A Real Man of Jesus

We gotta appreciate that we can talk a little different when the women aren't around.

• A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he wants. A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item she doesn't want.
• A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A husband never starts worrying about his future until he gets a wife.
• A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
• He does not “talks a lot about cars,” he has vehicular addiction.
• To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman you must lover her a lot and not try to understand her at all.
• A man is not quiet, he is a conversational minimalist.
• A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting she won't change and she does

(Hopefully you all know I am only joking)

Tonight I want to talk about being a man

• A lot of this can apply to being a woman—man in the general sense (mankind)
• But after grasping that we can get specific about our masculine gender
• Tonight's lesson is a Bible study

What is a man?

• That philosophical question is more relevant today than any othe
• And today, more than any other time, there are “forces that tend to depersonalize humanity...”
• For example, adjusting to technology (cell phone, Internet, increased mass production, global markets, growing impact of mass media)
• Sources outside the Bible have failed to fully describe man
• Ancient Greek view – idealistic emphasizing the spirit
• Marxist view – emphasizing the physical, how the person is only important based on how he/she fits in with society
• Skinner materialistic view – a person is conditioned by their environment. Study a person's environment and you will be able to accurately predict the person
• They fail to fully describe man by only considering “one aspect of the human being to be ultimate...
• We know of Romans 1 that leaving God out of the picture brings idolatry of man

For a Biblical perspective we turn to Genesis 1:27

• We were “created in God's image”
• What does that mea
• It certainly means a Creature/Person balance
• Acts 17:25, 28 Paul to Athens, makes it clear we cannot lift a finger apart from God—we are a creature totally dependent on His
• Life apart from God was never meant to be and will always be shown faulty
• Yet man also has relative independence or free-will—man is a person
• It can be challenging to fully grasp this mystery—
•  We are creature means God is the potter and we are the clay (Romans 9:21), while we are a person means we fashion our lives by our own decisions (Galatians 6:7-8)
• It takes thinking spiritual and loving God to fully appreciate the way He has created us in His image—completely dependent yet completely endowed with choice
• Praise God it is not a salvation issue for us to fully grasp deep theological principles..
• But we can simply know that being created in the image of God means being A Real Man of Jesus
• Not the beer commercial “Real Man of Genius” but “Real Man of Jesus”
• What do we mean when we think of being a “man”?
• No longer a boy, incapable of making decisions, immature, weak, childish
• Rather: strong, capable, hard-working, perhaps independent (not relying others in a bad sense)

But being A Real Man of Jesus means a lot of things...

• Jesus is the Perfect Image of God
• Let “us”
• Ref. John 1:1 We can look back—hindsight can get us closer to 20/20—and see how Jesus is there all along—hints of the Trinit
• Many passage state it directly or with similar wording
• 2Corinthians 4:4
• Colossians 1:15
• John 14:8-9 In Jesus' own words, a restatement of John 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
• Hebrews 1:3 exact representation
• Of course we as Christians fundamentally believe, Jesus is without sin (Heb. 4:15) and there is no better way to see the image of God than to look to Jesus—
• Jesus is the perfect man!
• He is God's intention, God's perfection when He created man and said, “It is good!”
• He is the main point yet we can so easily miss Him as the main point!
• Hebrews 12:1-2 fix your eyes on Jesus who is the author and perfecter of our faith
• Jesus Restores God's Image in Us
• We are Conformed and Transformed into the Perfect Image of Jesus, who is the perfect image of God.
• Obviously sin corrupts God's image in us, but Christ restores God's image in us
• Romans 8:29 this is God's aim for us
• 2Corinthians 3:7-18
• There is a play on words in this passage
• The old ministry or the old covenant had a fading glory = like Mose's glow it would no longer remain
• One of the main purposes of the law is to show our distorted image—sinfulness (verse 7 and 1Corinthians 15:56 the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law)
• By extension the distorted image is fading—we become less and less like God over time as we get more engulfed in sin
• Also by extension we don't have to live in darkness—veiled fading glory
• We turn to Jesus, come out of darkness, and Jesus shines ever brighter through us
•  Even throughout this life we are being transformed into the perfect image—Jesus 
• This is all done, not by our own strength, but by the working of the Holy Spirit
• It is happening—in what may seem to be a snails pace—but it is happening still
• This transformation happens out of freedom, not rules—“have tos” or “ought”
• We are created as persons, able to freely make the choice to participate in this awesome thing, where God is totally restoring His image in us
• Death to Old Self/Life to New Self
• Colossians 3:9-10 (Ephesians 4:22-24 is a very similar passage that describes the process)
• Once and for all time taken off the old self and once and for all time put on the new self.
• This simply means we no longer look at ourselves (because God no longer sees us) as slaves to our sin—to the old selves
• Yet, since we're not in heaven, this new self that has been put on is being renewed in knowledge
• Not knowledge like a textbook or just learning something new
• Knowledge on a deeper level—to know someone in a relationship or “to know” in the sense of experiencing a relationship
• It renews us in our new self to connect and reconnect with that image
• Practically speaking: That is why it is so important to deepen our appetite for deep things
• Life of Imitation
• Imitation is copying the perfect image
• of God—Ephesians 5:1
• of Christ—John 13:14-15; Philippians 2:5-11
• in leaders—1Corinthians 11:1
• Paul is not saying he is perfect or that you have to be perfect to be worthy of imitation
• Not at all talking about a hierarchy—power structure
• Rather “Follow me as I follow Christ”
• We can put it all together quite simply: It is all about being as much like Christ as we can be!
• If we have that attitude—that new attitude of that new self—we will eagerly embrace discipling!
• We won't be concerned with our worldly, unholy, unspiritual, prideful attitude, which says, “who are you to assume you can help me be more like Christ.”
• Who is discipling who? Issue—it is all about best helping
• Not one of us is going to claim to reflect God perfectly or to have the pride to say, “I am more like Christ than you,” but we all have strengths and weaknesses.
• Perhaps, if we're humble, we have more to grow in than that we have already attained because we are relatively young and inexperienced in the process of becoming like Christ
• For the prideful among us:
• I eagerly desire to raise up leaders and give people the opportunity to preach
• One thing that scares me is a person's pride to assume Christlikeness without going through the process—
• To assume a level of maturity, to be able to disciple people, without being discipled (trained, raised up) into a greater degree of Christlikeness
• There is an evil spirit, called pride, which assumes a greater degree of Christlikeness without going through the growing process
• For the too often discouraged among us:
• First off, it is so encouraging to think about the body together—we are like a diamond, having many facets of Christlikeness when we come together. The church is much more like Christ as a whole than looking at its parts. We feel this more than any in our Campus Ministry.
• 1John 3:1-3
• From this passage we realize the blessing promised to us is perfect and total likeness to Jesus at His coming
• We who are being made like Him are also longing to see Him, and we will see Him as He is because we are being made like Him!

Conclusion—
God created us in His Image, aka to be “A Real Man of Jesus” because...

1. Jesus is the Perfect Image of God
2. Jesus Restores God's Image in Us
3. It is a complete...Death to Old (distorted) Image/Life to New (Perfect) Image
4. We are called to a Life of Imitation