Leadership "The Jesus Way" >>>

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LEADERSHIP "THE JESUS WAY"

LESSON 2 of 4

JESUS, A "MAN" WITH A MISSION

1. Jesus as a teenager: (Luke 2:41-51)

a. Evidently Jesus read the Old Testament many times, and had a good understanding of it.

b. What He did not understand, He asked from His elders.

c. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

1) At twelve years old, Jesus enjoyed a close relationship with God. He called Him, "my Father."

2) At this early age, He was more interested in the Father's will than His own, His Father's business rather than His own, the Kingdom of God rather than establishing a kingdom of His own.

During the next eighteen years Jesus "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke 2:52).

2. When He began His ministry, He immediately began to talk about His mission: ". . . Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. And saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel'" (Mark 1:14-15).

3. He always kept His chief mission in His thoughts--the establishing of the Kingdom of God (His church) on earth: ". . . upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18).

4. Even in His time of suffering He refused to forsake His mission: "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die" (John 12:27, 32-33).

". . . For this cause came I into this world, that I should bear witness unto the truth" (John 18:37).

JESUS, THE "MAN" SENT FROM GOD

"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for witness, to bear witness of tghe Light, that all men through him might believe" (John 1:6-7).

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3).

"And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you" (John 20:20-21).

THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE "MAN" CHRIST JESUS WITH THE FATHER

1. Jesus always gave credit for what He accomplished to His Father:

"Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10).

". . . my father is greater than I" (John 14:28).

2. Jesus, as the Son of God, (the "man" Christ Jesus) loved the Father:

"But that the world may know that I love the Father . . . " (John 14:31).

"And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:26).

3. Jesus, as the Son of God, was subject to the Father: "But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God" (I Corinthians 11:3).

4. Jesus spent much time praying to the Father:

a. He went out into a mountan to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God (Luke 6:12).

b. He rose up a great while before day, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed (Mark 1:35).

c. It was his custom to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mount of Olives) (Luke 22:39).

JESUS' FINAL PREPARATION

"And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended he afterward hungered" (Luke 4:1-2).

1. The Spirit of God led Him into prayer, fasting, and temptation.

2. Although there were three great temptations, we read that He was "forty days tempted of the devil."

3. When the devil ended all of the temptation "he departed from him for a season."

"And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about" (Luke 4:14).

4. Jesus received a special anointing during the forty days of fasting and prayer: "And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was,he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias (Isaiah). And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 'The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:16-21).

And with those words He launched into a powerful ministry: "Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, 'Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffeirng them not to speak . . ." (Luke 4:40-41)

"And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyhond Jordan" (Matthew 4:25). ds