Good morning.
We are told in Scripture.
The when this life is over.
We will receive in eternity the things
that
we have done in our body.
That we will j be judged by the things
that we have been we have done
in this life.
We are told that what we do now.
What we do while walking this earth,
how we live, how we behave,
Jesus indicates even the words that we
speak,
we will give an account of in the day of
judgment.
If you are in this life
Facing a challenging test.
If you were preparing for the bar exam as
a lawyer,
If you were preparing for a difficult test
or a challenging criteria that you had to
meet in an employment scenario.
If you were dealing with the challenges
that maybe
a medical diagnosis presents you.
One of the things that may help you
overcome that situation.
Is by talking to someone who’s been
through it before.
Talking to someone or following the
example of someone
who knows where the path goes and how to
get there.
Well, if we are going to give an account
in eternity on the day of judgment
for how we live.
then it is valuable to us to find
an example of how to live.
And Christ
is our example of doing good.
Christ is to be
our example of how to live.
Paul would write to the church at Corinth
in 1 Corinthians chapter 11,
verse 1.
Follow me as I follow Christ.
Paul is going to tell the church at
Corinth,
you should already understand that Christ
is your standard of how to live.
So for every one of us.
We will encounter parents, siblings,
grandparents, family members,
co-workers, members at church,
people who we meet throughout our lives,
people who are mentors to us in our jobs,
people who are mentors to us in our lives,
and every single one of them should be
measured against the standards.
Not are they perfectly like Christ,
but what is in their life that is like
Christ that
I can follow?
But we can also just go back to the
example.
I want to spend a few moments considering
some of the ways in which Jesus went about
doing good.
First, consider that Jesus is our example
of doing good by bringing peace.
In Ephesians chapter two,
Paul is going to write to the church at
Ephesus,
a church which he loved, a church which he
spent a great deal of time with,
and that he sent Timothy back to on at
least one occasion,
if not multiple occasions, that he sent
other of his co-workers to to encourage
and
That he met with the leadership,
the elders of that congregation as he met
them in this life for the last
and final time on his way to Jerusalem.
And we read in Ephesians chapter 2,
beginning in verse 13, but now in Christ
Jesus,
you who were once far off have been
brought near by the blood of Christ.
He’s describing Gentiles.
He’s describing those who,
because of their past as pagans,
because of their history and people who
did not receive.
the word of God in the old testament and
had not been following
it for generation generations,
who were not described as the people of
God,
who were not descendants of Abraham.
He says, You who once were afar off.
Have been brought near by the blood of
Christ.
For He Himself is our peace,
who has made both one.
The both here is the Israelite nation,
the people of God, historically in an Old
Testament context,
the Jews and the Gentiles.
He says, You he has made both one and has
broken down the middle wall
of separation, having abolished in his
flesh the enmity.
That is the law and of commandments
contained in ordinances,
so as to create in himself one new man
from the two,
thus making peace.
Scripture tells us.
That God loves peacemakers.
Jesus would say in the Sermon on the
Mount,
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Jesus is pronouncing a blessing,
a ~ happiness to those who make peace.
Paul will tell the church in Rome,
as much as lies within you,
live peaceably with all men.
But as Paul writes to the church in
Ephesus,
he’s going to tell these brethren.
There was once a wall of separation.
Between you and the Jews. It was a natural
wall of separation.
They had a law you didn’t have.
They had a law that told them they weren’t
even going,
~ weren’t even allowed to marry with you.
They weren’t allowed to give their sons to
marry your daughters
and their daughters to marry your sons.
God created a wall of separation.
And he did so for a reason.
But now in Christ, He’s torn down the
wall.
He has made
one people in Christ.
It is hard in this life
to not see differences between people.
Raise your hand if you grew up in the mid
south and have lived here most
or all of your life.
That’s quite a few of you.
Raise your hand if you’ve lived in more
than one country.
That’s a few of you. Raise your hand if
you’ve lived on both sides
of the Mississippi.
Now here’s the good one. Raise your hand
if you ever lived in the north.
Careful now.
Is everybody the same everywhere?
No. No.
So everybody is not the same.
And as humans we see the differences,
don’t we? We experience as experience the
differences.
