And today we want to consider a little
further about the example of Jesus in His
earthly life as a model for the holy
life that He wants us to live.
As we look at the life of Jesus,
we have been seeing that God not only
sent His Son to die for the sins
of the world, but that the way He
lived on earth is to be a demonstration
to all of us as to how God
wants man to live.
And we saw His humility, we have seen
a little bit about His holiness.
It was a life that overcame sin, it
was a life of purity.
What was the source of this?
Jesus' holiness came out of a life of
meditation in the word of God.
We read in the scriptures in Luke, chapter
2, that when He was twelve years old,
He knew enough of the scriptures to even
confound the great scholars of His time.
And remember, in those days, there were no
printed Bibles like we have today.
People did not have a Bible in their
homes.
Nobody had a Bible in their home.
Bibles, the Old Testament was handwritten and only
the synagogue in the village or town would
have a copy.
Only rich people could afford to have even
portions of the Old Testament with them.
So, it's only those who listened carefully when
they were being taught by the rabbis in
the synagogue who could know what the scriptures
said.
And Jesus listened as a little boy.
Remember, He had emptied Himself of all that
supernatural ability He had as God.
He came as a little baby and the
Bible says He grew in wisdom.
In other words, His growth was just like
ours, growing in the knowledge of the word.
Only thus could He be an example for
us.
And from that meditation in the word of
God, He saw and understood what the Father
wanted, just like we can understand it.
And He saw that the word of God
spoke more than what was written on the
surface.
He dug deep.
The Bible says that if you dig as
you would dig for hidden treasure, it's only
then that you will find the knowledge of
God.
To have a superficial knowledge of the Bible,
that is easy.
You can read the Bible like you read
a physics book or a chemistry book and
get knowledge.
But to know God through His word, that's
quite a different thing.
And that came to Jesus through not just
meditation, but obedience to what He saw in
the word.
Many people read the Bible only to get
messages to preach.
Particularly if you are a preacher, you are
in great danger of reading the Bible only
to get messages, of reading books in order
to prepare sermons, listening to tapes to get
points for your sermons.
That's a very dangerous practice.
Because you can be more interested in what
God has to say to other people than
what God has to say to you.
Now the best way to prepare a sermon
is to first of all hear what God
is saying to you and to obey that
and then from your life speak it forth
as a message for others.
Then it has gone through you.
The word of God is like a two
-edged sword.
One edge must cut you before you can
use it.
The other edge in your ministry to expose
sin in another.
And when Jesus meditated on the word of
God, He found there were a lot of
things there which are completely contrary to the
traditions that were being practiced by people in
His time.
It's not just meditation on the word.
Jesus depended on the Holy Spirit.
The Bible says Jesus was filled with the
Holy Spirit.
Jesus lived just like us.
His holiness came out of a life of
meditation in God's word and being filled with
the Holy Spirit.
And if we follow in His footsteps, we
too will get revelation on His word.
Now life will come to holiness, genuine holiness,
getting in line with God's thoughts.
The Bible speaks about our mind being renewed.
That comes through meditation on God's word.
And when He saw that God's word proclaimed
a certain standard and certain things, He preached
that, even though His preaching ran counter or
against all the popular religious traditions of His
day.
Jesus did not go forth as a scholar
or as one who had graduated from some
Bible school.
He went forth as one who had meditated
on God's word in secret, lived in secret
and heard God speaking to him through the
Spirit and spoke forth the word as a
prophet, not just as a preacher.
And He proclaimed it faithfully.
And this is what made Him expose the
hypocrisy and the worldliness of the Pharisees.
Now other people couldn't see that.
Other people just blindly thought that the Pharisees
were spiritual people.
But Jesus not only exposed the hypocrisy of
the Pharisees, He exposed the doctrinal error, the
wrong interpretations of the scriptures that the Sadducees
held.
Jesus' holiness is seen in the fact that
He never sought to be popular in His
preaching.
It's a tremendous temptation when you're a preacher
to seek to be popular, particularly if you
want to receive money for your preaching.
If you preach things that offend people, you
won't get gifts, you won't get invited.
But then you won't proclaim God's word faithfully.
All who proclaim God's word must proclaim it
prophetically as the mouthpiece of God.
That's part of holiness.
Our holiness is to be seen not only
in our life, but in our words.
We must be absolutely true to God.
Holiness is manifested in not seeking to please
men, but to please God.
There was a time when even His enemies
told Him, as we read in Matthew 22
and verse 16.
