W D J D

Well, the title of the sermon today is... I can walk around. I don't hide or anything. W.D.J.D. W.D.J.D. Everybody got that? Camera got that? I want to make sure since I don't... It's the first time I haven't had a screen here in a long time. So W.D.J.D. Turn that over. Sounds like a radio station. It does. You could have got to have that W in front of it. Well, there many years ago, matter of fact, started in 1989. There was a woman working with the church in Holland, Michigan. Anybody been here from Michigan? No. I just spent some time with some people from Michigan. They may be watching today. Holland, Michigan. This woman came up with something for the youth in her church, and she made a bracelet that had the letters W.W.J.D. And that little act in that little church with just a few hundred people scattered out across the country and to the entire world where people were wearing these bracelets representing what would Jesus do? That was what she presented to them, and it took off. Well, the bigger question, I think, for the world of Christianity, all those many years later, almost 24 or five years later, is in the world of Christianity, not just what would Jesus do, but what did Jesus do? I think that's the bigger question. What did Jesus do? How did he live? How did he act? What did he do daily? If we're supposed to imitate him, he is our Savior. You hear that everywhere? What are we to do? How are we to do that? Well, I want to answer that today with five definite dues in his life. That won't be a complete list, because there are many things he did. As a matter of fact, it was John, his disciple, who said if he wrote down everything that Jesus did, there wouldn't be enough books in the entire world to hold everything that would fill those books. So I just want to touch on five, but before I do that, first I'd like to explain in no uncertain terms what didn't Jesus do? What didn't he do? We're going to give five of those. What didn't he do? And then what did he do? Like I remember when I would get in trouble and lived on the farm, my father would come home and usually I had done something, so I wanted to ask my mother, what did he do today?

And I guess he would like to know what he didn't do. It might have been the things, because I was always into something. Not like any young man here, I'm sure. Right, Clive? Your son never is going to do anything to upset you. But it's interesting because when you look at what Jesus didn't do, because so much of society today, there's so many religions that teach Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and rightfully so, he is a Savior, but they don't really take apart what he did and what he didn't do. So I'd like to give you first five didn't do's. Number one, Jesus didn't wear long hair. I've seen pictures. He didn't look like what? Barry Gibb of the... what was that group? Bee Gees. Shows my age. I can't even remember who they were. He had hair down to here and he looked like that. And so here you see pictures everywhere of movies and everything of what Jesus looked like.

Very seldom do they have him with average cut hair or they... the issue isn't how long his hair issued. Do you look like a man or do you look like a woman? That was the thing. And I can guarantee you Jesus didn't look like a woman. There wasn't like, oh, and how many of us haven't seen someone from behind? Well, that's beautiful hair. Then you turn around and it's a guy and you're thinking, oh wow. Well, Jesus didn't wear long hair. As a matter of fact, in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 14, the New Living Translation says, as Paul is relating to the Church of Corinth, it's a disgrace for a man to wear long hair.

Other translation says it's a shame. So if he did that, then he wouldn't really be a good representative to us, someone that we needed to imitate. So that's just one. The second one I'd like to do, what Jesus didn't do. Jesus didn't have bacon, ham, or pork sausage for his breakfast. He didn't eat pork. Now you say, well, because he was a Jew.

We'll get into that a little bit later. But he did follow the laws that are laid out for clean and unclean meats in Leviticus 11. Leviticus 11 explains, as it says, either clean or unclean, and others say that they are proper to eat or not proper to eat.

So I want you to think about it because Leviticus 11, whether you want to go to Exodus, also where those are laid out for mankind, existed before there were even Jews. Clean and unclean meats were listed, as a matter of fact, from Mount Sinai, where the law was given, the desert, to the children of Israel, to Jews.

