An Imitator of Christ

1Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.

Living as an example to anyone is never easy. It requires us always to live for others rather than for ourselves, and to stay mindful of what is in their hearts.

Pastors, parents, and teachers walk ahead of others, so they try to set an example; but because they are human, they cannot be perfect. That is why they must always pray, with a repentant heart, for the congregation, the children, and the disciples who follow behind them.

But those who go ahead have a common failing: they are generous with themselves, and so when those following behind fall short, they cannot tolerate it and grow angry every time.

This is wicked because, to put it in terms of a car, they are the ones holding the steering wheel.

A car goes wherever its driver wills.

So if the driver is unskilled, or does not know the way, or is quick-tempered, the car is not safe, and neither is anyone riding in it.

Even a person of fine character, if unskilled at the wheel or unsure of the road, will leave everyone in the car wandering lost because of the driver.

And even a skilled driver who knows the road well will make the passengers uneasy if they have a hot temper, because the passengers must sit and watch them fume and flare up the whole way.

In the same way, if a pastor does not know the word or understand God’s will, and so fails to teach the truth, the congregation does go to church, but their life of faith is like traveling with no idea of the destination. People who live their faith that way will always be anxious and spiritually adrift.

In a home where a hot-tempered, stubborn parent steers everything their own way, the children, though able to grow into people of far greater capacity, will stay where they are and become people of small capacity, thinking and judging no further than their parents.

Depending on who is driving the church and the home, they may travel easily along the road Christ has prepared, or they may swerve from side to side and live in constant unease.

Whether the one at the wheel clearly knows life’s destination will make a marked difference in the lives of the church members and children who follow.

Only when those who lead have well-formed character can those traveling with them live in peace and hold a sure faith.

That is why it matters a great deal that those who lead in faith, and parents too, first bring themselves into submission and humbly bow low, if they are to live as examples.

If you are well prepared, those who follow you will reach the destination by the safest and quickest road.

I am not saying that you must be perfect because you are a Christian or because you are a parent.

Though you fall short, when you show that you are doing your best, God will acknowledge that faith, and so people will naturally come to respect you.

That is how hard it is to take responsibility for another person’s soul and life.

The reason is that the saving of souls is spiritual warfare.

If, on a battlefield, the people who must act on your orders do not trust you and will not move, the battle is lost before it is fought. Winning the trust of those beside you therefore matters greatly. Trust is not won in a moment, nor is it earned by doing well once.

To become a believer, a parent, or a leader is as good as declaring war on Satan.

If those who go ahead in faith set an example in every respect, many more soldiers of Christ will be raised up; so Satan will not leave the one in front to travel in peace.

By any means he will provoke them to anger and make them spill out the holy word of God they carry; he will put hatred in their hearts to make them ruin the work of Jesus. In the end, his aim is to shake the driver and keep them from going the way of Christ.

If your feelings are not shaken even by Satan’s schemes, that shows how far you have matured.

Hanging a sign on a church building does not make someone a pastor, and holding a wedding and having children does not make someone a parent.

Receiving an office in the church does not make you someone God approves, and teaching disciples does not make you a teacher.

What matters is the kind of person you will remain to them.

What kind of person are you to those around you?

As what kind of person do they remember you, and how far do they trust you?

How hard are you striving not to dishonor the name of Christ? We cannot be perfect, and so we must be clothed with the power of the One who is.

When you meet a problem, I hope you will look not only at the problem and the people involved but also at how your own heart is changing because of it.

The right posture for a Christian is to look back and ask whether this problem, which Satan devised to trip me up, came because I gave him some foothold, and then to repent.

Only if you pray when anger rises and repent when the urge to sin comes will you grow into maturity.

God does not shield you from hardship because he wants to see how far your vessel has grown.

If someone fails to see this heart of God and hinders his work through temper and folly, they have become Satan’s co-worker.

To be an example, you must pray without ceasing to know what God wants of you.

And you must be able to look back on your own words and actions and see at what level your faith has settled.

As you go through life, you must make the effort to deny yourselves, so that you become people who raise others up before God.

To build churches, Christians, and homes that reveal God’s glory, we must be willing to sacrifice and serve, even at some cost to ourselves. When God sees that faith, he will instead raise you higher.

