Building Godly Character

Thank you again, Mr. Cole. My introduction might just be a waste, because the first thing it says is, at camp this summer for our Christian living classes, we use the theme, leaders, people of character. Now, of course, you've probably heard that a number of times. I think I've mentioned it up here. But I don't know, you might not be familiar with how we use that at camp. What we've been doing the last few years is actually, we have a set of outlines prepared that we use at all the different camp programs. And the idea is that any one camp, even if all the dorms are meeting separately, which at Camp Kadubik this year, we had brothers-sister dorms together, but we would have five different groups of people all getting the same lesson more or less. I say more or less because five different men are going to present it five different ways.

But each weekday, we focused on a particular person from the Bible, and each of them analyzing a particular character trait that they exemplified to try to bring out some of these traits that could be good examples for us. As an example, Esther served as an example of courage. Nehemiah for determination.

Or, having read the seven laws of success, I kept wanting to say drive. Determination, drive, I think, overlap. Paul demonstrates commitment, or as a lesson said, sometimes staying the course, in spite of obstacles and trials. Ruth portrayed a person of character, somebody striving to always do what was right regardless.

Abraham exemplified having vision, this clear vision of the ultimate goal. All of us do have one ultimate goal, being in the kingdom of God. We need the character traits of all of these people. We need drive, and we need to drive unwaveringly towards that goal while doing what's right, as God's law shows us what's right. We have to stay the course through any of our trials and tests. We have to be motivated by moral courage to do that. And of course, when we're in God's kingdom, it won't be only those who are ordained now or who are given positions of responsibility. When that time comes, each of us will be given positions of leadership. God is calling us to be leaders.

Even though we're the weak and the base things now, we're the not many wise who are called. But God the Father didn't call us to stay that way. And of course, sometimes it's good to go back and remind ourselves. Jesus Christ said no one could come to Him unless the Father drew Him. So no one's here by accident. The Father called you by name. But He didn't call you because you were so specially qualified. He called you to get you qualified.

Or to quote the old saying, God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called. I'd like to know who said that first because I always thought it was pretty clever. So developing godly character, godly leadership traits along the way is a lifelong process.

How do we get there? Well, we can study... well, obviously we should study Scripture. We should submit to God's leadership, guided by His Holy Spirit.

And there are countless sermons we could give focusing on these various traits. One of the things I like to do, though, is to look at people who are great leaders. You know, I'm a big fan of biography. And I still remember sitting in a student assembly my sophomore year at Ambassador College. And actually Dr. Meredith was giving the talk at that time. And he was encouraging us to read about the lives of great men. And he might have said great men and women. I don't remember. But he was basically saying, if you want to be great, read about the lives of those who were great. And he held up thick biographies of men like Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill. And I know he had Herbert Armstrong's biography and others. And that really struck a note with me. Learn about these people. And you'll see faults, but you'll see good traits, too.

Now, it's interesting. I listed five people that we studied during camp. You might have wondered, there was one that we could have addressed that was left out. Luckily, we heard a little bit about him earlier. He's the one who could be called the ultimate leader.

Although I stopped in my notes, because as soon as I wrote that phrase, I started chuckling. Not because of this person, but I might have mentioned to you all, sometimes I read a column during football season on the Internet. It's on ESPN.com.

There's a scholar who's actually a Ph.D. that works in the Brookings Institute, and he writes a football column, which is interesting because he mixes in analysis of the games with social and political commentary. And I found it very enlightening and also very amusing. He likes to point out things that are humorous, one of which some years ago, looking at the Denver Broncos website, he noticed that they called their coach, who at the time was Mike Shanahan, the ultimate leader. So the writer started always referring to him as ultimate leader, as though he were such a great leader. And then over the years, he noted that as he moved over to the Washington Redskins and they had losing season after losing season, perhaps the ultimate leader's greatest leadership trait was having John Elway as his quarterback for a number of years.

Now, you might wonder, I got way off track. I did mention that partly as a chuckle, but also to demonstrate that titles and positions don't make someone a leader. It's the character, the substance of the person, no matter what you call them. And that'll apply to us. When we're in God's kingdom, it won't matter if our title is official dung-sweeper or leader of XKY Galaxy. It's what's in us that's going to matter the most.