It was 900 years before that time, 900 years before Mount Sinai, that God gave those or gave that instruction, and those instructions were followed by Noah. And Noah took on his boat, ship, ocean liner, at the time, the biggest thing you can think of. He explained and told him to bring on clean and unclean animals. Why? Why? Because they existed. There were things God made. He created it all. He created things to eat and things not to eat. Why? Because He made them. He knew what you should eat, what you shouldn't eat.

He gave that instruction way back 900 years before, and you might even say, where, let's go back, to almost 500 years before a Jew even existed, before Judah existed. He gave this instruction. So why does he do it? Just so he can put his thumb on you? No. He gave it for our health. He wanted people to say, so He created garbage disposals, and they move around, and they will eat things. We used to raise a lot of pigs way back a long time ago in Tennessee.

Guess what? Those pigs would eat anything. Anything and everything, even their offspring, even snakes. Because when we had a pen of pigs, and you saw a snake crawl in there, and we would chase a snake, and a snake would run in there, and all of a sudden, those pigs went crazy after the snake. One of them would get it in its mouth and throw it around, then the other would come and get it. Okay. There are buzzards, vultures, eagles, hawks. These are also movable garbage disposals. God made it.

He didn't make it for its eat, but He made other birds for us to eat. He made fish. Right, Maria? He made that salmon you brought to eat, and eat it, I will. And so, other people, if you haven't tasted it, if you like salmon, you'll love hers. So I bring this up to you because that's what Jesus didn't do. The third one, that Jesus didn't go to church on Sunday. Didn't go to church on Sunday. I can guarantee you that. Andy Diemer gave a sermon a couple of weeks ago here, and he covered Luke 4 and verse 16, where it was Jesus Christ's habit, custom, whatever he did, tradition, that he went and kept the Holy Day on the seventh day of the week.

It's what He did. There wasn't any real argument. But other people will say, well, He kept the Sabbath because He was a Jew, just like the food laws. Well, I want to tell you why. And the why is He was born Jewish because they were the only nation on earth, only people keeping the seventh day Sabbath.

So did He keep it because He was Jewish? Yes, but He could only have been born a Jew. And it was predicted where He would go because at the time He was born, there was no one on earth keeping the seventh day of the week except for the Jews.

And for Him to be perfect and sinless, He would have had to keep God's Sabbath day that He set forth. So also number four, as I go to these that He didn't do, Jesus was not an effeminate, fluid, sexual man. Do you know what fluid sexual means? I'm sure you young people do. No, you don't. Okay. Well, it's a new term. You got L, B, G, T, Q, A. And then now you've got F, which means fluid, which means it's a new term, which means you're fluid. So if you feel like being a man today, you can be a man today. And if you feel like being a woman, you can be a woman tomorrow.

That's why they're having such a debate in this country about bathrooms, transgenders entering, you know, bathrooms. And they even put a young boy in jail and was arrested because he entered the high school, his high school, he entered the girls bathroom and stayed in there for a while. And when they said, hey, you're a guy, he goes, not today. I'm fluid, so today I'm female. Amazing part was they arrested him, took him out of the bathroom, he became male again.

And then when they took him in to book him, he said, well, I've decided I'm female again. So why do I bring this up? Because take a look at some of the pictures, take a look at some of the movies. Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, the Messiah, is pictured as this limp-wristed, effeminate-looking man. And that couldn't be correct if you read the rest of the Scriptures. He wasn't something that looked like you see the pictures and movies.

And many of you, well, we just talked about it last night, even, you would see a movie and you'd say, that's what he's supposed to look like. And many people think that just because of all the great artists. Back in the Renaissance age, you would paint pictures of the proposed Messiah with long hair, and he was skinny, and he was just a pathetic-looking guy. This is the same guy that, you know, if everybody saw him on the street, you go, oh, look at that. Well, he even was able to escape when people were after him because he looked like everybody else.

Except there's one thing I'd like to talk about in making this point. Jesus Christ, as it says in Mark 6 and verse 2, New Living Translation, said, Jesus Christ had talked to him, and he was, it said, a carpenter, a carpenter. We've had a few carpenters in here.

