So you say you want to be like Jesus? Are you sure?

• So you say you want to be like Jesus? … Are you sure?
• “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work” (John 4:34)
• By myself I can do nothing…for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me” (John 5:19, 30)
• “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will”
(Matthew 26:39)
• ..You still want to be like Jesus?
• “Not as I will” is totally foreign to our culture
• “Have it your way!”


• Our approach: “I did it my way!”
• The Consequences of “Have it your way”
• “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6, 21:25)
– Violence (murder, rape)
– Immorality (fornication, adultery, homosexuality)
– Political instability (assassinations, civil war)
• God made man dependent
• Genesis 2:18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."

• You can’t live entirely independent of others
• You’re part of a nation, a state, a city, a neighborhood
• Family, friends, the church
• Yet many choose the independent course
WHAT IT DOES TO THE FAMILY…
• Husbands go their way – wives go their way (each has their own life and career)
– Result: marriage problems, divorce

• It doesn’t work in the church either….
• Percentage of Americans who attend church ???
– 16.9% (compare 70% say they are Christians)
– Many don’t feel they need church any more
• It doesn’t work in the church either….
• Some want to do their own thing in church
– Manipulate others to get their own way
• God’s Remedy…
• “I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God? this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will” (Romans 12:1-2)