And sometimes the differences separate us
naturally.
Language will separate you, won’t it?
You don’t speak the same language?
There’s that’s pretty hard. Cultures will
separate you.
Traditions will separate you.
Think about what Christ did.
In his sacrifice, in his flesh.
He took everyone from every nation under
heaven,
from every tradition, from every
background,
from every culture, from every family,
from every language and every tongue.
And made it possible for them to be one in
the body of Christ.
Notice the word in verse 15. Create.
So as to create
in himself one new man.
One of the things we need to realize as we
consider how we live in this life.
is if we only work with the resources the
world gives us.
If we just assume that the things which
the world tells us are okay to do,
that we should naturally do, that culture
tells us we should do,
that we are involved in doing on our daily
in our daily lives because
the world says this is just normal.
If we only use the resources of the world,
we will fail to be one in Christ.
Because we will be divided in Christ,
because the world is divided. The world
will separate
the Chinese Christian from the American
Christian.
The world will separate the person who
comes from Nicaragua
who doesn’t speak English from the
Christian who was born in Mississippi.
But Christ rejected the world’s resources.
Christ rejected the world’s plan.
Christ rejected the world’s structure.
And Christ created something unique.
Over in Galatians chapter three.
Verse 22 we read, but the scripture has
confirmed all under sin,
that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ
might be given
to those who believe.
But before faith came, we were kept under
guard by the law,
kept for the faith which would afterward
be revealed.
Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring
us to Christ,
that we might be justified by faith.
But after faith has come, we are no longer
under a tutor.
Paul, in the letter to the Galatian
brethren,
is writing about the same thing that he’s
writing about over in Ephesians chapter 2.
That function of the Old Testament law,
which was causing division in the body of
Christ in the first century because
Judaizing teachers were coming to Gentiles
and saying,
no, no, no, you’ve got to keep the Old Law
to be saved.
You’ve got to be circumcised according to
the law of Moses to be saved.
You’ve got to keep the things that we used
to keep.
You’ve got to eat the foods we have to
eat.
And Paul said that was a tutor.
To bring us to Christ, not to have
forever.
But then he says, verse 26, for you are
all sons of God through faith
in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as
were baptized into Christ have
put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor
Greek,
there is neither slave nor free,
there is neither male nor female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And if you are Christ, then are you
Abraham’s seed and heirs according
to the promise?
Paul rides to the churches of Galiacia and
high lets them know.
If you’ve been buried in baptism with
Christ.
You’re part of one new nation.
You’re on an equal plane with everybody
else.
You’re not a slave in Christ.
You’re not a free person in Christ.
You’re not a man in Christ. You’re not a
woman in Christ.
You’re not a bond servant in Christ.
You’re not a person who is measured by
whether or not you were once
a Jew or once Gentile. ~
You’re a Christian.
But that structure didn’t exist in the
world.
That structure didn’t exist in the nation
of Rome.
You know, Paul had an advantage.
When those soldiers got ready to start
beating him in the city of Jerusalem,
Paul could ask
Are you a Roman citizen?
Because if you were a free born Roman
citizen
No one had authority to lay hands on you.
No one had authority to beat you,
except Roe.
wasn’t a structure of the world.
It was created in Christ.
So as you consider all
of the ways that you might go about
in this life doing good.
Understand this, that as Christians we do
good
by observing that Christ has made
all people one in Christ.
That a Christian on any side of the planet
from
any culture in the planet is simply a
Christian.
That we have fellowship with one another.
And with God.
Because Christ brought peace.
But then consider number two. Christ went
about doing good
and is our example of doing good in that
he did the work of the Father.
In Luke chapter two.
Luc is going to describe the events.
As Jesus will be taken to the city of
Jerusalem
by his parents. Verse 49, he said to them,
Why did you seek me? Jesus has remained
behind in the city of Jerusalem,
there in the temple. He’s asking questions
of the priests and of the elders,
and they are marveling at his questions.
And when his parents returned to find him
still there three days later
He says, why did you seek me? Did you not
know that
I must be about my father’s business?
At the age of twelve, Jesus knew why here.
When you go forward to John chapter four.
John chapter four
Verse 31 we read in the meantime,
his disciples urged him, saying,
Rabbi eat. He’s been talking with the
woman at the well in Samaria.
