Video Transcript: Being Like Jesus

This is lecture five of the practical ministry kills. Sometimes practical ministry  kills. That's not what I intended to say. This is lecture five of the practical ministry skills course being like Jesus. This covers the first part of chapter three of  pastoring the nuts and bolts, excuse me, our key verse is, imitate God.  Therefore in everything you do because you are his dear children, imitate God.  Therefore, and I once had a professor that told us, when you see, when you're  reading the Bible and you see a therefore you should look to see what it's there  for. So in other words, therefore means, in light of what we have just been  talking about. So go back and look in chapter 4, excuse me about the things that Paul is saying there, and those will lead up and give his reasons for saying why  we should imitate God. Imitate God. Therefore in everything you do, my  goodness, everything, God doesn't do everything I do. How can I imitate God in  everything I do? Well, I can't do everything God does. God doesn't do everything I do. So it's obviously not talking about physical actions, but attitude. And as we  go on, we'll we'll see that have the attitude do things the way God would do  them if he was doing those things. Be like God as much as you can, because  you are his dear children. Children try to be like their dad. Children, have you  ever watched a child, a young boy especially, I should say, they like to be their  parent like their parents. Little girls tend to like to be try to be like mommy. Little  boys tend to try to be like daddy. God created us in His image, male and female. So both men and women have things about God. We can imitate ways. Excuse  me, we ways. We can imitate God in all the things we do, because we are his  dear children. We have been adopted into the family, and as we said, the  second purpose of the church is to raise up children for God to be like their  father. So what does it mean to be like God? Being like God means being like  Jesus, because the Bible tells us, especially in Colossians, but in other places  that Jesus is how we see God. Jesus shows us God. Jesus is the demonstration of God. If you want to know what God's like, look at Jesus so you could say, if  we're going to want to imitate God and want to know how to do that, we look at  Jesus first, because Jesus is God, or from another viewpoint, because Jesus is  the big brother, the firstborn in the family. And so we look up to him to find out  how God wants us to be. Being like God means being like Jesus. The real  measure of a church is not how big it is or how famous the pastor is. Lots of  people say, Oh, that's that's a great church, because look how big it is. Look  how many people they have coming Sunday morning. Look how many additions they had to put on the building. Look how many services they had to add. Look  how much money they take in. That's not the real measure of a church. The real  measure of a church is not how big it is, or how famous the pastor is? Oh, that  must be some church, because I read that Pastor wrote six books, or that pastor has a TV show. Well, that pastor was invited by the President to do something.  No, the real measure of a church is not how big. It is, or how famous the pastor  is, here's the real measure of a church. How much are the people that go to that 

church like Jesus? How much are the people like Jesus? A church is succeeding when the people are becoming like Jesus. If a church is getting bigger, but its  people are not becoming more like Jesus, that church isn't growing, it's just  swelling like an injured thing, like a sore, like pus. I don't know, I don't I don't  want to go into that stuff. Probably shouldn't have said that the real measure of a church is how much the people are becoming like Jesus. And if the people are  not growing, the church is not growing. It's just it's inflating. So how can we  become like Jesus? Somebody says, Wait a minute, we've just been talking  about how Jesus is God. How can I imitate God? How can I become like God?  Well, because Jesus became like us. He didn't just become like us. He became  one of us. You see, Jesus did what he did on Earth, during his ministry, during  his time here, not because He was God. Jesus did what he did through the  power of the Holy Spirit. And you need to understand this. You have to get this  down in your heart, and you need to get this down in the hearts of the people  that you work with the people you minister to and with Jesus did what he did  through the power of the Holy Spirit. And the Bible tells us you must have the  same attitude that Jesus Christ had. And then he goes on and explains that  though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling  to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges, he took the humble position of a  slave and was born as a human being. You must have the same attitude that  Christ, Jesus had. That's how we are to be like Him, to have the same attitude.  When you say a child is just like their parent, sometimes you're talking about  what they look like, physical characteristics, but most of the time you're talking  about personality and attitude and that kind of thing, and that's what we're  talking about when we need to learn to imitate God, imitate Jesus, and help our  people learn that you must have The same attitude that Christ Jesus had. So  what attitude did Jesus have? And it's interesting, Paul writes Christ Jesus. He  emphasizes that this is the Messiah, God, Jesus. We're talking about not just  the human born of Mary, although he was born of a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit, not just a human, but he was fully human. You must have the same  attitude that Christ, Jesus had, though he was God. That's a given. He did not  think of equality of God, equality with God as something to cling to. He didn't  say, I'm God, and I'm up here on this throne, and I have, I have all these powers  and everything, and I'm going to hang on to that. And nobody's taking that away  from me. He didn't say that. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges, for love of  you and me. He gave up His divine privileges. Now that doesn't say he gave up  his divinity, but he gave up the privileges, and instead, he took the humble  position of a slave and was born as a human being. He emptied Himself. Is the  literal Greek. He emptied himself of all this, the power and the glory and all of  the that kind of stuff, and became a human being, one of us. So then, how did  he do his miracles? How did he do the things that he did? Well, it's interesting, if  you look, he didn't do any of them for the first 30 years of his life. He didn't do 