So it's good for us to spend this time now looking at leaders and learning from their traits. And of course, the one who is the ultimate leader is Jesus Christ. Of course, you know that. Jesus exemplified all those traits in the other five people we examined. He had a goal and a purpose. He had a vision. He had commitment and determination. He had courage. He always did what was right.

As a matter of fact, it's amazing. I think I say when we study biography, you have to learn to emulate their strengths but try to not fall into their weaknesses. But with Jesus Christ, there were no weaknesses. He never did anything wrong. So he's a great example. We could spend countless hours studying all of his traits. It's sort of a whimsical thought because I know we do that many times. But when we look at all of his strengths and his leadership traits, I wanted to take a sermon and look at some traits that we might not think of as much just to get a better feel for the type of person he was and maybe round out his character a little.

I thought of, again, I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I think, the bracelets with the WWJD. What would Jesus do? Maybe another question we could ask is, what was Jesus like? What was he like on a personal basis? There's no way I could discuss all of his traits in one sermon. I have to be honest and say, I'm sure I don't know all of them. But there are some things maybe we could look at and learn some things that we didn't already know or that we don't focus on as much. One of the first ones I want to mention, think of Jesus as occupation.

Actually, we don't see a lot of it. We know he was a preacher, but that was only the last three and a half years of his life. His father, Joseph, was a carpenter. And in Matthew 6 and verse 3, the people of his own country refer to Jesus himself as a carpenter. They say, isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary, with the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, Simeon, and his sisters are here with us? Interesting. They say he's the carpenter, and they mention his mother. I think most of us are aware that the last mention of Joseph, Jesus' stepfather, was when Jesus was only 12 years old.

There's that well-known story of them going up to Jerusalem for the Passover, and then when it's all over, the family's heading back, and they just suppose Jesus is in the company somewhere. I'm guessing he must have been a pretty responsible 12-year-old if they just trusted him to be where he was supposed to be. They got a ways down the road and discovered he wasn't there, and they went back, of course, and found him in the temple.

He was about ready to start his ministry then. That's what he was going up to do. But that's the last mention of Joseph. Almost everyone who studies the Bible presumes that Joseph probably died an early death. We don't have any information about it, but after that, Jesus became the carpenter, and perhaps had to start helping his younger brothers learn the trade more thoroughly. Jesus was the carpenter. Nowadays, if I think of a carpenter, I think of a fellow who uses power saws and nail guns and occasionally a claw hammer.

As a matter of fact, near our house, we occasionally, Connor and I like to go up for walks in the morning, and we've watched a house go up near us. Actually, before that, it was almost more interesting watching them knock down the old house. They demolished that and cleared it away, and then they framed up a new house. If you watch men framing up a house, especially in this heat, you don't see too many out-of-shape carpenters on the job. But let's think back to Jesus' time. It was a little bit different.

And if we think of him in that role, we might get a little more insight. The Greek word that's translated carpenter in our Bible is tecton. Its literal translation is artificer, which doesn't roll off the tongue like carpenter, but an artificer, that's somebody that works with materials. He was, I think maybe a better term today might be builder. Wood was one of the primary building materials, but he probably also used clay and stone block. And it might have been, like I said, it was more than just using a few wood tools.

If Jesus did inherit a business when his father died, an appropriate title, which I don't know if there was one, they might have called it Joseph and Son General Contractors. And I say that because rather than imagining Jesus in an air-conditioned wood shop puttering around with power tools, it might be more appropriate to see him using hand tools on a construction site, carving and cutting and placing heavy blocks and wooden timbers.

That became a lot more real in my mind this spring, when, as I've shared with you, probably mentioned it more times than you care to hear, that I had been working on rebuilding a couple of retaining walls on our property. The one by the driveway had some small beams that it was leaning out to where I was worried about getting my car in and out, so I tore that out.

And then I thought, well, rather than wood, I'm going to use some of that stone that's up in the woods behind us. There's plenty of naturally occurring limestone where it's got nice flat surfaces. Well, it's got to be heavy enough to hold the dirt back. So I went up there and looked for rocks and lugged them down. Actually, the lower level, I didn't lug down. I slid, I turned, hand over, luckily it's all downhill to my house because I've got some that are about this big and this thick that I couldn't lift if my life depended on it.