I've got one in the back there and others who have worked. I know you have. You guys ever done any carpenter work? Yep, I mean, guess what? I did carpentry and construction work for 35 years before I was ever a pastor.

Guess what? Yeah, Maria, you have too. Where's Frank? He's somewhere. Yeah, he's hiding back there. And Vic, haven't you done anything? Or you just let Frank do all the work. No? Oh, he doesn't do. He's above that. But guess what? Construction, you do it long enough, and if we understand the timing right, he would have started that skill by the time he was at least 12, learned his father's skill, who was also a carpenter. And we know he went to 30, so guess what? That's 18 years of being a carpenter. They had no Makita drills back then. They had no skill saw that you could plug in. And the one thing most people miss about carpenters is that you're using your hands and your arms. And guess what? You do that long enough. You don't need to go to the gym from Palm Biarm, especially if you've ever framed. Because framing, you're lifting everything you need to lift with 2x4s and pieces of plywood and 3-quarter inch plywood. But there's one thing that's different. Jesus Christ lived at a time where a carpenter not only handled wood, and you would have cut with a metal saw, and you would have cut whatever boards and everything you had by hand, trimmed everything by hand. But they also did a lot of stonework, masonry work. And if you go to the areas, as a matter of fact, there's a YouTube video, that a stonemason actually took you to the area where they think most of the people worked then, where they have some of the stones still laid out today. And they intricate work that was done on that. I bring that out today because when you work with stone, you work not with a little 16-ounce hammer. You don't even work with with the 24-inch east wing that I used. 24-inch east wing that I used. But they had like a hammer, like this, three-pound, five-pound hammers that these men would take and chisel and chisel and chisel and chisel all day long. It's what they did. He didn't look like a girl.

Yes, so you can imagine if feminine just didn't fit, this skinny little guy who they want to portray was beaten and beaten and beaten and scourged. He was still alive.

So I bring that out not to make Jesus as manly man, but guess what? He was. He was. It wasn't some little wimp. He wasn't some office worker. Not that I'm down in any of you office where I have to spend too much time in my office. So I know that, but guess what? He, his life was horrible.

That's not me. That's somebody's.

Something's going deep, deep, deep, deep. I know my alarm's going.

Somebody's is, but it sounds like it's on me. It's you. Sorry. I can't hear you. So is this, so is that like I'm supposed to quit right now? It's your house. It's your yard. I'm just here as your guest.

Okay, that's better. I'd like that than to quit because I'm just not quite, not quite there yet. So I bring that out so that we, you can, they, well, he didn't, he, he wasn't like that. He wasn't effeminate. He was a manly man who had to work like men.

Hard work, hard, strong work. He knew what it was. Number five, Jesus didn't sin. Ever, never did he sin. First Peter 2 and verse 22 explains about our Savior and explains about this, uh, Yeshua. And he said, him who committed no sin. Now that's hard to believe for any of us who walk around in flesh and blood, but that's what made him unique. That's what qualified him. And the only thing we're asked to do today is do what he did or try to do what he did. But he didn't ever sin. And I found it interesting because there was a book written. I think it was the year I was born, 1959. So you can tell how old I am. But there was a book written by a Greek named Nicholas Kanzakasi. Kanzakasis. And it was banned. Yeah, did I get that right? Kanzakasis. Kanzakasis. It was a Greek and he wrote this book and it got banned in many places. But then in the early 1960s, everybody started, wow, we like that book. You know, that teaches a different Jesus than we thought. And so next thing you know, it started being pushed and published. And then eventually they made a movie out of it about 25 years ago called The Last Temptation of Christ.

And in the book and in the movie, which was supposed to be a historical fiction. I never got that. A historical fiction. So in this book, the author tries to tell us that Jesus Christ had issues. See, that he had a thing for Mary Magdalene. No. And that it was so much so that when he was up being hung up on that piece of wood, dying, this is the last few breaths, he thought of Mary Magdalene.

