Jesus Our Example Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: February 18, 2011

Date Preached: February 20, 2011

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: Falling in Love With Jesus

Sermon Title: Jesus, Our Example

Sermon Text: John 5:19-24 [ESV]

Introduction:

Have you ever had someone you looked to as an example in your life? I recently spoke to a friend of mine from seminary and he told me of a man who used to drive to his house and pick him up for church…

Sun morn, Sun nights and Wed evenings and any other time there was a service, event or happening at the church. This man would drive up, my friend would get in the car and he would say to my friend, “Larry, I love you and I am so glad you are coming to church with me!”

Another friend from Seminary told me once that he knew about a man who faithfully taught SS in the 4th grade class for years upon years, and many Sundays when he got to church there was no one to teach OR there was only one 4th grader to teach… one year there was only one young boy who came sporadically that yr… it was my friend! He told me that this man’s faithfulness and unshakable love influenced him greatly and was a major reason he entered into the ministry.

I have heard stories like this for years… we have all possibly heard the story about the shoe salesman, Edward Kimball who traveled across Chicago in the snow to invite a young DL Moody to SS and eventually led DL to Christ…we have all heard stories of those people in either our life or the lives of people we know or have read about… and how they affected their lives!

Today I want us to look to the One to whom ALL believers should look to for their example… Jesus! Turn with me to John 5:19-24 [ESV] and lets read…

19So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. 20For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself is doing. And greater works than these will He show Him, so that you may marvel. 21as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will. 22The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. 24Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

Background Info:

Up to this point Jesus had been heard about by the Pharisees. One of them [Nicodemus] had gone to visit Him in the night… and Jesus had told him things that were very difficult to understand…but one of the things HE had told Nicodemus was that he was the Son of God…

Jesus had just went to a wedding in Cana and performed a miracle that everyone was talking about, and now he had just come back from Galilee where he had been thru Samaria and word had it that he had spoken to a Samaritan woman in public and had actually stayed among the Samaritans for 2 days.

While he was in Galilee he had healed a young boy… the son of one of the government officials, and many had seen the young boy sick and then witnessed his miraculous recovery. And now he had returned to Jerusalem and just when he arrived it was the Sabbath and he had the nerve to go to the pool at Bethesda by the Sheep’s gate and heal a man on the Sabbath… what disrespect this Jesus had for God’s law!

So the Pharisees interrogated the man from the pool of Bethesda and found out that Jesus was the one who had healed him. They challenged Jesus for healing on the Sabbath and Jesus’ answer to them was simple… “My Father is working until now and I am working…”

What Jesus was saying here was that God is always at work in the world and because He was God’s Son, HE was at work as well… The Pharisees would have agreed with Jesus that God was always at work in the world, after all without God the world would cease operating…This is what we know as the Doctrine of Providence… where God is in control of everything… working in everything all the time!

The problem was in how that phrase was introduced and then how it was followed up… Jesus begins the phrase with My Father… and ends it by basically saying, “and so am I…” This proclamation by Jesus was a claim that He was equal with God! Jesus was saying that it was ok for God to work and because he was God’s son… it was ok for HIM to work on the Sabbath as well!