But I'm sure Jesus worked with materials like that. I actually was going to bring in a couple props and show you here. But it seemed too much hassle to get it into the car and bring it out. Now, the other retaining wall was of railroad ties. You all know what a railroad tie looks like. I learned this year what a railroad tie feels like when you're trying to pick it up and carry it. And actually, I thought as a good model, I'd shave off like a piece about this big.

But I got another feel for what it was like using hand tools because I don't have a... the only power saw I've got is a miter, a power miter saw. You can't use... can't put a railroad tie in a miter saw. So I got out a hand bow saw, and I made several cuts. Yeah, that was a job. Matter of fact, fortunately, it was the last cut I made.

The saw broke. But it was the last one, and I haven't bought another one yet. I did bring one little prop, though. Our neighbor took down a tree near our house down there. This cut was made with a chainsaw, but imagine Jesus taking... you know, making things like this with hand tools. And then imagine this, but going out about eight feet long. And him carrying that around, what I'm getting at is, he was strong. He was fit.

You know, I spent part of one spring as a side job working with these materials, and I was sore. I cut my hands, I got bloody, and I was sore for days. Jesus Christ spent much of his life on these construction sites, working with these materials and picking up heavy things.

He was not the frail, sickly-looking, effeminate creature that populates these Renaissance paintings. No, he was a manly man with great physical strength. He must have been a presence. Now, that job probably also included a lot of other skills. I imagine he was good at spatial thinking. You know, he had to be able to work out designs and plans. He probably understood mathematics pretty well. And for that matter, probably had an artistic touch.

And was good at directing crews of men, you know, managing people, getting them to do their jobs. But people tend to expect that of Jesus. Well, of course he had an artistic touch, and, you know, he was good with people. But I suspect a lot of people don't think of just the sheer physical brute strength that he probably had.

Now, I thought of a way to demonstrate that, because there's no scripture that says Jesus picked up a 200-ton barbell. But there are some that show some of the strength he had, and I want to lead into that if you want to turn with me to John 21. Actually, we're going to look at this story tells not about Jesus, but one of his disciples, the Apostle Peter, or who will become the Apostle Peter. And this story is not yet an apostle, but he's getting close. This is after Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. And in the beginning of the story, Peter says, well, I'm going to go fishing. And several of the other disciples go with him, and they stay out on the boat all night. They're working their tails off, probably dirty, sweaty, and they're not catching anything. And then Jesus drops in for a visit. So I'm going to pick up in verse 5. Jesus calls to them. He says, Children, do you have any food? And I answered, No. They're castering that on the right side of the boat, and you'll find some. So they cast it, and now they couldn't draw it in because of the multitude of fish. God had worked a miracle to have all those fish there. Therefore, the disciple whom Jesus loved, we believe this was John, said to Peter, It's the Lord! And Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord. He put on his outer garment, for he'd taken it off, and he dived in the sea, and he swam in. The other disciples were thinking, you know, Peter was impetuous and wanted to get there right away. The others came in a little boat, dragging the net with fish behind him. They didn't want to lose that. They were only about 200 cubits from the shore. And as soon as they came to land, they saw a fire of coals there with fish laid on it and bred. So it was very nice. Jesus had prepared a breakfast for them, and he said, Bring some of the fish that you just caught. We're going to need more fish than I've got here, perhaps. So Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish, 153. Although there were so many, the net wasn't broken. Now, I'm not familiar with, you know, I'm guessing these are pretty good-sized fish. I don't know what a big, raw fish weighs, but 153 of them apparently was heavy enough that there was danger of it breaking the net. And yet this one man, Peter, just went up and grabbed it and pulled it ashore. So all these things I've been saying about how Jesus must have been well muscled and strong, Peter also probably fits that description. You know, they weren't, you know, the fisherman at that day wasn't sitting on the bank with a cooler full of beer and just throwing a reel out. He was, you know, guiding the boat out and working these nets, and he probably, I doubt that he was all bulked up like a weightlifter, but probably just really heavy and solid.

With that in mind, I want to turn to another famous story, Matthew 14.

Thinking of, as I said, Peter, and we don't get a lot of physical description. For some reason, I always picture Peter being about 5'2 and built like a barrel. Now, for all I know, he might have been 6' I have no idea, but for some reason, as I said, I think of Peter that way. But as I'm sure, as I said, I'm sure he wasn't frail and skinny.

