Imitate

Generation Church: June 7, 2009

Hebrews 6:12 “We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.”

We are all imitators. I believe this. We all imitate someone else. Whether it is a parent, an older brother or sister, a grandparent, an uncle, aunt, friend, teacher, pastor, movie star, music star, sports hero…you get it. We have plenty of choices, and we have all made the choice.

Who have you imitated in life? Can you actually name them? I can think of a few that I have purposely imitated: my brother, my pastor, my dad, Cal Ripken, and Jesus. I know…quite a list. If I listed everyone that I have imitated it would look pretty silly. I can remember the time I had watched the TV show, “Wonderwoman”…within a few minutes of the show’s finish, I was outside as “Wonderboy” trying to deflect bullets off my wristbands. I loved that show.

Sometimes I imitated other people because I didn’t like myself. I grew up with differing amounts of insecurity. I didn’t like the way I looked. I was too short. I was too stocky. I wore glasses. My voice was too high. And down the line I would go. However, most of my insecurities were there because when I was comparing myself to other people I loved and respected…and instead of imitating what was in their heart, I would be disappointed when I couldn’t imitate their appearance! How silly!

God made each of us unique…we need to embrace our uniqueness and imitate the traits in others that inspire us.

Imitation will only be positive if, as we imitate, we discover ourselves. Take sports for example. When you pursue a sport you enjoy, you want to learn the proper mechanics of the skill you are learning. I grew up loving baseball. I tried to imitate my favorite baseball stars like Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray. Today maybe you would try to imitate Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols. If I tried to swing the same way Cal Ripken did or Eddie Murray did, I would never have been able to hit the ball. They had a unique way that they approached their individual hitting…however in watching their swings I was inspired to find my own swing that made “baseball sense”. In imitating them, I found myself.

In the Bible are some amazing men and women that God wants us to imitate. The Bible clearly tells us to imitate Jesus first and foremost. He is the Son of God…of course we are to imitate Him. There are others as well we can imitate, and hopefully through imitation, discover ourselves. Take Samson…he was listed in the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11. He was an absolute beast of a man! He was ridiculously powerful! He had his shortcomings, that ultimately affected his life expectancy, but if we agree that we aren’t supposed to imitate his failures, how can we imitate Samson?

At one point, Samson literally shreds a lion with his bare hands!

Should we go to a zoo and jump in the lion enclosure?

Samson wreaked havoc on the Philistines by tying 300 foxes together and putting a torch in the knot!

Should we go and trap some foxes?

Samson killed a thousand men with only the jawbone of a donkey!

Should we start looking for donkey jawbones?

What set Samson apart from everyone else? Was it just his hair? That is what he told Delilah to cut…that was the source of his power he told her. Should we all grow our hair really long? Of course not! What set Samson apart is time after time the Bible says that, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson in power. If we want to imitate Samson, we need to spend our imitation on this point. We need the Spirit of the Lord to come on us in power.

Why? So we can beat up people? So we can catch tonight’s dinner with our bare hands?

We need the power of God’s Spirit so we can live our life for God, saying no to sin, and yes to His plan and purpose. In Samson’s day he was fighting against a group of people, the Philistines. Today, we aren’t battling against groups of people, against flesh and blood, we are battling against the Devil and evil powers that are trying to rob the hearts and souls of men.

We need to be God imitators. Look around, read your Bible, find other men and women who were God imitators and imitate them too...their faith, their patience, their endurance, their love, their passion. Go outside and start deflecting some bullets Wonderboy!