Pastor's Corner: What would Jesus do?

In the 1990s, a new marketing phenomenon took the Christian culture by storm: "What Would Jesus Do?" Reduced to four letters, Christians had a fashionable way of showing their devotion. There were two problems with this. It became trite rather quickly and lost any of the serious meaning that it had in the beginning. It would not be unusual for someone on the highway to cut you off with a bumper sticker that read, “What Would Jesus Do?” Leaving you to wonder whether Jesus would cut you off.

Worse than becoming trite, it trivialized a great truth of Christianity. We are called to be like Jesus. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 8 that God has predestined his people to be conformed to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ. These include imitating God in love and mercy and obeying Jesus’ words. Jesus is clear in Luke 6:27-49 that these are to be characteristics of his disciples. We are to live as Christ commands, and we are to be conformed to his image. This is neither trite nor trivial; rather, it gets to very core of who you are and includes self-examination that will make you uncomfortable.

If you come to commands of Christ and are not made uncomfortable by the way that he demands complete obedience from you, either you are not reading them correctly or you are deceiving yourself. There is a tension here: being conformed to holiness and righteousness as found in Christ is incompatible with our abilities. In these verses we have a sermon that Jesus preached. We can consider it in three parts: first, a call to love; second, a call to self-examination and third, a call to obedience.

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” (Luke 6:27-28) Love is the general tenor of the disciples’ actions, and it is shown in doing good. But it doesn’t stop there — it begins with outward actions, but it moves inward as they are called to bless and pray for these people. Love is to be shown through outward actions but also in how persecutors are perceived.

Jesus asks, "If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you?” The word here in most translations is ‘benefit’ but I am afraid that gives the idea that we love others to get something out of it, which is completely against Jesus’ idea here. The original reads, “What grace is that to you?” In other words, why should God give a gracious response to such action? Worldly kingdoms operate out of such selfish motives. The disciples of Jesus are called to love and bless even those who persecute them, expecting nothing in return.

Next the disciples are called to examine certain things about themselves. “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?” In the ancient world, the teacher-pupil relationship was a personal one, since one learned by oral instruction rather than by books. A student would virtually live alongside of the teacher. These teachers were followed because they were considered an authority and close students were identified with the teacher. This explains why Jesus warns about persecution. He will face it and so will those who are his close followers. Here he is urging caution in who one is following.

Finally, we come to the call to obedience. “Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” (Luke 6:47-49)

Luke’s language is emphatic, saying that the house falls immediately and causes a great ruin. Storms in scripture deal with issues in this life and the final judgment. The option is not given as to whether a storm will come. We experience trials in this life as part of our wilderness wandering. How we weather these storms is proportional to what we have built our hope upon.

— Pastor Everett Henes, the pastor of the Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church, can be reached at pastorhenes@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Coldwater Daily Reporter: Pastor's Corner: What would Jesus do?