This is the story, of course, after Jesus had fed a multitude miraculously, and he sent them away. He went up on a mountain to pray and told the disciples, Go ahead and cross the water in a boat. I'll catch up. He didn't tell him how he was going to catch up, but we'll see in the story, picking up in verse 25. Now, the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went to them walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled. It's a ghost! And they cried out for fear.

Then immediately, Jesus said, Oh, don't be a good shear. It's me. Don't be afraid. Peter answered, Well, Lord, if it's you, command me to come out on the water. Well, come on! And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to Jesus. When he saw the wind, and that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me! Immediately, Jesus stretched out his right hand and caught him. He said, Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt? We read this all the time and focus on the lessons of faith, which are very important.

But as I said, I want to look on something we don't see as often. Jesus just reached out, grabbed this heavy, strong man with one hand, and pulled him up out of the water. How much strength does it take to do that? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it. Now, he was just walking on water. It could have been a miracle. But I think, you know, if you were just used to, like I said, carrying heavy beams and placing stones and all that, would you call on God for a miracle to do something that you could just naturally do on your own?

No, probably not. Maybe I'm being a little presumptuous. But as I said, I wanted to focus, as I said, Jesus had some strength, some stamina. That might give us a different view of some things we read. I'm going to go over a few pages to chapter 21 of Matthew. I want to look at both two different versions of something like this happening.

Matthew 21 and verse 12. It says, Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And he said, it's written in my house, you'll be called a house of prayer, and you've made it a den of thieves. So he went in there and he started overturning these tables.

And it occurred to me, those aren't the kind of tables we have downstairs with plastic tops and folding legs. They were probably heavy wooden tables that normally would take two or three men. But Jesus came in and started pitching them over. Now, the money that he was pouring out wasn't paper bills, it was heavy metallic coins. And what I'm getting at is, this might have looked like a scene from an action hero movie.

Imagine John Claude Van Dant, one of those guys, Bruce Willis or somebody suddenly tearing, cutting loose, and these merchants cowering in the corner while he drove the animals out. I imagine Jesus could go toe to toe and hold his own with Arnold Schwarzenegger, back when he was young, not when he was old and wrinkly. And I say this, I don't know who's making movies like that anymore.

The old guys are still doing it. I guess they're the ones. With that in mind, it makes me think of his humility. Think of how important it was that he did rely on the Father for spiritual strength, even when he had all that physical strength. A person of strength and fitness like that might have, you know, I think when he was going to go be tempted by Satan, he fasted 40 days and 40 nights.

Part of that might have been to make sure that he wouldn't rely on his physical strength. He had to make sure that that was out of the picture, and maybe it took, I don't know, 40 days and 40 nights. That's a long time to fast. But he wasn't relying on his own strength, even though he had a lot of it. And of course, you know, the Romans, when they wanted to punish a criminal or execute someone, usually they would either do a scourging or crucifixion.

It took an incredibly strong and fit person to, well, almost survive both. Of course, Jesus lived through the scourging, which would have killed a lot of people, and then was able to, you know, go into crucifixion. Now, I say this, I'm not wanting us to glory in Christ's physical strength, but I think keeping in mind, you know, what a physical presence he almost certainly was might help us to imagine some scenes in the Bible and see them in a more realistic way.

And as I said, understand how far off so many of these non-inspired depictions of him must be. You know, he was not some frail sissy, but realizing how strong a man he was, and I'm talking about physically, I'm sure he was even stronger emotionally and spiritually. That should help us appreciate even more the humility that he had, the self-control that he exercised. Think of him taking those little children up into his arms when people brought them to bless him.

You know, here was a strong, muscular man, and yet he was able to exercise that tenderness. And when people said, oh, he's too busy, don't bring those kids to him, and said, no, no, let the little children come to me. He had both sides. We should want to be like him in relying in strength and support from God rather than from ourselves, even when we might think that we could handle a situation. And I guess I've reached the point, and summer camp this year reminded me of that, that when you're younger, you think you can do all kinds of things, and a lot of times you can.

But who was it? I was listening to ESPN radio sometime. They were talking about an older athlete who was trying to make a comeback, and I think it was Charles Barkley who said that father time is undefeated. And how strong and fit you are, eventually the years will catch up, and you have to rely on someone that father time doesn't affect.