May you have a faith that shows kindness, yields to others, forgives, and embraces.

I hope you will train for a long time so that you can become an example.

No one becomes an example to others by trying for a day or two, a month, or a year.

When you run with your eyes fixed on heaven alone, God will seat you, after ten years or a whole lifetime of striving in faith, in a place where you are an example to others.

To become an instrument of righteousness that God can use, we must keep denying ourselves and keep paring ourselves down.

But the great problem is that people in the church forget that Satan exists.

Because of that, they cannot have a faith of ‘nevertheless,’ a faith that says, ‘even if God does not do as I wish.’

The apostle Paul said that he was an imitator of Christ.

He looked to Christ alone, did only what Christ did, and proclaimed only what Christ said, because he longed to lead the church to imitate him and so come to meet Christ as he had.

The apostle Paul has a clear purpose here.

It is clear because he is convinced that to rescue people’s souls from darkness and death, we must lead them to Christ, who is the true light and the life.

Pastors and parents need not force their own ideas on others.

When they live out the life of Christ as Paul did and act according to the word the Lord taught, their congregations and their children will naturally come to live by Christ’s leading, and they will love the pastors and parents who set that example.

Setting an example for a congregation or for children does not mean flattering them to win their hearts, or working to read their feelings to earn their affection. Quite literally, the first thing is to show them the faith you want them to live out.

The apostle Paul had a faith that left him spiritually free, yet he was always careful, so that he might bring Christ to others.

Afraid that his actions might cause others to stumble, he held himself back; whatever he did and whatever he said, he labored to set their faith on a firm footing.

Paul feared that his own plans, temperament, words, and deeds might hide Christ. He wanted to hide himself and reveal Christ alone, so that everyone would imitate Christ as he himself did.

To think of another’s salvation before your own, and to act on it, is to be, like the apostle Paul, someone who does good in daily life and puts goodness into practice.

Such a person, of outstanding character and abundant wisdom, will reveal the love of Christ through their life in any community.

Isaiah 53:4-5

4Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted. 5But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.

Writing around the eighth century BC, Isaiah was already prophesying that Jesus would come eight hundred years later. He plainly foretold that Jesus would be pierced and scourged for our sins and would suffer on the cross.

Just as the prophet foretold, Jesus came to this earth, and just as foretold, he died.

And as foretold he rose again, fulfilling every word; that is why we can believe in the Lord without doubt.

God could simply have abandoned to death, and left to Satan, the human race that defied his word in the Garden of Eden. But because of the holy love with which he pitied those souls, he left his glorious throne and came himself into this lowly world.

We must imitate this love of Jesus Christ.

The eternal God left his glorious throne and suffered, bearing the cross in the place of human beings who had become Satan’s slaves.

Yet people, sinners in their very being, are not grateful.

Far from giving thanks, they are racing toward worldly success.

Of course, success in this world is needed too.

This world runs, in the end, on material things, so when the Lord helps you succeed, he is ultimately helping you do his work.

But because people are sinners by nature, once they have tasted the glory of the world, they cast off the Lord and their fellow Christians like a pair of worn-out shoes.

God wants to work through the one who has received the blessing of salvation and gone on to succeed. But because people put this glittering world and their own boasting ahead of God and ahead of heaven, they end up forsaking God and forsaking the church.

People do not know how fearful a sin it is not to live by God’s word, and so they do not prepare for the last day.

Why did God, through the Holy Spirit, leave us the Bible?

To show us now, before our very eyes, that history runs according to the Scriptures and the world moves as the Bible says.

He left it in writing to warn Christians who believe the Bible that the signs of the last days are now appearing as Scripture foretold, and that the trumpet of the Second Coming is very near.

As Isaiah prophesied, Jesus came the first time; and now, as Jesus promised, he will come again.

Those of us who wait for Jesus’ return must show holy love, as Jesus revealed the holy love of God, and labor for the saving of souls. What matters is not this brief life in the world; we must prepare to enter the eternal world.

Being a little better off than others, or owning a little more of the world, is not the end of the story. The only thing we can take to heaven is faith, so we must pray and give ourselves to be filled with faith.

However much you know, could you know more than God? However much you own, could you own more than the God who created heaven and earth?

Life ends only when we put off this flesh, so as long as Satan, the prince of the power of the air, is at work, we must never let go of Christ.

