Hello Challies People! I’ve made some edits thanks to your comments. Make sure to check out the song at the bottom. And consider subscribing!
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Recently Bethlehem had a guest speaker (Joe Rigney) in the pulpit preaching on the topic of Discipleship.
Here is one of the passages, which you can listen to here, if you go to time marker 21:35.*
The question is this: Will you be a model worth emulating? . . .
Do you know how to sin rightly? In other words, do you know how to fail miserably, repent thoroughly, seek forgiveness sincerely, make restitution quickly and move on properly, Do you know how to from messing up big time to repenting and then moving on. Can you show someone else how to do that? . . . That’s one of the things you need to model and you know what, that’s one of the things Jesus can’t model. Because he’s never sinned! So how will they learn how to repent? They learn from watching you.
This got me thinking – are there other human character issues that Jesus did not and cannot model for us? Here is the (obviously incomplete) list I came up with, which includes items mentioned in other points of the sermon.
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Situations and Behaviors that Jesus Can’t Model For Us:
Receiving Correction and Rebuke when you’ve done wrong.
Responding to your own personal failure correctly.
Living with an incomplete understanding of God the Father’s will for us.
Handling Personal Sickness
Being a receptive Mentoree to a human mentor
Accepting and being aware of Mercy given from God
Continuing to obey/worship/praise God when you don’t feel like it.
Choosing Christ as our Lord and Savior
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I don’t know about you, but this list inspires me.
The Fighter Verse for this week is James 1:4-5
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
“If any of you lacks wisdom . . . ” Since Jesus never lacked wisdom, this is yet another situation that Jesus can’t model for your friend or child or spouse or coworker. But you can.
How will you do that this week?
Can you think of any items that could be added to this list?
* If you start the video 40 seconds earlier, you can hear a pretty funny 10 second imitation of John Piper
And check out the newest song. It’s a capella!
Fighter Verse Songs 
[…] read the article I just posted over at the Fighter Verse Song Blog. My Other Blog The Responsible Father My […]
By: Where We Can’t Follow Jesus « The Responsible Puppet on April 14, 2011
at 11:43 am
[…] read the article I just posted over at the Fighter Verse Song […]
By: Where We Can’t Follow Jesus « Responsible Father on April 14, 2011
at 11:46 am
It’s true that Jesus never needed to repent. However, I think He did model for us some of the items on your list.
Receiving Correction and Rebuke – consider Lk 2:48-51 Jesus at 12 yrs in the temple. He had not sinned, but he humbly submitted to Mary and Joseph’s (perhaps exasperated) rebuke.
Responding to your own personal failure correctly – very true.
Living with an incomplete understanding of God the Father’s will for us – consider Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane or Matt. 24:36. Not exactly parallel, because in the Garden, Jesus did know the Father’s will, but still desired to go a different route if possible.
Handling Personal Sickness – are you assuming Jesus was never sick? Or that he healed himself? Still, no mentions of it in the Bible, so, in that sense, He didn’t model it for us.
Being a receptive Mentoree – He did learn, grow in wisdom (Lk 2:52)
Accepting and being aware of Mercy given from God – I wonder if part of the reason for His baptism wasn’t to identify with sinners, even though He Himself was not sinful.
Continuing to obey/worship/praise God when you don’t feel like it – consider Jesus’ prayer the night He was betrayed, in the Garden of Gethsemane; consider Hebrews 5:8 – he learned obedience through suffering. The verse before that (5:7) speaks of vehement cries and supplications. I wonder if He felt like praying at those moments. Maybe so.
Choosing Christ as our Lord and Savior – yep, good point.
By: pk on April 14, 2011
at 1:06 pm
Being a receptive Mentoree
Continuing to obey/worship/praise God when you don’t feel like it.
Jesus was constantly being mentored by the Father… the whole gospel of John. AND I am certain Jesus didn’t “feel” like he wanted to obey/worship/praise His Father while he was on the cross, but he did anyway
By: HC on April 18, 2011
at 8:03 am
I was wondering if I might get some comments on this post.
Thanks for what you pointed out. Here’s my response:
I added “when you’ve done wrong’ to ‘accepting rebuke’.
He still new God’s will in the Garden.
No, I just assumed that Jesus would have just healed himself if he ever got sick. Certainly he could have.
I’ve added ‘From a human mentor’ to the mentoree item. At the very least, if he did this, it isn’t in the scripture.
By: jamsco on April 18, 2011
at 9:46 am
Thanks for your thoughts, HC.
My thought is that even on the cross, Jesus was passionate about being obedient and God honoring. This is something we often lack.
By: jamsco on April 18, 2011
at 9:49 am
[…] Situations and Behaviors that Jesus Can’t Model For Us: […]
By: How you can’t be like Jesus | KevStar.us on April 18, 2011
at 10:50 am
Hi–this is a great topic! Just some thoughts to add to the ongoing discussion:
>Living with an incomplete understanding of God the Father’s will for us – He doesn’t know when the Father will bring about the end of the age and send Christ back in the clouds.
>Accepting and being aware of Mercy given from God – I think this happened right as he said, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” He was forsaken by God because of the sins of the world, and he trusted God through this moment.
By: Dan on April 18, 2011
at 1:20 pm
Those are both good points, also.
By: jamsco on April 18, 2011
at 1:23 pm
re: Responding to your own personal failure correctly.
He did not have to respond to His own personal failure, however, He did respond to OUR own personal failure placed upon Him on the cross correctly. And that is far more important.
By: Dave on April 18, 2011
at 1:26 pm
Very true that it is much more important.
By: jamsco on April 18, 2011
at 2:16 pm
As a woman, I have often thought about how Jesus wouldn’t have experience with some things unique to women, emotionally and physically, but I think that is why He spent so much time with them here on earth. Even “women troubles” – I like to think that is why we have the healing of the woman with the severe bleeding in Matthew 9. Jesus knew her “troubles” and healed them – to show sympathy and gain understanding of such things.
By: EmilyRose on April 22, 2011
at 2:56 pm
EmilyRose, those are really good points that I hadn’t thought of. Thanks.
By: jamsco on April 22, 2011
at 3:34 pm
[…] –Things Jesus didn’t model for us. […]
By: Monday Links and Bullets 4.25.11 « pastorkevinb on April 25, 2011
at 12:45 pm
[…] time ago I posted a list of real situations and good behaviors that Jesus didn’t model for us. They were areas where we couldn’t follow him, largely because […]
By: Where We Can’t Follow Jesus – Part 2 | Fighter Verse Songs on June 22, 2013
at 1:03 am