God's strength never fails. Now, we can appreciate the self-control that Jesus exercised, perhaps even more if we realize he was not only a man of great physical strength, but also of strong emotions. I want to look at that part of it. If the account of Jesus cleansing the temple isn't a clear enough demonstration that he was a man of strong emotions, I want to look at another example of him doing that and read what he said. Let's go to John 2. John 2, verse 13, apparently this happened early in his ministry, as opposed to the other time happening later.

It appears that twice in his life he went in and drove the money changers out.

John 2, verse 13, Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. And he made a whip of cords, and he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen. He poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. And he said to those who sold doves, Take these things away! Don't make my father's house a house of merchandise! And I'm saying it that way, that translators put an exclamation mark in there. And I imagine that's the way he said it, probably louder, and maybe with his face red. So much so that the disciples said, this inspired them, his disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house has eaten me up. That's from Psalm 69, verse 9. I'm not going to turn there. But zeal is a strong feeling. It's not a small thing to be eaten up about something. This seems to me to be a case that Jesus was upset. He was angry. Now, we know anger can be very destructive. If we let it go unchecked, it can ruin us. One of the great travesties in our society today is they say that we have a nation of a lot of angry young men. They're angry because opportunity is taken away. Many times they're angry because they're raised in households without a father. Jesus could feel anger without having those downsides. Anger of itself, especially if it's for a good reason, is not a sin. Psalm 7, verse 11 says that God is angry with the sinners, or with the wicked, every day. God feels anger every day, apparently. But he lives by what Paul wrote in Ephesians 4, verse 20. I'm not turning to these because they're so succinct. There it says, Be angry and sin not. I'm not sure. I should look into the Greek. I wonder if it could be translated, Be angry, but sin not. Either way, it means the same thing. The times that Jesus overturned the tables in the temple and drove out the merchants and their animals, I imagine Jesus was angry.

But that's, as I said, I'm imagining it. There's one incident in Christ's ministry where we don't even have to guess. It clearly says that he was angry. Let's look there in Mark chapter 3. Mark 3, starting in the first verse. Of course, Jesus regularly kept the Sabbath. He went to services, and here is a case of it. He entered the synagogue again on the Sabbath. There was a man there that had a withered hand, so they watched him closely, whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. In case you don't know who they were, over in verse 6 it says it's the Pharisees. These religious leaders who had their own particular rules about how they thought the Sabbath needed to be protected and how we'd go above and beyond what the Bible says. Jesus saw the man. He said to the man who had the withered hand, Step forward. He said to them, that is the Pharisees, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or do evil? To save life or to kill? They kept silent. When he looked around at them with anger, at being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was restored as whole as the other. He was angry, but not at them personally. He was angered over the hardness of their hearts. Not necessarily at them. Jesus was a very compassionate person. It must have just... It's another thing that ate him up to see someone suffering. And he enjoyed being able to end that suffering. It made him angry when leaders of people, leaders who were supposed to serve and help others, inflicted needless suffering. Instead of saying, Oh, Jesus, great! Jesus is here! He can heal this guy. They were looking for a way to catch Jesus and persecute him because of breaking their traditions of the Sabbath. That made him angry. The Pharisees should have been helping and serving those people. Instead, they were looking for their own advantage. Jesus showed his wrath with the Pharisees a number of times. Let's turn to Matthew 23. And by the way, I'm not saying this to advocate that we go around yelling at people. But I do want to focus on how anger can bring certain things when it's properly controlled. Matthew 23, verse 11. Of course, we saw part of this earlier. I'll carry on. Or actually another reference to this principle.

I didn't have a pause to turn a page.

The chapter goes on showing that Jesus gave them a good tongue-lashing. It seems, though, that he was not as much angry at their sinful state. I'm sure he didn't like their sin, but he was upset more at them harming others. Particularly those who they were supposed to be serving. That's something that makes God upset. I'm not going to turn to Matthew 18 because I want to read further here a little bit later.

It's Matthew 18, verses 6 and 7, where Jesus said that whoever causes offense to one of these little ones, it'd be better for that person to have a millstone put on his neck and be thrown out to sea. In verse 7 it says, "'Woe to the world because of offenses, for offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes.'" Personally, I'd hate to be on the wrong side of God saying, "'Woe to that person.'" I'd like to be the one that's behind him when he's pointing at someone else.

