Doing What Jesus Would Do

In Ephesians 5:1-2, the Apostle Paul urges the church to be imitators of God. Specifically, Paul calls us to walk in the same kind of love that Jesus walked. The kind that leads us to offer ourselves up to God for the sake of others (cf. John 13:34).

This kind of imitation is commanded in various places throughout scripture. In Luke 6:36, Jesus calls us to be merciful just as our Heavenly Father is merciful, and in 1 Thessalonians 1:6, we are taught to imitate the Lord’s joy and endurance in the face of affliction.

The grounds of that imitation is also very important. We are to be merciful and forgiving toward our neighbour because God has been merciful and forgiving toward us. We are to love our neighbour because Christ has loved us.

This means that what we are after is not mere, mindless imitation, but the admiration that produces it.

Putting aside our tendency to cash in on important Christian truths with cheap jewellery (something that Jesus would not do), all of these examples make the question, “What would Jesus do?” a very good question.

What would Jesus do? …and should we be doing it too?

We want to be lights in a dark world, as Christ is. We ought to be truth-tellers in the world, as Jesus was. And we know we are to love our neighbour as He loved us. But there are other aspects of the character of Jesus that make us a little squeamish.

Jesus made jokes about the gnat-straining habits of religious leaders (Matthew 23:24). He was willing to throw furniture into the air when others made a mockery of worship (John 2:15). And He didn’t shy away from employing a little collectivism. If hypocrites were acting like a bag of snakes then He called them all a bag of snakes (Matthew 12:34). The Apostle Paul was also willing to get in on this kind of thing (Titus 1:12-13).

Jesus could also get angry.

As Christians, we are called to imitate Christ in every aspect of our lives. Not just in those characteristics which tend to suit our temperament. But, being sinners, as we are, this can get dicey. Especially in an immature or as-yet-to-be-perfectly-sanctified heart.

In Mark 3 we have a rather odd exchange between Jesus and the guys running the local church. It’s the kind of exchange that helps keep the balance between the squeamish heart of those who only imitate Christ when it suits them (like overlooking the abominations of those they admire or fear), and the over-eager tendency of others who want to anonymously kick pagans online – in the name of love.

It was a sunny Sabbath morning and Jesus was once again in the synagogue. There also happened to be a guy there with a deformed hand. The churches COVID officers, perched and leaning forward on their chairs in a state of cat-like-readiness were on standby, eager to sanitise the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-2).

In response, Jesus,

…looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. (Mark 3:5)

The response of the Pharisees is one of the more truly bizarre responses in scripture. Jesus was in their midst to heal the lame and,

The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against Him, how to destroy Him. (Mark 3:6)

In the middle of this brief exchange we are given an important insight into the nature of Jesus and what was likely governing His humour, wit, compassion, digs and occasional angry looks.

As we see in the lives of men like Jeremiah, Elijah, Amos, Paul and others, side-swipes, sarcasm, wit, anger and even mockery are the stuff of godly men. But, as is too often the case, our sarcasm, humour, side-swipes and anger are driven by jealousy, envy, bitterness or revenge, or anything that threatens our status. We like to be heard, and get angry when we are not.

Jesus also got angry. But it was an anger borne of grief at the Pharisees hardness of heart.

Jesus wept as he declared judgement over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41, Matthew 23:37).

It’s the kind of anger I hope we would feel when we see a drunk man kicking a dog on the side of the road. It’s the kind of anger that arises when we grieve over the hard-hearted feminist who would end the life of her unborn daughter so she can get back to the pub.

The problem, as Jesus once pointed out, is that we do not know what spirit we are of (Luke 9:54-55 KJV). Be angry and do not sin, says Paul (Ephesians 4:26). God was angry at Israel’s sin. But when Moses proceeded to be angry at Israel’s sin, he got into a whole lot of trouble (Numbers 20:10-11).

Just as there is a kind of mercy borne of cowardice, so there is a kind of anger born of pride.

Imitating Christ should be an imitation of all of Christ. But that imitation is not mechanical, nor is it a call to act all messianic.

Some would argue that if we start imitating the Lord’s more edgy traits we may go too far. If we start imitating the graphic imagination of Amos (Amos 4:1), or Elijah’s insults (1 Kings 18:27), or the Lord’s roasting of religious fashion (Matthew 23:5), we may get it wrong.

But isn’t this also true of imitating the Fathers love (Ephesians 5:1-2), or Paul’s compassion (1 Corinthians 11:1)?

We are far from perfect, but we are never-the-less told to be perfect (Matthew 5:48). Likewise, our asking, “What would Jesus do?”, will not yield perfect results in us, but we are never-the-less taught to imitate all of Christ in all of life.

And so the issue cannot be the perfection of our imitation. The issue is what is motivating our imitation.

True imitation, whether it’s an imitation of the Lord’s anger, love, joy, humour, jibes, insults, rebukes or mercy are to be motivated by a humble admiration of those things that motivated Christ. That motivation was a love for holiness, purity, truth, our salvation and the righteousness of God. Such a motivation is all the work of the Holy Spirit, through the word of God at work in us.