And he dreamed of what it would be like to be with her sexually.

And then he had a vision. And then, according to the author, he didn't really die. They got him up off of it. And so what does it show up next? At the end of the book, he shows up walking with their Mary Magdalene and a child. They had a son. Did that take place? No. No. Did it sell a lot of books and sell movies? Yes, it did. And many people believe that.

Many people. As a matter of fact, I know it's so interesting because a few years ago, they had this movie came out about Noah. Anybody see that with Russell Crowe? You see that movie? Okay, I saw it. I said, well, let's see it because they hardly ever get them. They got the Bible here as a guide, but they just pull out names and make their own stories up, usually. But here, I watched it, and it was a piece of fiction. It had rock monsters coming up out of the ground. And these rock monsters came and helped him build the ark and all this kind of stuff. You saw it, and you're just like, boy, they really jumped the shark there. They really just made this stuff up. Who would believe that? Well, my neighbor. He was 75 years old. He was born a Catholic, raised a Catholic. He will die a Catholic, but he also a nice guy. But he never read the Bible much, as that's not required in Catholicism, like we think it is required to read.

So he called me and said, I watched that Noah movie. He said, have you seen that? I said, yeah, I had to see it. And he said, wow, I did not know that stuff was true. He said, I didn't know those monsters came up and helped Noah build the ark. Is that in the Bible?

He didn't. He didn't know. And yet he watched this movie, and he said, well, I found interesting, but I didn't know there was another person on the ark. Somebody snuck on the ark, according to the movie, right? Did I get that? Some guys snuck on there for some reason or whatever. I couldn't remember now because it's been a few years ago. But yeah, he said, so was there somebody else on the ark? I said, no. And he goes, so what did they did? They make that stuff up. I said, it's called Hollywood for a reason. So there are things that people want to believe. And people take a lot of creative license, especially in Hollywood. We can know what Jesus did and everything that's involved just by reading the Bible. It's our word. So with that said, I just told you what didn't Jesus do. So now I want to tell you what did Jesus do? What did Jesus do? Number one, Jesus kept all the Ten Commandments, all the Ten Commandments, perfectly, perfectly. As a matter of fact, you have them hanging on your wall, don't you? I saw a plaque up there. I started to bring mine because I have one like that. A plaque. Well, Jesus Christ kept them. He didn't go away with them, as it says. As a matter of fact, he even said in Matthew chapter 5, the Sermon on the Mount, he talked about most of the commandments and said, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say, what? You should not even look upon a woman to lust after her. He not only gave you the letter of the law, he gave you the spirit of the law for us to try to achieve the higher ground, for us to live by, because he was that example. We are to imitate him, so it's good that we know exactly who he was, how he lived daily. Because if we're to be like that, we need to know what we're supposed to pattern our life after. My guy in the back, Jeffrey, you used to frame, right? And you've done some framing, too. Many of you have done framing, and you look on this building, and that building there, or this one here, you have rafters. Rafters are the things that hold up. They go this side and this side. You have rafters. When you're framing a job, and you're getting ready, the lower part's already done, you're ready to frame the roof. You take that 2x8, 2x12, whatever your rafters are, and you get ready, and you find the angle that you want. And then you cut one for this side and one for this side. And then you've got your lead board up there, and you've got a couple of nail-ons. But then, you don't put those boards up. No. They're perfect. They're the right fit. They're fit, so why not put them up? Because all they are, they are a pattern. You never cut those. We used to even keep them after the job was done, so there was any problems. We could see, well, wait a minute. This was not cut right. So we take that. Once that pattern, once that first one rafter is cut, the angle, everything, then you lay that down on all the other rafters. And you use that as a pattern. And then everything you do will be right after that. I bring that up because Jesus Christ was that pattern for us in human form. That shape, that cut, that design, and how He lived, that is just like those rafters. This is what Jesus Christ, this is what He wants us to be like Him. So He came and modeled, became that pattern for us. The second one, number two, what did Jesus do?