any of them until after he was baptized? And do you remember what happened  when he was baptized? He came up out of the water, and the Holy Spirit came  on him, like a dove. The Holy Spirit of God came down upon Jesus, came into  Jesus. Luke describes that this way, God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the  Holy Spirit and with power. Power comes with the Holy Spirit. Then Jesus went  around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God  was with Him. God sent His Son Jesus to become one of us, if he was truly  going to be one of us, he was not going to be going around doing miracles on  his own power, because we can't do that. None of us can do miracles on our  own steam. Miracles are a supernatural thing. They're a God thing. And so it  wasn't until God, the Holy Spirit, came on Jesus, that he was able to do that  healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Jesus didn't  do his miracles during his time on earth because He was God. He did his  miracles because he had emptied himself of all of that God's stuff. But he took in the Holy Spirit and allowed the Holy Spirit to fill him back up with that God stuff.  The Holy Spirit remember is the third person in the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is  God. And the point is, every Christian has the same Holy Spirit Jesus had. Every Christian. How many Holy Spirits are there? There's only one. There's the Holy  Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity. And third doesn't necessarily mean  in hierarchical order or importance or anything like that. It's just we normally  name them Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit.  That's what makes you a Christian. When you become a Christian, when you  believe your we've said this before. Your broken spirit is born again, made new,  regenerated, and the Holy Spirit of God comes to live in. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit, and there's only one Holy Spirit. So it means every Christian has the  same Holy Spirit Jesus had. So that means every Christian has the same power Jesus had to be like Jesus to do the things Jesus did, to to have the attitude that Jesus had. Now we need to learn and grow into it, because we have all that sin  stuff that Jesus didn't have to deal with. But it's there. The potential is there.  Peter says, God has given already given us everything needed for life and  godliness. That primarily means the Holy Spirit. So we're going to be like Jesus.  We have the Holy Spirit to empower us to be like Jesus. What does it mean?  What was Jesus like? When I think about Jesus, I think about four things. Four  things come into my mind first, first thing I think about Jesus is his character.  Jesus loved people. He embodied love. Jesus was gentle. Jesus was strong.  Jesus spoke the truth. Jesus had compassion. Jesus had mercy. Jesus had in  all of these things, Jesus demonstrated love and joy and peace and patience  and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self control.  Jesus demonstrated all of those things. And you probably recognize that list  because Paul says in Galatians, that is the list of the fruits or the characteristics  of the Holy Spirit. This is the kind of character that the Holy Spirit produces. So  Jesus had spirit filled character. And if we're going to be like Jesus, we need to 

allow the Holy Spirit to develop that character within us as well, to develop that  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self  control. Now, one of the first things I was told when I really gave my life to the  Lord was that the fruits of the Spirit are fruits. They grow just naturally as a result of being attached to the tree and getting the sap from the tree and all of that. An  apple tree doesn't say, I'm gonna make apples. I'm gonna grit my teeth and I'm  gonna try real hard in by sheer willpower, I'm gonna grow apples. No, it just, it  just grows apples because it's that's its nature. My wife just bought a really  interesting tree. It's called a fruit cocktail tree, and it's a tree stem, and they've  grafted branches from several different kinds of compatible fruits on it, peaches,  nectarines, apricots, plums, all growing on this one tree. And so it doesn't have  to try, but just by the nature of being that tree, the fruits are going to grow on it  over time, as long as the branches stay attached. And that may remind you of  John 15, where Jesus said, I am the vine. You are the branches. If you abide in  me, stay attached to me, let the sap flow back and forth from you to me, then  you will bear fruit. The more we abide in Jesus, the more we allow the Holy  Spirit sap to flow back and forth in us, between us and God, among around us,  then that fruit will develop love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,  faithfulness, gentleness, self control we'll be just like Jesus now. It doesn't  always. It's not automatic. You know, we have to stop the bad habits and allow it  to happen. I don't know if you can read that the pastor saying, and until next  time, until next Sunday, remember, God loves you. I love you. And brother Al  here is working on it. Sometimes we have to work on it. There's some of these  fruits that we have to work on, more than others with you. It may be patience, it  may be self control. It may be joy, the first characteristic of Jesus. What Jesus  was like is what I call spirit filled character. The next thing I think about Jesus,  and maybe I don't think about these in the same order, a lot of other people think about them, but I think of his wisdom. Jesus always knew the right thing to do.  He always knew the right thing to say. Think about when, when they tried to trap  Jesus with that question about, should we pay taxes or not? Remember, this  was an occupied country. Their pack taxes went to pay the soldiers that were  oppressing them. And so the religious leaders and the people and everybody  would fully expect him to say, no, don't pay taxes. Let's have a revolution. Let's  kick them out of here. That's that's what they were expecting. From the Messiah, from God's deliverance. But on the other hand, if Jesus said that, the religious  leaders knew that he would be arrested, thrown in jail, maybe executed for  sedition. So the religious leaders thought they had Jesus trapped. If he said,  Yes, pay taxes, the Romans would be happy, but the people would not. If he  said, No, don't pay taxes. The people would be happy, but the Romans would  not what did Jesus say? Wisdom. He said, Give me a coin. Let me see one of  the coins he used to pay the taxes. Whose picture is that on there? Well, it's  Caesar's picture. Okay, Caesar's picture's on there. That must be his Give. Give 