He’s now sent the woman back into the
city.
She’s going back to tell them,
I found the Christ, I found the Messiah,
I found the one we’ve been waiting on.
But as she prepares to go back,
the disciples have arrived and they found
her found Jesus talking with this woman.
So as she leaves, the disciples say,
Teacher, eat.
He said to them, I have food to eat of
which you do not know.
Then the disciples said to one another,
Has anyone brought him anything to eat?
They went into the city to buy food.
They’ve come back with the food.
They tell the teacher,
Here’s the food. He says,
I ate when you weren’t here.
And they’re like, who brought him food?
Jesus said to them, My food is to do the
will of him who sent me
and to finish his work.
And as Jesus was hanging on the cross,
as we mentioned in our Bible class this
morning,
he said those words, it is finished.
Jesus is our example in doing good in that
he measured everything that
he did against whether or not it was the
work of the Father.
He measured everything and its merits
based upon
did it fall into the work of the Father.
When Jesus would pull the disciples aside
and go into the land of Tyre,
and He would separate Himself from the
multitudes that were constantly thronging
the disciples and thronging Him so that He
had no time with the disciples,
He would separate Himself with the
disciples to teach them and to help them
to learn. And as He’s there, a woman
comes.
Having heard that Jesus is in the city,
she comes and she says, Heal my daughter.
Jesus will point out that he’s doing
something important in that very moment.
He’s providing food to the children.
He’s taking care of the ones God has
placed in his hand and that he will give
an account for for how their state.
In Acts chapter seven, sorry, John chapter
17,
Jesus will pray to the Father before he
goes into the garden and he’d say,
I kept all those who you delivered into my
hand.
Speaking of the apostles, except one,
the son of perdition.
So he says, I’m I’m dealing with the
children right now.
And she will point out that even the
crumbs that fall from the children’s table
get given to the dogs.
And Jesus will heal her daughter.
But he’s measuring the importance and the
priority of the things that
are coming his way against the work of the
Father.
We need to understand in our lives.
There will be times where we will say no
to things the world would say yes to.
There will be times that we will say no to
the things that
the world says that is a no brainer.
You’ve gotta be stupid to pass up that
opportunity.
And we might just have to say,
well, I have other priorities.
And at times we will have to say yes to
things that the world says that can’t
possibly work.
There’s no way. How could you make that
decision?
There was a woman.
Who came into the temple? Jesus and his
apostles were standing there by
the door of the temple, by the gate of the
treasury,
and as the woman came in.
She stopped at the location where the Jews
would place their offerings.
And into the offering she put too much.
Jesus will speak to his apostles and say,
This woman have giv has given more than
all of the others.
Now, had you been the individuals who at
the end of the day were responsible there
in the temple of counting the things that
had been placed in the offering box,
you would have gone through all of the
coins and you would have gone through
the things that had been placed in the
offering,
and you would have counted them,
and you could have gone past those two
mites and not have thought a thing about
it.
It would have paled in numerical number to
comparison to the things that were
in the box.
And the world would say.
How can a woman who’s a widow?
Give everything that she has.
That Doesn’t make any sense. What’s she
going to do?
She needs to use one of those mites to buy
food for today and maybe
try and just hold on to one of them,
one more for a little while longer.
To where maybe she can get to three,
and maybe someday she can get to four,
and maybe someday she can get to five,
and to ten, and to twenty, so she can
provide for herself.
The world would say she’s doing it wrong.
And Jesus would say, She’s doing it right.
And more people need to learn from
Jesus is our example in doing good because
he showed compassion.
In Matthew chapter fourteen.
We find beginning in vers thirteen.
When Jesus heard it, that is that John had
been killed.
He departed from there by boat to a
deserted place by himself,
but when the multitudes heard it,
they followed him on foot from the cities.
And when Jesus went out, he saw a great
multitude,
and he was moved with compassion for them,
and healed their sick.
Jesus has just lost his cousin.
being beheaded by Herod.
So that Herodias could
Have a little peace in her life as she
lived in adultery with her husband.
And Jesus goes to a deserted place.
And Jesus has a reason for going to a
deserted place.