Jesus loved and served people. Remember the pattern? Remember that piece of wood? This is what we're supposed to do. He came and gave that example. He showed it. He showed compassion because in today's world, there's not a lot of compassion, not a lot of empathy, a lot of apathy, but not empathy. Big difference in those few words.

But Jesus Christ, He came and He taught. He taught what? How to be more like His Father and who was just like His Father? He was. He taught that. He also healed. And He asked us to be like Him, imitate Him, and do what? Heal. No, I'm not walking through here going, healed, healed, as you see people do on TV and these these fake people as they put all this stuff forward. No, He expects us to heal. There's a lot of ways to heal, and He allows us to do it. And we should be doing it by showing compassion, by listening to people, by helping people. There's a lot of people with a lot of problems. You know you've been in hospital and worked there and all the people who have done various things. You know there's a lot of people hurting in this world. There's a lot of people feel like they don't have any friends. You and I were just at one yesterday. He thinks he's dying, and he doesn't really have any friends. He has no family. And so he doesn't even go to our church. That doesn't matter. Christ came to help the entire world. John 3 16 says they just came to the Jews? No. For God so loved the what? Matthew? The world. The world. We need to love the world. We need to represent Him on this earth. That means helping people. Even the smallest of things. Guess what? They can be big things to people.

So when I left this guy yesterday, I said, you're not alone. You call me. Every one of his family members are dead. He has nobody, and he's very sick. And he thinks he's going to die. He thinks he's going to die tonight. Or the next week, I don't know that he will. I said, that's not your call. But guess what? I don't do it because I'm a minister. Because I'm paid to take care of him. I'm paid to take care of you, but I don't do it just because I'm paid. I'm paid to help because this is what Jesus did. And he wants not only me to do it, but you to do it. So how would I expect you to do it if I didn't do it? And that means show kindness and compassion to people. People who are hurting. People like Bill brought up that widows.

Sometimes you just need to listen.

People who, you know, you see them all the day, all the time on the side of the road wanting something. Okay, how do you know where to help? Because like he said, the poor you shall have with you always. What do you do? See what's in here. If this tells you to do it, you need to do it.

This is what Christ was. The sick came to him.

Maybe you can't help the sick. But what if they're mentally sick? What if they're emotionally sick? What if there's just no hope? They don't have any hope. Can you give them hope? Yes. Christ gave them hope. And if we follow his example, we read, we can give people hope, too. Yes, it's the neighbor that nobody visits. It's the family member. It's those who God brings into your life. And he brings someone into your life every week. And he gets to see what you're going to do with it. And it may be an angry person.

Can you stir that person up even more? Or can you bring some peace into their life? That's what God gets to see. But we got to see that Jesus not only he taught, he healed, and he died for us. My bag of towels is disciples that last night in Matthew 26, verse 2, that he was going to be sacrificed. He did and gave the ultimate for everybody in the entire world. But the big part is he did it for you, and he did it for me. And that's what we need to do. So what did Jesus do? Number three. Jesus knew God's word. He knew his word.

He preserved it. He expanded and expounded it. Because you go read of Matthew 5, 6, and 7, the Sermon on the Mount. And he mentions a few scriptures there, but what he took was he took some of those examples of some scriptures and brought them to life and talked about what it really meant. How? How? People were to keep these things and do these things and what it meant to be holy and what it was to struggle. Because, yeah, think about it. If he was God, which he was, if he was God, and he was limitless. Okay? He had no limits. He could travel from here to Miami in a split second, even with the traffic. He could walk through any building. He could do he was limitless, not limited by time, not limited by space, because he was God. But just think about it. When he was born of a woman with flesh, he became flesh, all of a sudden he had to go, I can't go there. I have to walk. I ride a donkey.

