a baby learns to walk by by looking around and observing their older siblings running or mom and dad walking and and they get up and they fall and they get up and they fall and they get up and they fall and they finally figure it out on how to walk and they imitate in other different areas of two. They imitate you as you're brushing your teeth in the morning. My kids always like to cram in our bathroom and they like to just stare up and just look at you and they just stare at you with those beady eyes, you know, and you're just brushing your teeth and you're looking down at them with spit coming out and they're just like, so they look for something, anything to get into their mouth so they could brush along with you. And as I'm shaving my face, you know, they want to do that too. And his mom's putting makeup on, they want to do that too. In fact, a very funny story about this is yesterday I come running into the bathroom on hearing my wife going, no! Adeline know addie, what are you doing? And we come in and she has lipstick, just fall all over her face and some power and stuff and she figured out how to get in there and she just wanted to look like mommy, she took those things out and tried to do it and they try to pretend to be parents and so they come into our closet, they take our shoes out there out there, clip, clop, clip, clop in these huge shoes with little feet just because they want to just wear Our shoes and it's adorable and quite frankly it's dangerous because little feet in size 10 shoes, you know that that doesn't go very well when they try to walk in them, Children are a reflection of their parents, Children are a reflection of their parents. Young Children want to grow up to be just like their parents, Jesus had a really special place in his heart when it came to Children and in Mark chapter 10 we see that as they were bringing the Children to him that he might touch them, the disciples rebuked them and when jesus, I he was angry, I'm just gonna say that and said to them, let the Children come to me, do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of God, truly I say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it and he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. What a beautiful picture of jesus at this time in this century and honestly really up until just the latest centuries have we really cared that much about Children, they were just put on this really low, low, low, low order and even here as parents want their kids to meet jesus and be touched by him, the disciples of all people, the disciples block off the parents and say if you're not this high, you can't see jesus totally stopping these families in their tracks and jesus rebukes the disciples, are you kidding me? In fact, because you think you're some adult and mature, I'm going to teach you a quick lesson. If you don't have a heart like this child, if you don't have a heart like a child, you're not going to be able to see the kingdom, you're not gonna be able to enter the kingdom. So it's an honor and a privilege actually to be labeled as a child of God because here's the thing, this is what happens in our world as we grow up. We find that we don't have that much of a need for our parents anymore and we become independent And that's the goal of every parent in this room to get their kids out of the house by 18, right? Independent. But what God sees is the dependency of a child to a mom and dad is how we should be dependent to him. So God doesn't say welcome in young adult, welcome in old man, right? He doesn't say that he says welcome home child and all of us in this room, that's what we share with our brothers and sisters of our father of God, the father and we share in that and it should be a great privilege to be called a child of God. We are his Children and we get to have a relationship with him as our father. So if Children are a reflection of their parents then we as Children are called to imitate our heavenly father. The definition is simple. It's just a person who copies the words and or the behaviors of another. Now some of us haven't had the best parents growing up in our lives to look up to or to imitate some of us. Our lives reflect bad friendships, bad relationships, broken families that leave us all the more broken According to the US Department of Health and Human Services. A child who is abused physically or sexually are more than 50% more likely to be arrested as juveniles And 40% more likely to commit a violent crime. Children who have experienced abuse are more likely to have the Externalizing disorders such as anger, rage, aggression conduct and behavioral problems. Whereas Children who experienced neglect are more likely to have internalizing disorders like depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, poor peer relations. Children copy not only words they hear, but behaviors of another. And so that's the hard line is that there are people in here who have not had the greatest role models to look up to to imitate to follow in their footsteps to do and say everything that they want. And I've been extremely fortunate and blessed to be in a family that did a mom and dad who loved jesus who serves the church and who left us a great example. Enroll model to imitate after. But here's the best part whether