And here is what I would ask of you: love the brothers and sisters who pray for you. Jesus bound us together as members of one body because we can never stand against Satan alone.

Let us honor and cherish those who pray for us.

Their prayers may look like very little, but I hope you will never forget that God loves intercession; he hears the prayer of the one who interceded for you, and he answers you.

It may be that the very faith you hold today is owing to the prayers of your brothers and sisters.

The world tries to solve its problems with money, but those who hope in heaven can receive answers only as prayer is stored up.

In life, the words ‘There, that’s settled’ mean nothing.

Why? Because until Jesus shuts Satan up in the abyss, the spiritual war goes on without end.

God bound the people of Israel together as one nation, and Jesus called twelve disciples and made them his fellow workers.

Here at Watercourse Church, with Christ as your head, you are members of one body.

If you cannot love such members, you are not a mature Christian.

I say this to young people who want to change jobs because someone is tormenting them: if you cannot endure the situation and move too easily to another company, someone who will torment you even more cruelly is waiting there, so hold on a little longer. That is simply how the world is.

But those who move anyway, thinking it can’t possibly be that bad, often quit the new company too, saying they cannot believe such a person exists and that the one who tormented them before was kind by comparison.

I am not telling you to stay at a company while someone torments you.

Only when you look back on why the situation arose, ask whether you gave it some opening, and strive to overcome it by faith or by skill, will God lead you onto an easier road.

The world does not welcome Christians.

We simply pass through it like pilgrims, enduring in faith, praying, asking our brothers and sisters to pray for us, making the Holy Spirit’s protection our hedge, and walking on to heaven without wavering.

Knowing all of this, and knowing how great that holy love is, the apostle Paul imitated Christ, who obeyed the will of God, and gave everything, even his own life, to preaching the gospel.

Living by God’s word is never easy.

If obeying the word were easy, would anyone need to be martyred?

The eternal world is a world of light where God himself is the temple and not a speck of darkness remains. The blessing of living there is a reward, and it is set by how much we love Christ on this earth now, and how patiently we endure to keep his word.

What have you done to enter heaven?

When God prepared the eternal heaven, and Jesus gave his life to tear down the wall of sin, what did we do to help?

Perhaps we could say that there was nothing we could have done, since we were not there.

Then what are we doing now, in these last days, as the trumpet of the Second Coming sounds?

Jesus did not tell us when he would come.

But he did tell us the signs that would come at the end, and so all of us know that this is the last time.

All of us must be ready to rise to meet the Lord when the trumpet sounds.

That readiness cannot be bought by selling your property, nor won even by offering your life. It comes only by relying on the Holy Spirit who dwells within you and living in obedience to the word, by faith.

The apostle Paul commands the Corinthians to imitate him.

We, too, must imitate the apostle Paul.

We must reveal Christ in our lives, and we must obey the word of God that Christ himself obeyed.

As the Lord ached over souls falling into hell, we must grieve when souls are not saved.

Those who have such faith are holy saints who have received spiritual blessings.

May you live a life whose purpose is one with the purpose of Jesus.

Jesus weighed every matter in the world with his eyes fixed on the saving of souls alone. In the same way, if, when you make any decision in life, you stop even once to think deeply about what is driving it, you will not live a life in vain.

When you live a life that imitates Christ, people will respect you, your life will not wander, and God will use you greatly.

Being greatly used by God is not something measured by the world’s yardstick; we can say someone has been greatly used when they proclaim the truth alone.

Look at the people of faith who carried out God’s work: the prophets of the Old Testament, the twelve disciples, the apostle Paul. They did not live in palaces, nor did they command the world with great wealth.

They proclaimed the word of truth God told them to proclaim, met the people God told them to meet, and went where God told them to go, nothing more.

It is because we see them obeying the word that we say God used them greatly.

When you proclaim the truth, love souls, and bring yourself into submission to walk the road Christ walked, God will tell you that he is using you greatly.

What kind of vessel are you being used as today?

If someone is watching your life now and wants to follow your example, I hope you will make your decisions all the more carefully, boldly cast off temptation, and do your utmost so that Christ alone can be seen through you.

May you always have Christ’s approval, and may you live with a precious faith, ready to be the first to welcome the Lord when he comes.