And I take that hammer and guess what? It's going to hurt. This was an incredible thing for him. It said he learned. He learned by becoming flesh. He was God. Yeah, I think God knew everything. Well, guess what? Your experience teaches you a lot. He walked in somebody else's shoes and he walked in our shoes, as I even talked about last night. So he knew God's Word and he used it. Turn to Matthew 4. You don't have to turn there. I'm just saying if you turn to Matthew 4, you're going to find his confrontation, which we'll talk about at the Bible study. But he knew what the Word of God said. How did he know when he was God? Well, do you think he didn't read it? He wrote it. He inspired it to be. And so, was it important to him? Yes. He knew. He knew why he gave it, right, Bill? He knew why he gave it. And now he was showing it even in human form. He was using God's Word. He was teaching God's Word. And it's what we should be able to do. That's why it's so important that we study the Bible, that we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. It's what he wants to do if we're going to be like that. Number four.

What did Jesus do? He made promises. He made promises, personally and nationally. He made promises to you. He's made promises to me. He says, if you follow these, your entire life, you'll have eternal life. If you'll do these things, you'll love the Father. If you'll do this, he also said, if you'll do this, you'll have happiness. If you do this, you'll have peace. He made those promises. It's just people don't believe, a lot of times, those promises.

So what did he do? Yeah, he made promises. He also made promises of what would happen to the country in which he was living at the time. Israel. Jerusalem, in particular. Matthew 24. He stood before there and said, you see these stones? Because I was saying, ah, look at this beautiful building. Ah! And guess what? He said, there's a time coming when not one of those stones would be on top of each other. He totally destroyed.

And guess what? 37 years later, 38 years later, there wasn't a stone left on top of each other. So that's what he did. He predicted the future. He predicts our future.

And our future is one of two ways. His way or the other way.

If you want to be here, this is what you got to do. If you want to be over here, which I really don't think you want to do, just go and do this. So those promises are so very, very important.

Look, man, time is... but we're in the country. It doesn't matter, does it? Well, it does because somebody will see this online and they say, you know what you say about time?

See, if I was in Fort Lauderdale, my guys would be going, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Not mine.

All right, let's go and wrap this up then. Number five, one of my favorites. Like I say, this is not an all-inclusive list. It's not... it's not just all the lists. It's just some of those. But Jesus did this fifth thing. Jesus taught obsessively about the coming Kingdom of God. Did he model it for us?

Jesus taught obsessively about the coming Kingdom of God. He gave parables, right, about the coming Kingdom of God. He talked about when the Kingdom would be here. In Matthew 13, my chapters that I like, he says, the Kingdom of Heaven is like. The Kingdom of Heaven is like. The Kingdom of Heaven is like. He does it six times. You think he wants us to understand what the Kingdom of Heaven is like? I do. And he brought it up time after time after time. I'd like to turn Matthew 13. Let's go there. I'll read from the New Living Translation since that's when I carried up here.

Matthew 13 verse 41.

I like this because one of the translations. I remember which one now that I looked up. I have a book that has 26 different translations all on one page. As you can see, it's rather thick. But before this, it had because in the Scripture, it says quite a bit of he who has an ear to hear, let him hear. Remember? Ever read that? Well, the one translation gets it pretty correct.

The one translation has an exclamation mark at the end of it, and it's quick. He says, listen up!

