Living, Leading and Loving Like Jesus
All of you are familiar with Lead like Jesus. So it is safe to assume that you have heard the words “Live, love and lead like Jesus” many times.
The Lord has laid it on my heart to examine this statement a bit more this morning.
Living like Jesus is a clear Biblical command. Philippians 1:27 and 1 John 2:6 are two of the explicit commands on this topic.
Philippians 1:27 says “Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. (NLT). This verse is a loaded verse. A Greek word study will reveal that the Greek word used here for live is “politeuesthe”. Paul intentionally uses this term here for the Philippians, because this term means behaviour or conduct as a citizen, to live one’s life as a citizen. To understand why this is important we have to look at the history of Philippi. Philippi was a proud Roman colony. It was famous as a miniature Rome. The distinctive feature about this Roman colony was their fanatic loyalty to Rome. The citizens kept all their Roman ties, Roman Language, titles, customs affairs and dress. The citizens of Philippi knew what it means to conduct themselves as the citizens of a great empire. Paul, by using this same term here, is reminding them that while they are Roman citizens, they are citizens of a higher Kingdom, and hence they need to conduct themselves, live their lives, based on the fact that they are now citizens of heaven. This would mean that they must
• Keep their close ties with heaven
• Speak the clean and pure language of heaven
• Bear the title of heaven (Christian) and do so proudly
• Bear witness to the way to heaven
• Allow no infiltration of the world whatsoever
• Live and conduct themselves as s heavenly colony within a polluted and dying environment.
The second explicit call to live like Jesus is found in 1 John 2:6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did (NLT). Interestingly the Greek word Paul uses here is not Politeuesthe, as in Philippians 1:27, but the Greek word used here is peripatien, which stands for behaving or conducting on a day to day basis. This is a continuous action, it means to keep on living. You will note that this verse uses “should” , which means it is an obligation for those who believe in God and Christ. It is a responsibility. A person who professes Christ, , who claims to know God is obligated to live as Jesus lived. How did Jesus live on a day to day basis? He lived
• Believing and trusting God
• Worshipping and praying to God
• Fellowshipping and communing with God
• Seeking and following after God
• Teaching and telling others about God
• Loving and caring for others just as God said to do
• Obeying and keeping all of God’s commandments.
Living like Jesus is not a word or phrase that we should use lightly, as can be seen from these word studies.
Let us look at Loving like Jesus. English language uses the word “love” in all sorts of contexts. But the Greek language in which the new testament is written distinguishes love at least in four different forms, and uses four different terms to describe love. The book “Four Loves” by CS Lewis gives us a great insight into these four types of love.
• The first kind is “eros” . This is love that arises out of romantic passion, infatuation and sexual attraction. This word is never used in the new testament.
• The second term used for love is “storge” which stands for familial love, love between family members. Though this word is not used directly in the new testament, compound of this word is used in Rom 13:1 , 2 Timothy 3:3 and Romans 12:10.
• The third type of love is “phileo”. This is a deep intense and warm affection. Brotherly love. This is the term that is used n the new testament to describe the love Jesus had for Lazarus (John 11:3)
• The fourth type of love is the one that most of us are aware of . The “agape” love. This is the sacrificial love, a love that cares, gives and works for another person’s good, no matter how the other person may respond or treat you. This is the term that is used most in the new Testament. Some word counts indicate that this term is used as many as 116 times in the new testament. This is the love that 1 Corinthians 13 describes in detail.
So, if we go back to our search to see where the Bible asks us to love like Jesus, we can find it in many places. The most direct call to love like Jesus comes from Jesus himself in John 13:34-35 and John 15:12. Paul and John pick that call and reinforce the call in Ephesians 5:2, 1 John 3:16 and 1 John 4:10-11. I am sure that you guessed it already, the Greek word that is used in all these calls to “love” like Jesus is “agape”. This is the love that goes so far that
• It loves a person even if they do not deserve to be loved.
• It loves a person who is utterly unworthy of being loved
• It loves your enemy.
So let us remember this morning that when we say “love like Jesus” we are not talking about loving whom we like, loving our friends, loving our families, loving our Christian Friends. It goes far beyond that type of love. It is about loving those who persecute you. It is about loving those who are unworthy. It is about loving those who do not love us back. Let us take a moment to let that sink in.
Now coming to Leading like Jesus, we do not require much additional knowledge about that here. The LLJ (Pead Like Jesus Program) memory verse Mathew 20:25-28 and Jon 13:1-17 are sufficient for us to know that we have a command to lead by serving, just as Jesus did. And Jesus does not leave things to anyone’s interpretation when it comes to John 13: 13-17. He is clear that He did this to set an example for us. Interestingly, this is the only place in the bible where Jesus explicitly states that He has done something to set an example. And then he ends this demonstration by asserting that Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do accordingly.
But I want to go back to the matter of love. For Jesus , loving and leading were not two different things. John 13:1 says Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end. (NLT). His whole demonstration of servant leadership was to demonstrate His love. And yes, the Greek term used for love here is agape. For Jesus, leading by serving is a way of showing the true extent of one’s love.
Jesus demonstrates this further in his conversation with Peter in John 21:15-17. Jesu asks Peter three times, if Peter loves Him. Peter affirms all the three times, the third time in some desperation. But what Jesus does is whenever Peter affirms his love for Jesus, He asks Peter to take care of His followers, by symbolically asking Peter to “feed my lambs”, take care of my sheep” and “feed my sheep”. In other words, what Jesus is asking Peter to do is to “lead” as a demonstration of his love for Jesus.
It is interesting to study the Greek version of this dialogue.
• John 21:15
o Jesus asks Peter: "Simon, son of John, do you love (??ap??, agapas) me more than these?"
o Peter responds: "Yes, Lord; you know that I love (f???, philo) you."
• John 21:16
o Jesus asks a second time: "Simon, son of John, do you love (??ap??, agapas) me?"
o Peter responds again: "Yes, Lord; you know that I love (f???, philo) you."
• John 21:17
o Jesus asks a third time: "Simon, son of John, do you love (f??e??, phileis) me?"
o Peter, grieved because Jesus asked a third time, responds: "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love (f???, philo) you."
It is clear that Jesus was asking Peter for his agape love, but Peter was stuck on the Phileo love, the affectionate love. The third time Jesus comes down to Peters level and asks him about the Phileo love. My reading into this is that by asking Peter to take care of His followers through the sheep analogy, Jesus was asking Peter to move up to the agape level to lead.
May the Lord enable and equip us to live, love and lead like Jesus!
