The True Powerhouse

Hey, I’m Shawn Holland with Powerhouse Ministries and we’re glad you’re joining us because today we’re kicking off a brand new series called Conduits of Christ, that is so much more than just a message, but an actual method to living a life with Jesus, by living a life like Jesus. Many of us are a little skeptical when we hear statements like that. I know I was! When I gave my life to Jesus, that was the main statement that drew me in. I grew up knowing of and believing in Jesus, but when I had matured enough to really understand what Jesus had done for me on that cross, it softened my heart, and I was ready to claim that “Life with Jesus” that everyone talked about!

Malfunction Junction

The only problem was, that I had no idea how to live like Jesus. Actually, if I remember right, I didn’t even think it was possible. Jesus is perfect, he never sinned, and he did some crazy miracles! So I just settled for the idea that I’m going to heaven and that me and God are cool now. I remember wanting to do something, to serve somehow. I even felt God calling me to preach, but my faith was weak and I told myself, “There’s no way you could ever do that, you’re too shy, and you only just got saved! You’re probably not even hearing God right, what do you know about anything?”. Like I said, my faith was weak, and I chose not to obey God. But that wasn’t the only area of my life that I thought I was letting God down, I still had no control over my temper, I had no real prayer life, and you could forget about me reading the Bible!

So now I’m saved, cool with God, except I’m ignoring him at every turn because, well, what he’s asking of me is hard and I just don’t know how to do it. I wrestled with myself for awhile, feeling so much guilt and shame. I remember thinking, even if God still loves me, theres no way he likes me. I really didn’t even feel saved after awhile…

And I think that’s where a lot of us get stuck.

Right there between, falling in love with God, and then falling for the lie that you’ve some how “Let God down”, or that you’ve “Dissapointed God”. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Forgiven to Be Filled

For starters, you could never let God down, because its God that’s holding YOU up, not the other way around. And to say that God is somehow dissapointed, is to say that he somehow didn’t know what you’d do or not do. It sounds like common sense stuff but when the liar is in your ear, its crazy what we’ll believe. See the devil wants us to believe these lies because when we live in fear and shame, we run from the gift that God has already given us... The gift of LIFE, to live LIFE like Jesus!

Colossians 2:13–14 CSB

And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

Notice it says “he made you alive with him”. So here is the gift, and a gift is just that, its a gift, it can’t be bought or earned, or it isn’t a gift at all. God made His Son become sin for us, so that we could become righteous in Him! Jesus died on that cross to forgive our sins, but he was resurected, so that we may have life. But what does such a life even look like?

Well THAT is what this series is all about!

Where It All Begins

Jesus’ life was one of meaning and grand purpose, and believe it or not, so is your’s. If we had to sum the life of Jesus up in one word, many would probably say “Love”, and they wouldn’t be too far off. But is it better to love everyone, or to teach everyone to love? I think the more appropriate word here is “Ministry”. See the ministry of Jesus is Jesus in evey way. So if we’re going to learn to live like Jesus by studying the life of Jesus, then we’re going to study his ministry. For the next seven months, yes I’m aware, that’s twenty eight Sundays, we are going to go on a journey into the life and ministry of Jesus, and the occuring theme that you’re going to see is Discipleship! Jesus carried out his perfect life mission and purpose by making disciples.

Luke 6:40 CSB

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

Jesus is telling us that in order to be like him, we must be fully trained disciples! So now the question becomes, “How do we become disciples?”.

In order to become disciples, we have to make disciples. There is a specific stradegy to living your life with Jesus, and he has modeled a pattern for us to follow in making disciples, which is all part of his perfect plan for you to become one. You might say, “I don’t want to make disciples, I just want to be one.” But that’s what discipleship is all about, learning to be like Jesus, and Jesus was all about others. So let’s take a closer look at Jesus. We’ve broken this journey down into three different series, each one is based on a different view of Jesus ministry.

There are three sides to Jesus’ ministry, but we usually only hear of one, and thats the Message. Its easy to see why this is all we ever really focus on, becuase its a treasuse chest all by itself. But like God, even his ministy is a trinity of power. The other two views of Jesus’ Ministry are Jesus’ Methods, and his Model. Trying to learn by any of these three views of Jesus’ ministry without the others is a huge mistake. We usually focus on Jesus’ message, while failing to see the importance of the methods that that message was delivered. Sometimes we emphasize the methods Jesus used without a solid understanding of the message, and without recognizing the pattern that Jesus modeled. The fact is that all three are indispensable to true disciple-making ministry. The message of Jesus is woven throughout the fabric of this entire study and we will look at methodology a little further along in our discussion. Today, we’re really going to look at the Model – the processes and pattern Jesus employed to move His followers from one critical challenge to the next on the journey toward the perfecting of their faith. But first, let’s take a quick glance at Jesus’ message and method.

