Living Like Jesus

This evening we are going to continue in our Centered Life series where we have talked about practices we can bring into our lives to have and live a Jesus centered life. We have talked about ‘Living at the Pace of the Kingdom’ and how we shouldn’t rush God and what he has for us but instead have faith that in God's perfect timing we trust that our small beginnings will have grand outcomes. Also last week we talked about “Prayer’. What prayer means, how your heart behind prayer matters, and that it is about glorifying God and His will be done. We are to pray with a genuine heart and that through the power of prayer and the obedience we show when we pray that God moves. Well tonight we are going to continue on in the series and talk about ‘Living Like Jesus’. We will be looking through Philippians 2:5-11 and the humility of Christ. Humility is not just a virtue or a trait that reflects highly on your morality but it is required to live for Christ Jesus. It shows how service to others can be an experience that transforms and impacts not only your own lives but the lives around you.

Some of you know that this isn’t my full-time job. During the week, I drive to Odem every day where I work in a shop as a welder. At that job, the majority of people I work with don’t know Jesus. Over time, I had the opportunity to have several conversations about my faith and about who Jesus is with one of my coworkers named Joe.

Joe has had a really rough life. There was a season when he was close to giving up—ready to leave his wife, move out of his house, and he was regularly turning to drugs and alcohol as an escape. During that time, I had the privilege of being present in his life. He would open up to me about everything going on—his struggles, his thoughts, and the fact that he didn’t know what to do. I would talk with him, take him to lunch, and simply be there, listening and engaging with him.

One evening, while I was here at the church for a Bible study, I got a call from Joe. He told me that he had given his life to Christ. He said he wanted his family to stay together, that he wanted to be clean and sober, and that he was choosing to rely on God more than anything else. I saw a radical shift in Joe’s life—and it wasn’t because I had all the right answers. It was because I humbled myself before God rather than choosing my own comfort.

I’ll be honest—there were times I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to spend my lunch break listening to someone else’s struggles when I had my own. I wanted to eat alone or take a nap because I hadn’t slept much the night before. But I knew God was asking me to serve someone other than myself. I learned that when you choose to be led by the Spirit and respond to Him in your everyday life, God will use you for His Kingdom—and lives will be changed for His glory. I was present with Joe because the Spirit was present in me.

What God was teaching me through that experience is the importance of being present.

Being present is the ability to be with people in the moment. You aren’t worrying about the past or the future, but you are here, now, and ready to engage.

What does this allow you to do?

Bring all of who you are into the moment for someone else. People around us need us to love and care for them. By doing this, we show them the love of Jesus.

The world we live in is so fast that it makes it hard to do this. We are often distracted by social notifications, text messages, and internal worries. These things can rob us of opportunities to be with and love people.

I am not asking you to throw away your phones and disconnect from technology forever. But we want to make sure that we are mastering technology, not technology mastering us.

If we can’t spend time away from technology, it is no longer something we own; it’s something that owns us.

Here are a couple of things that we can do to help us order our lives so we can be present:

Prayer – Spending time with God helps us focus on what’s most important. Prayer centers us, so we become less distracted.

Scriptures – Reading the word is a commitment to live in God’s story and not our own; this helps us not get swept up by what’s happening in our world.

Journaling – Helps us get our thoughts and feelings out, so we can trust God with them and focus on what’s in front of us.

Silence – Getting away from all technological distractions and even other people can help us refocus on what’s important.

Sabbath – A 24-hour period where you step away from the regular hurry of life. The point of the Sabbath is to rest, enjoy God, and enjoy the relationships in your life.

The ultimate example of being present is Jesus Christ. Christians call it the incarnation. God becomes a man in Christ and dwells among us as a human. He calls us to follow His example. Jesus left heaven and came to earth, knowing He was going to die for our sin, but still manages to be present with people and there for them when they need Him. The Apostle Paul writes this letter to the church in Philippi while he is in a jail cell. He knows his life is coming to an end, and yet he chooses to spend his time by writing down words of encouragement and strengthening the church there. In this passage he calls them to imitate Christ towards one another and the world around them. Let’s look at these verses to get a better understanding of what this means:

Read Philippians 2:5-7

Philippians 2:5–7 ESV

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Philippians 2:5 – Now in verses 1-4 Paul had just reminded the Philippian church to live a life worthy of the Gospel, and the way this starts, we see in verse 5, is how they treat each other as a church. That is where it all starts. In Christ’s command in Matthew 22:39.

