Video Transcript: Pondering the Word -- Module 10

That day, that week, and we've been working our way through the book of Ephesians. And recently, we came to the beginning of chapter five, where, Paul, you know, he's been talking about who we are, in Christ, any disease and comes to us and he says, now be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. And I said to them, Well, what does that mean to you a when it says, be imitators of God is dearly loved children. 

And I told him about my little grandson, who, who at one point, was imitating his dad, his dad has all sorts of tools and so on. And my old grandson, he got out his tools, and he started working on something too. And even though his tools were merely toys, and they really weren't accomplishing anything, but he was imitating his dad. And, you know, it just makes your heart feel good to see this little kid doing it. He's imitating what he sees his dad to. 

And the Apostle Paul says to us, now you get that in mind. So now, what I want you to do is be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. 

We've been thinking about chaplaincy, a ministry in which we bring God's holy present into the hurting parts of the world. And God wants us to do like Jesus did. Jesus brought the presence of God to us in our humanity. Jesus is a manual. 

But then we have to ask ourselves so how do we be an imitator of God? What is it that's that we as chaplains can bring to the table? What is it that that God is about that we can then be imitating? so dearly loved children? 

Well, Psalm 146, has a really beautiful section in which it talks about what God does and the kinds of things that God is involved with. And I'd like to read that for you. It says he upholds the cause of the oppressed, and gives food to the hungry. 

The Lord sets prisoners free. The Lord gives sight to the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless, and the widow. But he frustrates the ways of the wicked. So just think of that. This is what God does. He upholds the cause of the oppressed. 

One of the things we've been looking at throughout this, this whole course on chaplaincy has been how so many people in their lives at one time or another, really are oppressed either by grief, by life circumstances, by some the guilt of their sin by something else that's going on around them, and they feel this oppression.

And what God does is he upholds the cause of the oppressed. So you and I as chaplains, we go into that situation, and we lift them up. People who are oppressed, you know what they look like they walk with bowed head, they walk with their shoulders stooped and the book of Psalms, it says that God is the lifter of my head. he is the one who helps me to stand up straight. he is the one who who takes away that oppression, the thing that weighs me down. 

The Lord gives food to the hungry. It is the Lord who has entrusted to us this world that he has made and in this world we can raise food and God is One who gives food to the hungry. 

I was working on a course on early church history and in reading some of the things from from a long long time ago there was a bishop in Alexandria who had written a liturgy for the Lord's Supper. 

And it was fascinating to read this from about the year 300. So it goes way, way back. And in it what what he's doing is giving thanks to God, for the bread and for the wine. And in doing so he includes this, to me a very intriguing line. Father, you are the one who has instructed the earth to give us food. And this into Bishop looked at the world around him there. 

And in Alexandria, he realized that it was God who had given instructions to the earth, that when the seeds are planted, they will grow into plants that produce food. God is the one who gives food to the hungry. And if you and I are going to be imitators of God, you and I also need to find ways of bringing food to the hungry finding ways of clearing out the oppression that keeps food from getting to those who are hungry. 

That's our calling is those who who are bringing the presence of a manual into our world. The Lord sets prisoners free there is wonderful chaplaincy that can be done in prisons. Prisoners can be set free as we noted, last time, when we were talking about the Shawshank Redemption and and how Andy dufrane had played this, this beautiful aria from the marriage of Figaro. 

And all these these prisoners at one moment, felt like they were free, because this resonated with them deep down inside you and I when we when we bring the presence of God into people's lives and prison, we set them free to sing the songs of the redeemed. To sing those songs were there is the Lamb who was slain. We need to be imitators of God. 

The dearly loved children. The psalmist says The Lord gives sight to the blind. When I think of Jesus, I think of the times when he had a person who was blind. 

There was a man sitting on the side of a road once his Jesus went by and he cried out, Jesus of Nazareth, son of David had mercy on me, Jesus of Nazareth, son of David, have mercy on me and and when Jesus had had him brought to stand in front of him, Jesus says, What would you like me to do for you? And he said, Lord, I want to have my sight back. And Jesus touched his eyes, and he could see. 

You and I, you and I, as people who are a manual for others who are sick, it's not just the blind, it's all sorts of other people. The Christian Church throughout its history has been at the forefront of caring for people who are ill, not just the blind for those who have had broken bones, those who have various other diseases, hospitals all around the world, our are built and maintained and staffed by people who are Christians, because they want to, to be imitators of God. 

They want to bring Immanual to those who are sick. They want to be God with us. To them. That's how we be imitators of God is dearly loved children. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, Jesus said, Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you, and learn me for I am gentle, and humble of heart. My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

God wants to take away from us the burden of our guilt. Once you take away from us the burden of our grief over our sin. And through the blood of Jesus, he has lifted us up. All of us were bowed down. All of us were heavy laden with all those things we carried with us. But the Lord lifted us up in the person of Jesus and now God says Be imitators of God as dearly loved children.

Find those who are bowed down with their grief who are bowed down in their pain and their suffering, and come alongside them, lift that burden off them and show them the yoke of Jesus because His burden is light. The Lord loves the righteous. 

Now we might say, well, that's not so hard to do. We can be imitators of God pretty easily there. And yet, so often we find petty little things going on in our lives between us and someone else. And we only love other people for what they can do for us, but God loves us unconditionally. And that's how he wants us to love others to be imitators of our God, our Father. 

The Lord watches over the foreigner all across the face of the earth today, there are people who are refugees from war and from famine. And these foreigners wander the face of the earth with no place to call home. And the Psalmist tells us that they're not just in this by themselves, but the Lord is the one who walks with them as they make their way over the face of the earth, wondering where they're going to go. 

Millions of people today are the foreigners, who don't know what to do with themselves who don't know where to go the church. Those of us who are Christ followers, we can be a manual for the foreigners. Most likely in your community. There are people who've just arrived from somewhere else. How can we be a manual for them? 

As we imitate God, who watches over the foreigner and who sustains the fatherless and the widow. In the Psalmist day, if you were fine if you were an orphan, or you were a widow, you were amongst those who were the outcasts of society. Nobody felt they needed to care for you except God. 

God is the one who sustains those who are fatherless, those who are with us. We can do no less. We can be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. As we care about people we know whose father has died. We have been can care about those whose spouses died. We can come alongside them. So they will experience a manual God with us. And the Lord frustrates the ways of the wicked. That's one thing that chaplains will do. They will make other people really frustrated the widow, the wicked want to put down the widow. 

They want to abuse the fatherless, they want to scorn the foreigner. They despise the righteous they they push down those who already bowed down. They trip up those who are blind, they they want more people in prison, they want to take food away from the hungry. They are those who are the oppressor. But the chaplain comes alongside all of these others and frustrates the ways of the wicked. That's what God is calling us to do. May you in your life today. Make a decision that you are going to be an imitator of God as a dearly loved child. And then go out and be like God, as he's described in Psalm 146. I wish you well