Example Matters

Let’s Play A Game

“Call me Ishmael.”

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

1984 by George Orwell

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

“All children, except one, grow up.”

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

“It was love at first sight.”

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

“Mr. & Mrs. Dursley of number 4, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created.”

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams

“‘Where’s Papa going with that ax?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

Some stories are tragic. Some are scary. Some are funny. Some are perplexing. Some are intriguing. Some are exciting. Some are strange.

Our lives are stories. Each one begins with an opening line. Each one continues with a narrative. Each one has an ending.

What is your story?

I went to the bookshop the other day to get a book on OCD. I went up to one of the assistants and asked, “Where is your self-help section?” She replied, “Find it yourself.”

When I did find it, it was a mess and I spent the rest of day organising the books into alphabetical order.

When you walk into a job interview, the interviewer makes up their mind about you in the first 30 seconds. The rest of the interview is either you confirming what they thought or persuading them they were wrong.

First impressions last a lifetime. There’s no second chance to make a first impression. What first impression do you make?

Acts 10:38 (NKJV)

...God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

In John 13, after the Passover feast, Jesus began washing the disciples’ feet. One by one He washed them.

John 13:14 NKJV

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

Jesus turned the simplest and most menial of tasks in a household into a metaphor for how we ought to behave as Christians.

Example Matters

The example we follow and the example we are, matters. It matters to God and it should matter to me.

In Luke 10:25–37, Jesus taught the parable of the Good Samaritan. It was an answer to the question, “Who is my neighbour?” We make much of the Samaritans and their status before the Jews in Jesus’ time, and rightly, Jesus commands the lawyer to, “Go and do likewise” (v.37).

Jesus’ point is very straightforward: if Mr. Nobody can figure out what the right to do is, what about us who have been shown how to do it?

Jesus went about “doing good.”

What is “good”? The word Luke uses in Acts 10:38 is unique to this passage. However, the word from which it comes “ergon” is found in every book of the New Testament. It is prolific in John, Luke, and Acts. Not surprisingly, it is everywhere when Paul writes.

In Acts 10:38, the meaning is clear: doing something that is good and beneficial to someone else. In the many other uses of the root word, we discover instruction on what to do. We’ve considered John 13 when Jesus washed disciples’ feet. We can take the time to read what Jesus said and did in His ministry upon this earth. In the various epistles, we discover lists of the do’s and don’ts now that we’re Christians

Colossians 2:6 LEB

Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, live in him,

“Therefore, as you took for yourselves Christ Jesus the Lord, in Him live!”

Paul is making a wonderful point in Colossians. We have proclaimed Jesus as the Lord of our lives. In doing so, we have accepted Him, not only into our lives, but to allow Him to live through our lives.

“…in Him—live!”

Translations like the NKJV and the ESV will say, ‘so walk in Him.” Chris will be delighted to hear that the Greek word is that from which we get the English word, “peripatetic” meaning to “walk around.” It can also refer to the “walk of life.” That is how it is being used in Colossians 2:6.

More than that, the word is written as a command. It is emphatic. It is demanded. It is to be obeyed. It is not optional.

Walking is something Paul speaks of regularly. Sometimes it’s negative, referring to our former lives without Christ, often it is positive. In Ephesians, Paul uses the term 8 times, and five of them are positive:

Eph 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Eph 4:1 “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,”

Eph 5:2 “And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”

Eph 5:8 “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light”

Eph 5:15 “See then that you walk circumspectly [carefully], not as fools but as wise,”

Elsewhere he writes,

Col 4:5 “Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time.”

1 Thess 4:12 “that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.”

However, this is no idle command. Paul continues:

1 Thess 4:1–2 “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”

The disciples in the first century were taught how to live in Jesus. In that passage, Paul continues to mention some of the instruction needed.

The challenge though is how we view this “living”. If we consider it to be a rule book, a to-do list that is marked as completed and we get to move on to something else, then we have thoroughly missed the mark.