But as I said, Jesus didn't get upset when people called him names. He wasn't offended or hurt when people did things to him. And we remember the case when he was even being nailed to that upright beam, that he said, "'Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.'" So you could call him names, you could blaspheme, you could even slap him and say, "'Prophesy, who's hitting you?'" But when you started hurting some innocent people who you were supposed to be serving, that got him upset. Abusing a position of trust and service, that's not something God took lightly.

Let's look down in verse 29. "'Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, oh, if we'd have lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Therefore your witness is against yourself, that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.

Fill up, then, the measure of your father's guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers, you bunch of snakes, how can you escape the condemnation of hell?' You don't see very often Jesus insulting people, calling them names, but he did here. He felt that anger. After all, when it says in Psalms that God is angry with the wicked every day, Jesus is the one who was that God.

So, of course, he was angry with the wicked every day. He felt things powerfully. Jesus was a passionate person, I believe. But we know that he never sinned. He never, ever allowed his anger to cause him to do something that he would regret. Never allowed him to even say something that he would regret. He never had to go back and say, oh, I shouldn't have said that. Even speaking the words that we just read, just think of it, we're near the end of his ministry there in Matthew 23.

Earlier in his career, he disappeared into a crowd or told people, don't tell anybody about this when it wasn't yet his time. But now he was coming up saying, now it is my time. I need to get them riled up enough to where they'll break their own laws to have me crucified.

So although I don't doubt Jesus' real anger, he probably calculated and said, I can let it loose now even though I could control it because it's time. It's time for them to have me arrested and crucified. So this shows that he always maintains his control. And that's a vital part of the example that we should strive to follow. It's not wrong for us to ever get angry about what's wrong and evil in the world. But like Jesus Christ, we should always maintain control.

We should do what Paul wrote, be angry, sin not. I love the way that's phrased. We could say, be angry and don't sin, but be angry and sin not. I thought I might turn to one other characteristic of Jesus that I'm not sure that it's unknown, but maybe we don't focus on it or appreciate it as much as we could.

We think if it was essential for Jesus to keep vigilant control over all of his feelings, especially that anger that could come up, it was perhaps even more necessary for him to keep tight control over any feelings he might have toward women. And to state it plainly, Jesus was a man.

And there was later extreme teaching that said that he wasn't. A branch of Gnosticism came along that said, Jesus came, but he wasn't really in the flesh. And they would say he didn't even leave footprints in the sand. He was some type of apparition. Well, the Apostle John specifically countered that. He said, no, we've touched and handled him. And I was there when that spear went in his side, and I saw blood and water came out.

He was a man. Jesus was human. He was born a helpless little baby, like all of us. And he grew and matured. And at some point, he went through puberty. Which means that, like all of us guys, at some point he looked over and saw girls. And saw him in a different way than he did before. Now, let's turn to Hebrews 4 and chapter 15, or verse 15. And by the way, I'm not meaning to imply anything negative in this. But Hebrews 4 and verse 15 is a scripture that we cite fairly often.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted, just as we are, yet without sin. And of course, I can point out that Greek word that translated, tempted, pariezo, is probably better here translated, tested. Because, you know, Jesus was never having to hold himself back.

You know, I'm as certain as I am of anything that Jesus never felt like he never got to a position where he said, Oh no, my mind's starting to wander, I can't go there. And he had to hold himself back. You know, he was never, never got close to being on a slippery slope, as it's sometimes called. And I mean, not only physically, but the sins of his mind. As I said, I don't want to imply anything negative or demeaning about Jesus Christ.

But I am saying he was a healthy, strong man who was tested like all of us. He must have noticed the physical attractiveness of women. But he saw them as potential children of God, spiritual siblings. You know, a Christian man can notice and appreciate his own sister's physical attractiveness. I say that it's funny, I didn't have it in my notes, but as I was thinking about this, I distinctly remember when I was...

Well, it's not that distinct, because I'm not sure exactly when it was. I think it was eighth or ninth grade when the boys in my class at school noticed my older sister. And they said, Frank, she's your sister? Wow! How can you stand living with her, because she's so good-looking! She's my sister! But I had to say, well, yeah, my sister is attractive. She had a pretty face, a nice figure, good skin.

