How many other churches have you been to where the pastor started off with the chicken dance? I tell you what, never know what’s gonna happen around here. And, you know, that’s the way it should be. We should be able to come into the house of the Lord, to worship together, to laugh together, to enjoy the time together. And you know something?

The biggest thing that I like about all that is those children that were here this morning, they’ll remember that one because they saw the pastor dancing at the front of the stage. So it’s something that they will remember, and, you know, perhaps you will too. And so today, I am gonna be talking about imitation. One of the things that I want to think about is last week, we talked about a hope that never fades. Right?

We talked about a hope that never fades. Well, the question about that hope is, how do we use that hope in our everyday lives? How do we use that hope? That hope is Jesus. Right?

So how do we use that hope in our everyday life as we go through this world? We have a limited amount of time in this world. Anybody know exactly how much time you got? We don’t. Even people who are have terminal disease and a doctor says, you only have a week to live.

How many of those didn’t make it that week? How many of them lived another three years? They don’t know. We do not know how much time we have. What we do know is the time that we have, we ought to use it for our lord and savior.

Amen? And so how do we use that hope as we go through our everyday life? For most of us, we go through our everyday life, and steps, and we don’t really consider what that looks like to other people. Right? We don’t really think about what our life looks like to other people.

When we go through our everyday life, all of our everyday steps in life, we don’t really think about how does that look to other people. We don’t think about that at all. We just think about for us. What does that mean for us today? What do we have to do?

How do we have to do things? What are we gonna do about it? But some people are the opposite of that. Some people absolutely worry about everything they do being analyzed. What will people think?

If I wear this tie with this shirt, is somebody gonna wonder, did that match? Is this perfect? I usually clear that with my wife, by the way. Does this match? Is it perfect?

Is everything good? Do do what about my my my hair? What about, you know, all of this? Are people gonna judge me for whatever it is? Maybe.

But the real reality is they’re not your final judge. But some people get so crazy about how people are gonna see what they do and others don’t care at all. The reality is we should be somewhere in the middle of all that. The truth is we should consider how our walk is seen by others, not how our dress, not how our hair, not how our speech, how that’s concerned with other people, but how does our walk speak to other people? How does it speak to other people?

It’s not to be an extreme because we don’t want to be like everybody else, but we should be doing it in a way that people see in us Jesus Christ. In the time we live in, imitation is everywhere. Imitation is everywhere. It it it’s everywhere. Look.

Let somebody come out with a a new product and there’s knockoffs as fast as they come out with it. Why? Because people like that product, so they wanna imitate it. They wanna give you something else. They want you to be able to purchase that.

It won’t be as expensive perhaps. That’s why they do that. If someone posts something cool online, everybody has to do the same thing. Right? Everybody has to do the same thing.

You ever seen something online called the ice bucket challenge? Anybody ever seen that? Yeah. We’ve said, you get to do it today. No.

I’m teasing. The ice bucket challenge, somebody did it, and they passed it on. And then everybody was doing it. Now it was supposed to be to raise money and awareness for something good. Okay?

But then how about the snow angel challenge this past January? Anybody see that online? Where you go out in a bathing suit and lay down in the snow and make a snow angel, and people were going and doing that, and they would nominate somebody else to do that. They were imitating. One person did it, so everybody had to do it.

All these things that were going on, we gotta do it because it’s everybody’s doing it. It’s cool. We wanna imitate everybody else. We wanna do what they’re doing. This whole thing of somebody posting something online and everybody else has to do it, it’s how we get stuff like people eating Tide Pods.

Yeah. Somebody did that. They posted it, and then people started dying from it. They go online and they wanna imitate what somebody else is doing, but the imitation that they’re wanting to do is not something positive. So many times, they wanna imitate everything to get likes.

They wanna imitate to get people to recognize them. They wanna imitate for all the wrong reasons. As believers, we too are interested in imitation. We are interested in imitation. Oh, I don’t I don’t wanna imitate anybody.

Well, you should. We need to imitate somebody. We need to be interested in imitation, but not like that. Look at second Thessalonians chapter three, and we’re gonna concentrate on verses six and seven right now. Second Thessalonians chapter three verses six and seven.

