All About Him Series

All About Him

Acts 17:28

Introduction:

We live in a “me” culture. People are jumping from job to job, relationship to relationship, marriage to marriage and church to church many times because of selfishness. One of the most famous lines from Jan on the Brady Bunch was when Jan was feeling left out, not getting much attention and she pulled her Mom and Dad into the den and gave her most famous speech, “All I hear any more is Marsha did this and Marsha did that, MARSHA, MARSHA, MARSHA!” What about ME! And that is the attitude of so many folks today. We may not articulate those words but our lives reflect a “what about me” attitude that has given birth to a generation coming up that has adopted an attitude of entitlement. The government should provide for me. The school should cater around me. The workplace should be more flexible with me. And the church should minister TO me.

Speaking of the church. I am seeing more and more folks in our culture that come to a church looking at ways the church can bless them: what do you have for my children? What are you going to do with my Teenager? I need contemporary music. I want the old hymns. I like expository preaching. I like thematic preaching. I like topical sermons. I don’t think its church unless the choir has robes and responsive readings are a part of the service. I need the church to pay my bills this month. I need someone to call and visit me when I miss a Sunday. If I don’t get a handshake or a hug from folks in the church, I will go somewhere else. MARSHA, MARSHA, MARSHA!

To quote Rick Warren in his book Purpose Driven Life, “It’s NOT about YOU”. And if it is not about YOU, who is it about? It is all about HIM. He is our reason, He is our purpose, He is our meaning, He is our way, He is our truth, He is our life!

As we get back on focus let us consider the life He lived on earth as our example, the death He died as our substitute and the life He is now living, which very soon, we shall live!

1.He Lived The Life We Should Live:

In his popular novel In His Steps (Subtitled: What Would Jesus Do), written in 1896, Charles Sheldon relates the story of Rev. Henry Maxwell who encounters a homeless man who challenges him to take seriously the imitation of Christ. The homeless man has difficulty understanding why, in his view, so many Christians ignore the poor:

"I heard some people singing at a church prayer meeting the other night,

'All for Jesus, all for Jesus,

All my being's ransomed powers,

All my thoughts, and all my doings,

All my days, and all my hours.'

And I kept wondering as I sat on the steps outside just what they meant by it. It seems to me there's an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn't exist if all the people who sing such songs went and lived them out. I suppose I don't understand. But what would Jesus do? Is that what you mean by following His steps? It seems to me sometimes as if the people in the big churches had good clothes and nice houses to live in, and money to spend for luxuries, and could go away on summer vacations and all that, while the people outside the churches, thousands of them, I mean, die in tenements, and walk the streets for jobs, and never have a piano or a picture in the house, and grow up in misery and drunkenness and sin.”

This leads too many of the novel's characters asking, "What would Jesus do?" when faced with decisions of some importance. We as born again believers ought to be concerned with imitating our Lord Jesus Christ.

• How He Acted We Should Act:

Jesus Christ did not believe in nor did He tolerate a hypocritical lifestyle or a semi-sold out life. Just look at His thoughts about the church in Asia Minor called Laodicea! He said things like “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” –Luke 14:26. Jesus was the original author of the thought “It’s not about YOU”. Jesus made the lame to walk, caused the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the mute to talk, He restored relationships, I could go on forever as there is no library in the world that could contain the stories and testimonies from those He touched. He made a difference because He cared. It has been said that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. He made a difference because He cared. We can make a difference, we simply must care.