Matthew 22 and verse 16 in the Living
Bible it says like this.
We know, Teacher, that You are very honest
and You teach the truth regardless of the
consequences, without fear or favor.
Those of you who preach, if you are
a preacher, I want to ask you a
personal question.
Can it be said of your preaching, Matthew
22, 16 in the Living Bible, You are
honest and You teach the truth regardless of
the consequences and without fear and without favor.
That is the type of preacher India needs
to hear in every church.
That's how Jesus was.
And if we look at Jesus, we will
see that we have to be like Him
in this area.
Jesus had a tremendous zeal for the purity
of God's house.
You know when people beat Him, pulled the
hairs out of His head, out of His
face, His beard, and ill-treated Him in
so many ways, called Him the Prince of
devils, He never got angry.
He never said anything.
He just accepted it.
You could do anything to Jesus personally and
He would never say anything.
He would just forgive you.
But when He saw God's house being defiled
by people trying to make money in the
name of religion, Oh, then He was a
different person.
It says He made a whip and He
scourged, drove them all out of the temple.
We read in John chapter 2 verse 15
and He said, Stop making My Father's house
a house of business.
Then His disciples remembered what it was written
in the scriptures in the Old Testament.
Zeal for Your house will consume Me.
Righteous anger burned in Him.
Do you know the meaning of that verse
in Ephesians 4.26 where it says, Be
angry but do not sin.
What's the meaning of that?
There's a command there to be angry.
And we've always thought that anger is a
sin.
Anger is a sin in certain situations.
In certain other situations, it says in Ephesians
4.26, we must be angry.
How to know the difference?
Well, we can know the difference in the
life of Jesus.
When was it He was not angry?
When they insulted Him, spoke evil of Him,
slapped Him, beat Him, pulled the hairs from
His beard, spat on Him, crucified Him, He
was never angry.
He said, Father, forgive them.
When was He angry?
He was angry when God's house was being
defiled, when poor people were being exploited, when
a man with a withered hand, the Pharisees
and the elders of the synagogue would not
allow him to be healed on the Sabbath
day.
So we see the type of anger that
we need to have is when we see
God's house and God's name being dishonored.
When we see poor people being exploited.
And when is it we should never be
angry?
When people insult us, harm us, exploit us
and do all types of evil to us
and speak all types of evil to us.
So in anything concerning ourselves, we should never
be angry.
But when it concerns the purity of God's
house and the way people exploit others, then
we need to be angry.
Unfortunately, in the world, it's the other way
around.
It's tragic.
But people in the world get angry when
it concerns themselves.
And when they see God's name being dishonored
in the church, they're not angry.
That's exactly the opposite of how it was
with Jesus.
Jesus was angry only when it concerned God's
house.
There is an anger that is holy and
there is an anger that is sinful.
And when Jesus used the whip that day
in the temple, he was not bothered whether
people misunderstood him.
He was not bothered what even his disciples
thought about him.
He was only concerned about the purity of
God's house.
He didn't lose control of himself.
He was in perfect control of himself.
But he was not diplomatic.
He didn't go to those people who were
changing money and say, will you gentlemen please
move your tables.
He never said anything like that.
He turned their tables and made the coins
run here and there and chased the sheep
and the oxen and the birds all out
of the compound.
Yeah, that wasn't a very gentlemanly thing to
do.
But when it came to the purity of
God's house, Jesus was fiery.
He came to bring a sword.
And he used it unsparingly.
It cut, it wounded, and it hurt.
And thus the Father's glory was manifested.
So holiness in the life of Jesus brought
him a lot of misunderstanding, opposition, persecution.
It's the same in the world today.
You're not going to be popular if you
live a holy life.
I mean if you're only thinking in terms
of paying your taxes and washing people's feet
and doing what is right and never exposing
sin in Christendom, then you may be popular.
But then you're diplomatic.
But if you follow Jesus all the way,
your holiness will lead you to expose sin.
The Bible says we must by our life
expose and rebuke the works of darkness.
Ephesians 5.
Jesus' life was the most beautiful, the most
orderly, the most peaceful, and the happiest life
this world has ever seen.
Because he was only interested in pleasing God.
He was not interested in pleasing a single
human being.
He didn't care about people's opinions.
Do you know that you and I can
live such a life?
Do you long for such a life?
Why don't you bow your heads right now
as you're listening and pray a simple prayer.
Say, Lord Jesus, I've been trying to please
men too much.
Forgive me.
Help me to follow you and seek to
please you alone.