This living is, as we discussed a couple of weeks ago when we studied the Fruit of the Spirit, about surrender. The giving up of self and the lock-step with the Holy Spirit.

Eph 4:30 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

Grieving the Holy Spirit in this context is first and foremost the words that we speak. N.B. Eph 4:29 “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”

“Grace to the hearers...”

Grace. If we want to talk about grace, surely Eph 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,” is our go-to passage?

Grace. Something unmerited that God provides anyway. And, as Paul continues his writing to the church in Ephesus, something we get to impart as well.

Now there’s a thought. And we do it by our words.

It’s practical. It’s immediate. It’s difficult!

James 3:8 “But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”

Does James contradict Paul? No. James is saying that no one can tame the tongue. Sooner or later, our words will land us in trouble. However, when the tongue is surrendered to the Holy Spirit, when it is His words that come forth, when those words are words of grace, then we do not grieve the Holy Spirit.

Paul continues that we won’t grieve the Holy Spirit if we are kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving. Just to make sure we do are, we are reminded that we ought to forgive because God first forgave us.

In May 2019, Harvard University published an article entitled, “The Power of Forgiveness.”

Practicing forgiveness can have powerful health benefits. Observational studies, and even some randomized trials, suggest that forgiveness is associated with lower levels of depression, anxiety, and hostility; reduced substance abuse; higher self-esteem; and greater life satisfaction. Yet, forgiving people is not always easy. (https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/files/pik/files/mens_health_power_of_forgiveness.pdf)

That last bit is true. “Forgiving people is not always easy.”

However, we have the contrast to counter that:

Luke 23:34a (NKJV)

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

It isn’t always easy, but if Christ can forgive what I’ve done to Him, me forgiving another compares by comparison.

That then leads to our final verse in the text this morning:

Ephesians 5:1 NKJV

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.

What would Jesus post on Facebook? I need to think about that and do the same.

What kind of pictures would Jesus post on Instagram? I need to think about that and do the same.

When Jesus hits that “Like” button, what would He like? I need to think about that and do the same.

This is more than “What would Jesus do?” It’s trite to reduce what Paul is saying to the Ephesians in 5:1 to “WWJD”.

The “be” of Eph 5:1 is another imperative. Another command. Another demand. It wants us to do this, to be imitators of God.

Matthew 5:48 NKJV

Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Not sinless, like God, but perfect, like God. That is to say, “being fully developed in a moral sense.” (BDAG)

I can’t nullify any of the sins I have committed. I can’t atone for them. I can’t make up for them. I can’t take any of them back.

Thankfully, God can do all that. He can wipe the slate clean. More than that, He can then encourage, strengthen, and guide me to fully develop a moral sense—His moral sense. He always gets it right. Therefore, I shall imitate Him, just like Paul said.

Matthew 5–7 is a great place to start if you want to stop grieving the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing but good advice in there. Strange advice from a human perspective, but godly advice because we see it in God’s dealing with mankind throughout the Bible and history.

Example matter.

My example matters to others because they are watching. They have a right to observe how I speak and what I do because everyone has a right to see Jesus.

The example I follow matters because if it isn’t God’s, it is the wrong one.

Each of us is writing a story. The opening line of a story can make or break the rest of the book. Some books start well but have disappointing endings. Others are page-turners, the kind you can’t get enough of, and you’re disappointed that it had to end. But those ones, those stories that have us asking for more are only that way because those stories are being written by the author and finisher of our faith—Jesus.

The first one of His stories I ever read was Jim Corbett. Another was Andrew Gardiner. One that I keep going back to is Jack’s. There are numerous others too. Men and women. Stories that were handed over to the great author Himself to be written. That makes them priceless, timeless, page-turners.

Let the first page of your story in Christ be an adaptation of what is, for me, one of the most memorable starts to a story...

“Call me Christian.”