I, whether your picture is similar to mine or it's the complete opposite and it was a disaster. We get to rest underneath the king who stepped down off of his throne, entered humanity for a period of time to show us what it looks like to love to be compassionate, to extend mercy and grace, jesus hung out with the lepers, the disease, the prostitutes, the sinners and he ministered to those people to leave us as an example, as a role model to imitate after and he didn't just stop there with the love that he for us, he laid down his life for us, he died so that we can have freedom from sin so that we can live our new life free from the shackles of sin. That's the jesus figure that you and I get to emulate, imitate mirror, reflect and look up towards. And so my heart goes out to those of you who haven't had necessarily the greatest role model because when you tell people, hey just imitate your heavenly father and you're internalizing lee thinking my father was not that great, here's what I offer to you is that we have hope in the same God who loves us unconditionally who extends mercy, forgiveness and grace to all of us. There's no favoritism, there's no right or wrong in God's nature. He is the same constantly through and through. He's the same yesterday today and forever. And so it might take some time in your life to weed out the old stuff to to process that. Mhm. But when you lay yourself down at the feet of jesus, he will embrace you like as if you were his only child. So as christians saved by grace saved into the family of God, we are tasked at imitating our father and pastor john ended if you should chapter four last week. And I just wanted to catch the back half of the end of that chapter. Just so you could see kind of where paul is going in chapter five. This is what Ephesians 4 31 says it says, let all bitterness and wrath, anger and clamor slander be put away from you along with all malice, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in christ forgave you. Therefore, In Chapter 5: verse one, therefore be imitators of God as beloved Children. So we found three examples in the chat in the passage that I was given, which was versus one through 21 in chapter five, we're not going to read through all of it this morning. So I encourage you to do that on your own time. We're gonna find three principles in there on how to imitate God. The first one comes right after verse one. Therefore uh imitate God's beloved Children and walk in love as christ loved us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrificed to God. Walk in love every day. You and I choose to walk. It's a choice we have to make to get up out of bed. We have to move our feet to get to the restroom. We have to move our feet to get dressed. We have to move our feet to get into a car and to get to work. We have to move our feet to exercise our feet, do a lot of things. Our feet don't automatically wake us up, get out of bed and go, we have to choose to walk. You see Biblical love is a choice you choose to love. So you wake up each morning with a brand new choice. Am I going to be grumpy angry, upset or I'm gonna choose Joy and love for today? We have that option every single day to choose to love. So the challenge is is that we walk in love by imitating God's love for us and how we should love others. So he gives us the example, it's written throughout scripture on how to love and then we put those into practice. The bible is super applicable when we read it. There's stuff that we can draw from it and we can put into practice. And the principle that paul is challenging us with is to love. Now love for me is something that a lot of us in here are like, oh love, that's easy. But I think worldly love is two ft deep And I think what God offers in the Bible and what he challenges us to impose letters is 16 ft. It's deep, it's unexplored. The cheap love is easy because you just say I love you man, you don't even know me from nothing, right? It's quick that we can say that word. We see relationships happen very quickly because oh he said he loved me and we can see how there's a shallowness to love. But when we enter the deep end and we understand the richness of God's love that he has for us. We can put that forth in our actions in our lives and impact the world around us. So my question is, how are you loving those around you? Right. Principle one is that we walk in love. That's one way to imitate God. So how are you loving those around you? Number two, it's in Ephesians chapter five verse eight. It's walk in light for one time you were darkness but now you are light in the Lord walk as Children of light. Just the other day I was cleaning up the room and I was going to bed, hit the light 2, 2 steps into my door and I realized I forgot something turn around pitch black room right? And I'm trying to find the light switch. Anyone ever been there? And it gets really weird when you start like going like, like and in your mind you're like it's here, it is here and where, where is it though? Then you realize it's on the other side of the wow, right, So yeah, you hit that and you you think everyone that no one was there to watch that embarrassing thing unfold before you. But all of a sudden you're in a house for five years and you realized there's been never a light switch on this