Matthew 22:39 ESV

And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Paul told the Philippian people that they were to exercise humility and love towards one another.And they would do all this under the banner of imitating Christ in relationships.

The command here starts within the church but it is also to be taken with them to the rest of the world. In the same way that starts here in this youth group. One is not greater than the other. We are all children of God so therefore we must treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ should.

How do we treat each other as a community of youth? We can’t say we love people around us if we aren’t starting with each other. How many of you know everyone else in this youth group? We are a family in this room and family is supposed to know each other, be there for each other, and encourage one another. Is that what we do here at Oso Youth? I hope so, but what is the reality?

We are to imitate Jesus in this way. So let us look at how He humbled himself for us. Verse 6 tells us that Jesus is God. We know this, that Jesus was fully God and fully man. Jesus is part of the trinity. He is divine and eternal, and yet, He does not use this as a reason to stay in Heaven. When He took on flesh and came to earth He knew exactly what would happen to him. He voluntarily humbled himself and became a servant. Now this was a decision driven by love and obedience to God.

We as believers are invited to reflect this same attitude of humility in our interactions with others. We are to go to other people as they struggle, knowing how difficult it can be to walk through that with them. We do this by setting aside our personal ambitions and serve selflessly. I encourage you all to adopt this mindset in order for us to build up Christlike communities.

Jesus didn’t come to earth as a king but as a servant. He doesn’t come to those who have it all together; He comes to the broken.

He didn’t come as a fully grown man; He came as a baby, vulnerable and naked. He understands what it is like to grow up here in this broken world.

Yet He still walked in faith, trusting God the Father’s guidance. We can do the same.

This is the call for us as Christians. We enter other people’s lives and walk with them by faith, believing God the Holy Spirit is at work in them and us.

We are present for each other through the ups and downs of life.

We enter the lives of people who do not believe, and we love them as they figure out who Jesus is.

We gain an understanding of what people around us are going through, so we can figure out how to love them and pray for them.

It is also crucial that we don’t just do this for people we like but for those we see in need.

All of this takes intention. You can’t learn these things if you aren’t paying attention and asking the right questions. We need to be present like Jesus was.

When we look in Philippians 2:8 “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” we see the commitment that Jesus had to His mission. He was so committed to His mission that he died for it. This death was not just a regular death. He was crucified. Crucifixion is widely regarded by historians and experts as one of the most painful, humiliating, and excruciating forms of execution ever devised, designed specifically by the Romans to prolong suffering for days. It was so intense and brutal that it was unlawful for a Roman citizen to be crucified. They came up with a form of torture and execution that they decided was too gruesome for their own people that it was illegal for it to happen to them. But Jesus, in His obedience to the Father, in his love for you and for me, he humbled himself to the point of death even death on a cross.

He did not have to stay there. He said to Peter in the garden when he was arrested after Peter cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest in Matthew 26:52-53.

Matthew 26:52–53 ESV

Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?

That is 72,000 angels He could have called. There is a song I sang growing up and it said “He could have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set him free but he died alone for you and for me”

Our lives are supposed to be marked by the same humility. That when you face persecution and resistance for your faith in Jesus, and you will, that you are to be a humble servant and trust the Fathers will. We give ourselves to the mission of loving other Christians and helping them grow in Christ and all of those we encounter that don’t believe.

Philippians 2:9–11 ESV

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Because of Jesus’ obedience, God has exalted Him to

the highest place possible and has given all things to Him. Because Jesus had humility to the Fathers will and His plan for him God exalts Him to the highest place. Tru exaltation comes from God and is a reward for humble service. Is this not success? To gain the reward, the gift God promises. Is this not what we believe? That if we give our life to Christ and recognize that we are sinners and live with Him as Lord of our lives that we will be gifted with eternal life in heaven. When you think of success is it in your sport, your future career, your grades, or social status. I want to challenge you to put this into perspective and rethink what success is. I hope that to all of us success will be when Jesus says “Well done, good and faithful servant”. This future hope will empower you as a believer to live humbly right now, and look to Christ as the ultimate example of servant leadership.