But the multitudes follow him.
And notice something as you think about
this text.
As Jesus goes to this deserted place and
as the multitudes follow him,
it’s not just the multitudes bringing
themselves to.
It is the multitudes bringing the sick
with them.
Have you ever had to transport someone
who’s not feeling well on a long trip?
On foot.
You remember the friends of the lame man?
Who transported him to Jesus and let him
down through
the roof of the place where Jesus was so
that he could be healed?
They transported him on his bed.
As you picture in your mind, because I
don’t think we often do this,
as you picture in your mind Jesus here in
this deserted place on the Sea of Galilee,
and as you see the multitudes coming,
I think quite often we imagine a bunch of
people walking up.
All in good health, all perfectly fine,
all able to travel with ease. That’s not
the picture.
You would rather more accurately see
people.
And here’s one person walking and here’s
one person who’s lame and he’s leaning
on that person and they’re hobbling along.
to get to a deserted place to find Jesus.
And there’s another group over here,
and they’re carrying someone on a bed.
If you were to maybe picture it in your
mind,
think about a defeated army coming back
from a war.
And that’d probably be a little closer to
how this multitude would have.
Bandaged.
Ill? Sick? Struggling
for a step?
And he was moved with compassion.
When it was evening, his disciples came to
him saying,
This is a deserted place and the hour is
already late,
send the multitudes away that they may go
into the villages and buy themselves food.
Jesus said to them, They do not need to go
away.
You give them something to eat.
Jesus is going to challenge his disciples.
to provide for this multitude.
They are saying, these people need to
disperse.
Do you know what time it is? They’ve been
out here all day listening.
They’ve traveled and they’ve had the
hardship of getting here
and they’re listening to you, and they
have nothing.
They need to go get food.
Send them away. Tell them to fend for
themselves.
Tell them to take care of themselves.
Send them away.
He said, they don’t need to go anywhere.
He’ll give them.
And they said to him, We have only five
loaves and two fish.
Lord, you were to use the common phrase I
hear sometimes,
the math doesn’t math.
What do you mean? How how are we going to
feed this multitude?
We have five loaves and two fish.
And there’s already thirteen of us.
Jesus says, Bring them here to me.
As we consider doing good.
We need to remember that it is his
resources and not ours.
When we consider doing the work,
it is his resources.
And not the widows.
When we consider bringing peace,
it is his nation and not ours.
But Jesus also went about doing good and
being our example by fulfilling prophecy
in Luke chapter four.
Luke chapter four beginning in verse
fourteen.
Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit
to Galilee,
and news of him went out throughout all
the region surrounding region,
and he taught in their synagogues,
being glorified by all. So he came to
Nazareth where he had been brought up,
and as his custom was he went into the
synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood
up to read.
Jesus has been down in Judea and all of
these miracles have been occurring
and all of these signs have been happening
from the time that Jesus went
to be baptized by John to the moment where
Jesus came up out of the water
and the spirit descended like a dove and
said,
and the voice came from heaven saying,
This is my beloved son, hear him.
And as the news of Jesus and all that he
has done has spread throughout the land.
Jesus comes home.
And as he comes home, he does what he
always did on the Sabbath day.
He goes into the synagogue in Nazareth.
And he stood up to read.
If it was valuable for Jesus to read the
scriptures,
If it was important for Jesus
to read the scriptures,
How important is it for us?
And yet when Jesus opened the scriptures
It was kind of like reading an
autobiography.
He was handed the book of the prophet
Isaiah.
And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written.
Now I I want you to think about something.
There is not one passage in all of
Scripture that indicates to us that
as Jesus journeyed around the region,
and as the twelve went with him around the
region,
that they had a sack back on somebody’s
back that had a bunch of scrolls in it.
So when Jesus went into the synagogue,
that was the time that he had access
to the physical copies of the scriptures.
He didn’t have one of these that he could
cart around in his pocket,
throw into his backpack, keep in the car,
have available at hand,
pull it up on his phone.
He went into the synagogue to have access
to the scriptures.
And yet he knew where to find what he was
looking
for in the prophet Isaiah.
In other words, Jesus spent enough time in
the synagogue that
he knew where in the scroll it was.