side. It has always been here when you put that light on, what does it do? It gives you clarity to the room and a little bit embarrassment and you find what you're looking for and all of us in here, we've been in a room that all of a sudden when the lights go off, we think where am I? This is a foreign place and you hit things, you're like, what is that? You turned line, it's my bed, right? But like in your head you had you had no idea what that was, You thought all of a sudden someone stole the chair out in front of you when nope, it's just been the bed the whole time when light turns on in darkness it displaces it expels darkness, it gets rid of darkness, there's not like a little corner in your room, that darkness is just kind of hovering there, it's gone, light has displaced it. It's gotten rid of light. And what of darkness and what jesus christ does for you and me is when we embrace the gospel, when we accept them into our lives, that light shines in us, it displaces all the darkness that is in us. It gets rid of all the nastiness it is john has been appreciated through Ephesians. The old self is gone, it's gone. It's displaced the lights on all the darkness is put away. And for some of us in here we're like yeah, but like down here, deep, deep down there's a little pocket and I've held onto it. You know, the only person that fools is yourself because the light is there. You can't harness darkness. The light has displaced it. And so let it go, let it go. We are Children of light. And we are called to walk in light. Don't bring darkness into your life. If you have light shining, why would you welcome darkness in? We have that opportunity to turn off the tv, to close the computer to unplug God has given us the strength the discipline to do that. Let's not invite darkness back in earlier I said about how I love a child's innocence. I loved seeing their their eyes through a whole new world. But the hardest part about being a parent is watching that innocence shatter. Because if you look around and if you turn on the news, you understand that is not all crystal clear and what I love about my son right now is that at the age of seven, he just thinks that everybody loves jesus, he thinks that everybody goes to church. Yeah, we have a pretty heavy influence on that because Brittany and I love jesus everywhere we go, we try our best to exemplify that for him. So we're starting to have conversations with him because we don't want him to live in a bubble, right? As much as I mean as much as we want to write, as much as we want them to to keep that, there's a time where for us where we want to reach into that bubble and show them like, hey, there's Brokenness and there are people who don't love jesus and you should see the look on his face, like what I thought everyone did, why don't they? And great questions right, great questions. Once you see innocence being taken away, it breaks your heart, I love football and I watch it pretty pretty regularly and we have this thing called an antenna which many of you don't know what that is, It picks up signals and then it gives you free tv, which is awesome if you're in the right place, you just gotta hold it right, you gotta lean a little bit, get some foil, It works really well. I know all the tips and tricks and uh the worst thing about it is that there's commercials and my kids don't know what that is. They definitely grew up in, in a world where it's just netflix. And so they're like, what is this, what happened? Is this another show within a show? And it's like, what's commercials and like why? I'm like, Beats me. That's a great question. I still haven't figured that out. But the 21st century is we continue to separate ourselves from from Jesus. The commercials have gotten extremely graphical, very, very graphical. They'll play movie trailers that have commercials that that can just ruin ruin you. And there's definitely been plenty of times where I'm in the kitchen cleaning up or helping get lunch going or whatever and all of a sudden that one commercial comes on and you're like, oh thank goodness my kids aren't here. And then the next commercial comes on and then all of them come in and they're just glued to that and you're like, oh boy, turn your eyes right. And you just see that that innocence just start to be shattered as those things happen in their lives. And as they grow up, they witness it, they see it, they're a part of it. And it just becomes what you and I now have seen, it is just broken. So there's two sides to that. And as we continue to walk in light, we do not welcome the darkness in, we shut it out. And chapter 55 verse 15 is our third point walk in wisdom, so walk in love, walk in light and walk in wisdom, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise you need to watch or look carefully at how you live to be village in and mindful of your behavior to be on the lookout wisdom and understanding about how to continue to, to imitate God and to find areas that need to change in your life in ways that you can continue to better your walk with him. So what is so great about Children? They imitate everything you do and say one of my proudest moments about being a dad is as being a high school pastor and preaching every sunday I got to watch my son who's who, who's seven and he's