Jesus’ Message

Let me just by saying this series and all its teachings are filled Jesus message, and we’ll focus on that individually later on. But to state it simply for now,

Jesus created, He sustains, by His blood he redeems and sanctifies, and He has come to establish His kingdom. There is hope for the hopeless. There is now light in the darkness. There is rest for the weary and healing for those sick in body and soul. The cross marks the satisfaction of the debt of sin and who ever beleives in him, will have life!

Jesus’ Method

More than just what Jesus said, but what he did! Jesus was committed to relational ministry, and he invested his time into anyone who would hear him, but he gave most of is time to just a few. Jesus also spent a great deal of time in prayer. When we read the Bible, it beccomes pretty clear that he gave huge priority to prayer. Most of us know he had profound love for sinners, and we can see that from the cross alone. So you see that Jesus had a very strategic balance of effort toward his priorities – win the lost, build believers, equip workers.

A Little Longer Look at Jesus’ Model

Alright, so now we’re geting to the main point of today’s topic, Jesus’ Model. Now we can’t even cover this one view of his ministry in just one episode but I wanted to atleast introduce the basics of it to you, becuase its really what this entire series is all about. The main goal of Jesus’ model of disciple-making is “fully-trained disciples” that fully reflect His character and priorities.

Luke 6:40 CSB

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

Why is the model is so important…

1 John 2:6 CSB

The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked.

Jesus’ ministry is all about us learning to imitate himself. The pattern is clearly laid out all through the Bible.

Philippians 2:5 CSB

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,

The Bible is full of verses telling us to walk like, think like and act like Jesus.

According to John 1:1-5, the pattern of Jesus’ life and ministry is the substance of our new LIFE!

John 1:1–5 CSB

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

Why we sometimes fail to see the model.

1. Most of us really fail to see any strategic pattern in Jesus disciple-making ministry.

The investment Jesus made in His disciples looked different year after year. It was almost like a financial investment strategy, the processes changed as equity was built, risks were assessed and mitigated and the principal investment base grew. There is so much raw progress worth paying attention to in the lives of those Jesus chose to be His disciples. Take Peter for example. We usually think of Peter as impulsive and headstrong and over the course of Jesus’ relationship with Peter we see Jesus’ leverage that trait. But as Peter matures and moves toward “fully-trained” status we see the rougher edges smoothed and Peters character and priorities refined to reflect the character and priorities of Jesus. By the time we finish with the book of Acts Peter has developed from a rough and unrefined fisherman to a powerful mouthpiece for the Kingdom and a leader of the early church. Did it just happen to work out that way in Peter’s case? Or maybe there was a strategic pattern that Jesus had created?

2. The other huge reason we can’t see the Model that Jesus used is because we fail to see the value of a chronological approach to studying the life and ministry of Jesus. But the timeline matters! Some people argue that if God had intended for the life of Jesus to be studied chronologically, then He would have written it that way. Well… He did write it that way! Look at how Luke begins his gospel.

Luke 1:1–4 CSB

Many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us. So it also seemed good to me, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first, to write to you in an orderly sequence, most honorable Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.

• See the timeline gives us insight that we couldn’t gain any other way. For example, In Mark 1:17 Jesus calls his disciples to follow and then He says He will make them fishers of men. We always think of this as the first encounter that Jesus has with those disciples. But our chronological study tells us otherwise! By the time Jesus brings up the whole idea of fishing for men the disciples had been with Him for at least 18 months.

3. The third reason we usually fail to study the Model of Jesus is beause we assume that we can’t do it like Jesus did because He was God and we are not. We can’t do what God does! It is true. Jesus is fully God. But Jesus is also fully human – like us in every way except without sin. The Jesus that engaged in a ministry of making disciples was a human being and I think that when we look at the life and ministry of Jesus we tend to only look through the lens of His Diety, his Godness. But thats only a partial view, and we can’t see that the model is doable - that we can apply the pattern that Jesus created and used. That’s why it was so important that God become fully man, not just to pay the dept for our sins, but to relate to us in a way that not only give us hope, but make us aware that there is an exact Model to follow!

The Resources

So before we go I want to let you in on some tools we’ve made available to everyone, and discuss how we’re going to keep in touch from week to week. So apart from our Sunday services, we’ll also be streaming live every Thursday night at 8PM EST for our Small Groups Class. Guys, you don’t want to miss that, we’re gonna go deeper into each weeks lesson and have some real discussion, so if any of you have questions, that’s a great time to join us and we can talk about it there. This is a lot of imformation and learning to live like Jesus isn’t something that’s going to happen overnight. It’s gonna take some real commitment and you’re gonna have to take you’re own initiative. And you can do that with our new app called Like Jesus. We’ve got a link attached to this stream and we’ll be posting that same link again across all our platforms just make sure everyone can find that. But guys, you for sure want to download this app becuase in it, there are plenty of videos and the e-book that you’re gonna want to read that’s meant to accompany this entire series.