I mean, but I never felt like, oh, you know, I've got to stop myself from thinking, you know, that way. I appreciated, and I didn't tell her that at the time. I'm not sure how many years it must have been later before I would admit, yeah, my sister was pretty. I'm sure Jesus could appreciate that women were pretty, but he saw them, as I said, as spiritual siblings.

Now, Scripture's silent on the fact that Jesus must have physically been able to have married and had kids. And we don't often think about that. You know, he was God in the flesh, but if he was perfectly healthy, then, you know, he physically could have had children, but he did not. And there are a couple obvious reasons. It just occurred to me to discuss that, because why wouldn't he have married?

Well, there are some very good physical reasons. One, he knew he was going to die young. He had a certain destiny. It would have been unconscionable for him to start a family knowing what was going to happen to him, that he was going to leave a grieving widow and possibly orphan children.

You know, to marry someone without revealing that would have just been, would have mounted to fraud. Or if he did reveal it, hey, let's get married, but by the way, in about eight years, they're going to haul me out and crucify me. You know, that would have been cruelty. And, you know, he knew marriage would not be for him. I suspect he knew it long before adolescence came. And, of course, another very good reason is if he had married and had children, what would that have done to the church and society in general?

I mean, Paul had to write to the Corinthian congregation and say, you guys are saying, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, and, you know, over who baptized them. Just imagine if there was someone sitting there saying, well, Jesus was my grandfather.

No, God didn't want to allow that kind of division or disruption to happen in the church. You know, it's maybe even silly to think about, as I said, I don't think it was ever even a possibility. Jesus knew that he wouldn't marry, wouldn't have children. But it's important to realize that it wasn't because he was incapable. He probably understood, as I said, that he would not be able to ever marry. He knew he would never experience sex, but he wasn't the first to live a life of celibacy, not the last. So one of the things that I find remarkable is that knowing that, he still was quite comfortable associating with women.

He didn't stay away from them because it would be a special test. And I admire that about him. Of course, everything to admire about him, but he didn't shun women to avoid temptation or to stay away from the reminder that he would never be able to marry and raise children.

He didn't need to do that. But it's interesting, if he could have easily done that, I mean, it wouldn't have seemed unusual. He lived in a society that pretty much devalued women. In his day and age, women had very few legal rights. They were often treated as property. So if he'd chosen to just not have much to do with any women, nobody would have thought at all. Nobody probably even would have noticed. And who could blame him?

But he didn't do that. Jesus apparently liked women. He enjoyed being in their company without it being any particular test. Jesus talked to women. He associated with them. There's at least two of them in the Bible that it says he loved them. This tells me he wasn't ambivalent towards women. He couldn't have been ignorant or unappreciative of the differences. I'm sure he appreciated those. But he had his thoughts and his feelings and any physical desires completely in control. So he didn't have to avoid one person any more than another. Of course, he enjoyed the company of men, too. I guess I should say that. He enjoyed being around men. I'm sure that masculine company with the disciples and probably telling jokes and laughing, perhaps wrestling as a young boy.

He appreciated men and women in their proper sphere and could move in both circles equally. Let's turn to John 4.

John 4 and verse 6, because so far I'm just saying that we can look at some examples.

John 4. This is, of course, the story of when he would have a conversation with a Samaritan woman.

Now, they're on the way going to Galilee, and they had to pass through Samaria. So it says in verse 5, The city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now, Jacob's well was there, and Jesus being wearied from his journey, sat by the well about the sixth hour, and a woman of Samaria came to draw water. He said, well, can you give me a drink? For his disciples had gone away to the city to buy food. Now, this led to a conversation that might have went on quite a while. Of course, there's a lot of good doctrinal truth in there that I'm not focusing on today. But they probably had a good talk for quite a while, and in verse 27, we see at this point, the disciples came. They marveled that he talked to a woman. No one said, what do you seek? Why are you talking with her? The amazement wasn't that it was so unusual for Jesus to talk to a woman, and in that society, it was unusual for any adult man to talk to a woman and have a long conversation. But it seems that it turns out Jesus normally did this kind of thing. He had women in his group accompanying him throughout his ministry and all the way up to the crucifixion. We can see an example of that in Mark chapter 15. Mark 15 and verse 40. I'm breaking into the thought here, but this is, of course, at Golgotha, where he's up there crucified and there's a number of people, and it says, There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the less, and Joseph and Salome, who followed him and ministered to him when he was in Galilee. So not just there, but all the way back in Galilee, these women were part of his company that followed and ministered, and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. So there were a number of women that were just naturally in the company, and Jesus, I'm sure, knew them by name and perhaps had regular conversations. Now, of course, it doesn't say so in this account, but other of the Gospel accounts mention that Jesus' mother Mary was there. Now, she was old enough to be his mother, which is funny and obvious phrase, but she really was, and probably several of these other women were, too. So Jesus got along with people of varying different ages, but they probably weren't all old enough to be his mother.