a lot more with it than my other kids. He would come up on stage at an early age like age three and he would grab the microphone after I was done preaching and he would preach, it was 90% babble, you had no idea what he was saying, you know and not speaking in tongues, it was just regular baby talk alright and every now and then he would sing a song you know, you could hear like jesus loves me through it and I would just sit there and I would just take it all in, here's a little me who wants to be like dad who sees dad in action, who picks up the microphone and who starts just rambling and pacing the stage. Like, dad does. I loved when I got to see him hold our our second born in his arms for the first time. Of course. Like, any parent in here, you surrounded him with a million pillows and bubble wrap and etcetera, because you're like, you can't drop this, We only get one right, don't drop this. And he's like, yeah, I got it. I got it. And there was just a moment that Camden had with Barrett that just ruined me. It wasn't something that we told him, hey, when you look at and, like, fall in love with him. It was like a genuine moment where his eyes met Barrett. And you could just see this love little tiny three year old love for a baby. I love seeing him now as he's really developing emotions and he's starting to understand that when he wrongs people, that it hurts. And there's been times where he talks to us. He's like, yeah, my my heart hurts or I don't feel very good and we try and talk him through it. Like, well, what, why? And and to see that genuine, like, heart of wanting to apologize or he feels bad for wronging someone and I love seeing him be an older brother, 23 siblings. It's a reflection of his parents now. We just a sidebar, we're not perfect. I just gave you some highlights all in between those highlights is a whole lot of, we're trying to figure this out. All right and I'll share those with you in the future. So don't be sitting there like he got it all figured out, write a book, nope, ain't gonna do any of that. All right, in the same way, nothing pleases God more. Then when his Children imitate him inward and indeed in the same way nothing pleases God more than when his Children imitate him inward. And indeed, so when you go out of your way to love your neighbor, when you go out of your way to put a hand on your coworkers shoulders and say, Hey, can I pray for you? Is is there something going on when you go out of your way to go downtown to feed the homeless to serve those who are less fortunate than yourselves to take care of people around you. When you forgive like really forgive like hard, hard things, hard issues in your life that you've held onto because it's, it's mine and to let it go and to forgive when you show and extend mercy and grace to those around you. When you do all of those things, they are acts that reflect and imitate our heavenly father, imitate God by walking in love by walking in light and by walking and wisdom, would you pray with me as I'm praying, the band's gonna come up here and close this out with one last song Father, We thank you Heavenly Father. We thank you that we get to call you dad that we get to call you are father. We do not deserve that. You are holy perfect, pure righteous, spotless. And we or not man, thank you that you love us so much that you came down here to earth to show us how much you really do love us. Greater love is this that you lay down your life for us and you call us your friend? Mm hmm For those of us who have not had that moment. I'm sorry and God is sorry to that we live in a broken world but he offers us something so much better even in the greatest relationships that I have with my family, I am still a broken mess and I am so thankful that at the end of each night I get to turn to God and say I am a screw up and you are good, thank you for getting me through today, helped me to be better tomorrow than I am today. God thank you that you are a heavenly father that you call us to imitate you. What a great challenge that is for many of us in this room to imitate you may we walk in love, we choose to walk, we choose to love. So sometimes it's difficult and sometimes it's tough but God put on our hearts and minds those that you want us to love on how you love us. You call us to walk in light. Thank you for the gift of your holy spirit who illuminates our lives, who rids us of our darkness that is powerful, That is worth it. All right there. But we are like sheep and we go astray and we welcome darkness back in. So God, I pray this morning, maybe someone in this room just needs to work on that to get rid of that darkness, to embrace the light, to let the light come into those doors that we've closed off for a long time to let it be exposed and get out of our lives so that we can better follow you and be a better witness for you. And lastly you call us to walk in wisdom. Give us a heart of understanding God, not everything that this world offers is good, not everything this world offers this good. Give us wisdom to seek out what it is that we should be putting in into our lives. Give us wisdom to love our kids when it's really hard to love. Give us wisdom to know how to act in response to everyday situations. God, but may we do this all in your glorious heavenly name. Amen