Whenever he's about to say something important. And so whenever that he who has an ear, let him hear, they put in. Listen up! Verse 41. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. And the angels will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the Son in the Father's kingdom. Anyone who has an ear to hear, listen up! It was so important to him, the kingdom of God. He wants us to have our focus, not on the Lamborghini we can have if we win the lottery. Was I talking to you yesterday about that? I remember I was talking to somebody about that. What would you do if you won the lottery? Five million dollars, because five million dollars doesn't mean much anymore by the time you take taxes up. Buy us our own church. Okay, I'll pick you up on that. Right? But think about it. People would write down, oh, I would have this, and I would want this. God wants us to have the kingdom of God, first and foremost. What did he say in Matthew 6 and verse 33? Seek what? First, the what? And? Everything. If you put that first, it's all going to work out. This is what he wants us to understand. This is what he wants us to have as our mantra, is the kingdom of God. The older you get, the easier it is to see the kingdom of God. Why is that, Dale? Because you look back. You look back, but you also look forward. There's a lot more you can look back on than what you're going to be looking forward to.

Yep. Yep. And you?

You see your mortality, the older you get. Yes. And you realize that you may not live for, you know, ever, which I thought I would do. And I was your age. How old are you? Yeah. Twenty-two. You remember when I was 22? Did you meet? No, I never met you. I was older than that when I met you. Man, 22. Wow. I could just about walk on water at 22. I couldn't. I thought I could, but I didn't. Now I know I can't walk on water. I'm happy if I just don't stumble on the ground today. But these are the things that these are the things that we need to focus that matter. Fred Keller. So, sir, whatever, you know, Fred back in the back. I remember when when he told that the biggest difference is that between being in your fifties and sixties is fifties. You hear about dying when you come in your sixties. You could see it from there. You can see it from your sixties. And I think that's very true. You know, but Jesus Christ wants us to, whatever age we are, focus on the kingdom and everything, all the promises, everything that he has promised us will work out. So why should we care how a guy 2000 years ago lived? Hmm? Because a lot of people don't today. 2000 years ago, that's a long time.

Why is it important to know what Christ did 2000 years ago? Because W.D.J.D. Not just what would Jesus do? What did he do? I think it's important. Because if you want to abide in Christ and him in you, you have to walk as he did. That's all he asks. He'll be with you as long as you walk down that path. As long as you walk in this, you'll be with you now. You're going to stumble off the path. We all do. But get up. Walk that path. How did the Master teach and interact with people? We need to know because that's what we need to do.

What was on his mind? The plan, his father's plan, and doing his will. This was on his mind. We are to think like, talk like, act like the high priest that Jesus Christ became.

He asked us to. Do we want to be pleasing to God? Because when he was here on earth as God's son, he wanted to be, he wanted to please his father. And he did.

It was more than a few times. He said, this is my son in whom I'm what? Well-pleased. Right. Right. We want to please our father. But you have to imitate Christ. We have to. This is all part of what we're called to do.

Is it a burden? I said it wasn't. Is it a challenge? Oh, yes. Yes. Some weeks more than other. So how can you do that unless you know exactly what he said, what he did? If we follow in his steps, we will find that life will go a lot easier for us, that he can't abide with us. We have the best example that an elder brother could ever set. Our elder, because that's what Jesus Christ is called, our elder brother. Guess what? I didn't have an elder brother. How many of you had an older brother? We've got a few of them. Yes. Yes. Okay. I was an elder brother to my brother Mark. He was 12 years younger than I. Well, guess what? I wasn't the best example. He didn't need to follow my example.

But we have an example with Jesus Christ, an elder brother, that will not only be there to support us, to help us, but to teach us. So have we put on Christ?

Because eternal life is in the balance. That means doing the things that Jesus Christ did and having his mind. See, we have to know how to live, and that is the one way that's important to God. So, brethren, Christ gave his life for us. He thought we were that important, and he wants us to not only be willing to give our life for him, but he wanted us to give our life while we're living as a living sacrifice, which means what? It's just not about yourself. It's about serving others, caring for others.

And he tells us, go and do likewise.

See, we have to live our life like Jesus did. So W.D.J.D. It's our duty to know how he did live, but the bigger thing, it's our duty to do as he did.

So let us this week love some people, help some people, be there for people, and never forget it all comes and starts here with the word of God.