And that didn't matter. Jesus was able to be friends with women and appreciate their personalities, appreciate their feminine beauty. Well, beauty. That came out funny. Beauty. Without any bad thought. As I said, I don't want to say it wasn't just that he was able to do this. I suspect that he wanted to. I read this, and I get the feeling that he was a man who liked women's company. As I said, he liked men's company, too. But he must have enjoyed and appreciated the feminine characteristics that he had created in the first place. And we know he had a special relationship with Mary Magdalene. I'm not going to turn there, but in John 20, we see that she was the first person that he appeared to after his resurrection. Matter of fact, even before he descended to the Father, and what happened when he saw her? He had to say, wait, don't touch me. Because her reaction was probably she was going to run up and give him a big hug. That tells me something. Do you run up and give a big hug to someone who's your teacher and your leader that you look at from afar? No, it's somebody that you have a relationship with, a good friend that you're on personal terms with, and you feel comfortable giving a big hug, too. Let's go to John 11. Let's see another comment. John 11. Actually, I'm not going to read a lot here, but I wanted to read this. It's in verse 5. This, of course, early on in the story where Jesus would go and resurrect Lazarus from the dead. But in John 11, verse 5, it says, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. It's interesting. I'm not sure why it says her sister and not Mary, because we know Martha and Mary were sisters. But it says he loved them. Now, God loves all of us. You know, you could almost say, well, He has to. He's God. It's sort of His job. But I think He loved them. He has special relationship, a friendship. And it doesn't say that He loved Lazarus and let the sisters tag along. It also doesn't say He loved Mary and Martha and put up with Lazarus. I think He had an equally strong relationship with all of them. He loved them. And it shouldn't be a big surprise that Jesus had some special friendships. We know in His Gospel, Count John refers to Himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. Which tells me, to me, that's probably a fancy way of saying best friends. They were friends in a certain way that He wasn't with others. But, you know, with these special friendships, Jesus had some good friendships with women as well as men. And He did allow Himself to love them. He never avoided them. And that tells me He didn't have to. He didn't need to. He liked women. He spent plenty of time with them and faced no particularly difficult trial doing so. Just like He could express anger and not have a special trial of not letting it get out of hand. Jesus was perfect. He had the right balance in all things that He did. So, as I said, I'm not trying to cover all aspects of His personality today, but I thought it would be interesting to look at some things that we don't always discuss.

And then I thought, well, of all the things I'm not covering, it reminds me of the way the Apostle John closed his Gospel account. He said, if everything about Jesus were written, the world couldn't contain the books. Well, that's true. I guess if I could spend this much talking about these three minor aspects of His personality and have hardly covered anything, then probably not all the sermons could be given. But, as I said, I hope it's useful to consider just some of these traits, to see what was Jesus like. He was the ultimate leader. The more we can become like Him in every way, the better we'll be. And there are some aspects of His character we might not appreciate at first. One, like the fact that Jesus was not some frail wimp. He was a strong man who was able to exercise gentleness and who was also able to call on a greater strength and know that He needed to do that. He also wasn't a passive or a mild person when it came to emotions. He could express those emotions while having them in control. He could get angry and let people know and yet never sin and never have to regret what He said or thought. And, as I said, Jesus could love and appreciate women just as much as men and never have any type of impure thought either way. When I think of these things about Jesus, as I said, it's a small sampling, but it just helps me all the more to appreciate what a special person He was. What a wonderful older brother and high priest we have in Jesus the Christ.