You ever get a new Bible and you’re so
used to the old one you know exactly which
side of the page and how far down the page
is the passage that you’re looking for?
And then you get a new Bible that was put
together by a different publisher,
a different font size, different print,
different page size, and now you can’t
find anything?
Jesus knew where the passage was that he
was looking for.
Which tells you Jesus spent some time with
the scrolls.
Jesus opened the book, found the place
where it was written,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because He has anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor.
He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and recovery of sight to the blind.
To set at liberty those who are oppressed.
to proclaim the acceptable
day or year of the Lord.
Then he closed the book, gave it back to
the attendant,
and sat down.
As you picture this in your mind,
picture not some grand place.
This is Nazareth. Remember the question
Philip asked?
Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?
This was a small city with minimal
resources in a region of the Galileans,
the group of people in Israel who were
known for being uneducated,
not prosperous, not well off, and not
worth much.
And this was the city of which.
Of those cities they said there ain’t
nothing there worth having.
So picture a small room.
With poor people.
And Jesus is just come back from all that
time in Judea.
And he stands up and he reads,
and all of them have heard the rumor.
They’ve all heard about the miracles.
They’ve all heard about the things that it
has been said that
the son of Joseph and Mary is doing in
Judea.
You probably could have heard a pin drop
in that.
As he gets up, as he reads from Isaiah,
and then closes the scroll, hands it back,
and just sits down.
And all eyes who were in the synagogue
were fixed on him.
Nobody’s distracted. Nobody’s looking
around.
Nobody’s wondering what time lunch is.
Everybody’s just waiting.
To hear what’s said next.
And he began to say to them today this
scripture is
is fulfilled in your hearing.
Jesus
Said I came to do the father’s work.
But if you go back into that passage.
Yes, he talks about the blind seeing.
Yes, he talks about healing the
brokenhearted.
Yes, he talks about bringing liberty to
the oppressed.
Yes, he talks about bringing liberty to
the captives.
But it’s bookended by this.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because
He has anointed
me to preach the gospel.
to proclaim
The acceptable year of the Lord.
We can talk about Christ bringing peace.
We can talk about Christ doing the
Father’s work.
We can talk about Jesus showing
compassion.
And those are all aspects of what Jesus
came to do.
And they’re all aspects of doing good in
this life.
But when Jesus stood up in his hometown
In his home synagogue with the scrolls
that he would have opened and read
as a child.
He said, I came here to preach.
And I came here to proclaim.
And I came here.
to do the work of God.
So when we’re looking for the example of
how to live to be ready to stand before
God.
Christ is our example.
Our example of tender hearted compassion,
our example of love
for God and for one another.
but also our example of what we are to say
and what we are to speak.
And if you read a little bit further in
that story about Nazareth,
you would find that the world’s not always
gonna like.
If you’re here here this morning and
you’re outside the body of Christ.
Christ came to be your example,
how to live, how to stand before God in a
right relationship with Him,
how to be free from the oppression of sin,
how to set yourself free from the
captivity of this world.
and it’s through the message that’s
preached.
Paul would write to the church at Rome,
for the gospel is the power of God unto
salvation,
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek,
Because Christ created
one new nation, made of every nation under
heaven,
every tongue, every culture, every
tradition,
every background.
And he did so by preaching the gospel.
If you’re outside the body of Christ this
morning,
if you have need of the salvation and the
forgiveness of sins that
is offered in Christ, you do so by being
obedient to that gospel.
Jesus preached that except you believe
that I am He,
ye shall die in your sins. Believing and
hearing is necessary.
Jesus preached,
except ye repent, ye shall all.
likewise perish. A change of mind that
brings about a change of action is
necessary.
You can’t be in alliance with the world
and right with God.
But Jesus also taught that we must confess
his name before men.
Because Jesus said he who confesses my
name before men,
I will confess his name before my Father
who is in heaven.
And Jesus said, He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved,
he that believeth not shall be damned.
Jesus came, that we might have life,
and that we might have it more abundantly.
If you have need of the invitation this
morning,
why not consider doing those same things
and entering into
the body of Christ, the nation of God,
so that you too can follow his example in
doing good.
If you have need of the invitation,
why not come now as we stand and as we