to Caesar. What belongs to Caesar? Give to God. What belongs to God? Your  Worship, your devotion, your heart, your life. Wisdom. Jesus always knew what  to do. He was always led by the Holy Spirit. Jesus had spirit led wisdom. And we need to develop that. We need to learn, as I've mentioned before, and there are  some of these things that I'm just going to keep coming back to over and over  again, and this is one of them, learning and teaching our people to be led by the  Spirit of God, to hear God, to discern God's guidance. Different ways of saying  the same thing, figure out what God's up to and get on board. Now. Next thing I  think about, when I think about, What was Jesus like? Probably what with a lot  of people, the first thing they think of, and that is miracles, healings, miracles,  walking on water, calming the sea, rising from the dead, raising other people  from the dead. I call those spirit powered actions, because again, Jesus had  emptied himself of all the rights and privileges and powers of being God. He left  that behind in heaven when He came to earth and he wasn't able to do or didn't  do. There's no record of him doing in any reliable gospel source, of doing any  miracles or anything like that, until the Holy Spirit came on Him at His baptism.  And it's fascinating a couple of verses, one right toward the beginning of Mark,  where it says he visited his hometown and he was not able to do many miracles  there because of their unbelief. He didn't just have the power to force it. That's a  whole different kind of a lesson you can learn from them. But Luke, in another  place says that when he was visiting someplace else, he healed everyone that  came, because the Holy Spirit was with him. Because the power of the Holy  Spirit was with him. In the passage we saw in Acts, he went around doing good.  God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, and then he went around  doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for the Lord was  with him. Spirit powered actions. And again, somebody says, Wait a minute,  you're saying we're supposed to go out and out and heal people. Well, isn't that  what Jesus told the apostles to do? He said, Go out and heal people, cast out  demons, raise the dead. And then in the Great Commission, he said, I'm going  to my father, but all power has been given to me, and therefore go into the world and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you, and I'm with you till the end of the age now, teaching them to obey what I've commanded you. In other words, teach them to do the stuff I taught you to do.  And what's the stuff again, preach, heal, cast out demons. In John 14:12, Jesus  said, You guys and girls, ladies gentlemen, you all are going to do the same stuff I did. And even more, because I'm going to the Father, meaning, and so now I  can send the Holy Spirit down, and he'll be spread out around all of you.  Instead, he just concentrated in me. So there'll be more of you with more  opportunity to spread and let God use the power of the Holy Spirit through you  to do even more and better. Stuff than I did. That's you, because Peter said on  the day of Pentecost, the promises for you talking to those who are listening to  him and your children and all who are going to believe down through the ages, 

that's us. So learn to believe that, if you don't know about this stuff, find  somebody who does hang around them, find out what they're doing. Learn  about this stuff. I understand that there are some schools of theological thought  that believe all of that stuff stopped, but I think that's basically by circular  reasoning. Well, I don't believe in miracles. Why? Because you never hear  about them in the newspaper. If there was a real miracle, it would be in the  newspaper. Well, what about these reports that are in the newspaper about  miracles. Oh, I don't believe them. They're made up. How do you know cause  miracles don't happen? Circular reasoning. So find out spirit powered actions.  And the last thing I think about with Jesus is it didn't stop with him. He passed it  on. He told His apostles again, His followers, his disciples. He said, Go out,  make disciples. Make followers for me, of everybody everywhere, all kinds of  people groups, and teach them to do the stuff that I taught you, and one of the  things was, pass it on again. Paul says, pass these things on to others who can  learn them and pass them on to others. Jesus did excuse me, didn't worry that  by the end of his ministry, where he had had 1000s of people in his audiences,  he was down to just 120 in that upper room. He didn't consider that a failure,  because he knew that was the beginning of growing and multiplication and  spreading and growing and multiplying. I call that spirit impassioned  multiplication. Jesus taught other people to spread it on, to pass it on, and we  need to do that as well. Praise the Lord. I will see you again next time. Thank  you. God, bless.