Now, of course, this is Paul. He’s written a letter to the Thessalonians, and he’s addressing some things that’s going on. Okay? So second Thessalonians chapter three verses six and seven, and it says this, now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life, and not according to the tradition which you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you.

Alright? So we showed you how to walk, so imitate us. That’s what Paul said. Listen, we showed you how to walk. Don’t follow the rest of the world.

Don’t act like they do. Don’t try to do the things that they do. Instead, imitate us. The ones who showed you what we’re supposed to do. Paul is writing to them to say, we showed you this.

Imitate us. You know how to walk. Jesus came to this world as a baby. He grew up. As an adult, he spent somewhere around three years in ministry teaching others, showing them how to walk, telling them all about the savior, everything that needed to be done.

And he has brought in all the apostles to be with him and other disciples that followed him. And Jesus said, you see what I’m doing? Do it like that. The apostles then went out afterwards and said, you see what we’re doing? Do it like that.

Do what we’re doing. Because what we’re doing is leading you in the right way. What we’re doing is following God as God called us to be. What we’re doing is making people see God. Don’t follow the people who aren’t believers.

Don’t follow the people who aren’t believers. That’s not who you wanna follow because the world is full of people who want you to follow them. One of the big things today is you can post on social media and how many followers can you get. How many people will click to follow you because you did something crazy, you did something dumb, you did something interesting. Whatever it was, you did something online, and you want people to follow you.

It is so important that once it reaches a certain level, companies start calling, and they wanna buy onto your channel. They wanna pay you to keep doing whatever it is you’re doing because they wanna advertise on your channel because you have so many people that are following you. They know that there are so many people out there that are following you. They want their product on your channel in order that they might sell it. There’s a lot of people following something just because it was online, just because something happened online.

What if believers had so many followers that the church was packed out every Sunday morning? What if believers had so many people that followed them that we couldn’t keep the baptismal pool filled enough? What if believers had so many followers that there were no lost people left in the world. Wouldn’t that be incredible? The reality is don’t follow those who are lost.

Don’t follow those. Instead, follow the example of godly people. Follow the example of godly people. In our church, this church, Orchard, I can’t tell you how many people I talk to that say, I wish I could be more useful. I’m just at an age that I can’t do these things that I used to do anymore, that I can’t do the physical stuff that I used to do anymore.

I wish I could be more useful for God. Listen. You’re useful to God. You continue to walk in a way that those less mature believers can see how they’re supposed to walk, that they can follow you and you can point them to God, that we can see how we’re supposed to do things. We need to look up to those believers who are more mature in their walk and figure out how do we do that.

How do we become more mature? How do we get stronger in our faith? How do we get stronger in our walk? How do we lead people to Christ? Are you willing to tell someone to imitate you to get closer to God?

Oh, hold up. Hang on, preacher. Wait a minute now. You know, I’m I’m not probably the best one to tell people to to imitate me because, you know, I I don’t I don’t always do the right thing. I’m I’m I’m not walking necessarily the way that I should.

I wouldn’t wanna tell somebody to imitate me. I wouldn’t wanna do that. Really? Well, let me ask you this. If your answer to I’m not are you willing to have someone imitate you to get closer to God?

If the answer is no, what does that say about your personal walk? Think about this. I’m a believer. I’ll tell anybody I’m a believer. I’m a Christian.

I love Jesus, and I try to do the right things. But don’t don’t follow what I do, because I’m I’m not I’m not doing all the things that I should do. What does that say about your personal walk? You just said, I’m not doing everything I should do. I don’t want people to follow me.

How do you fix that? How do you fix that If you’re not doing everything you’re supposed to do in your own personal walk, why not? Are we striving to make it right? No one here is perfect. Not me, not you, not anybody here.

No one is perfect. Paul was not perfect. Paul said, follow me. I showed you the way. Do what I do.

Paul told the church at Thessalonica, follow me. Do what I showed you. He wasn’t perfect. Paul made mistakes. I got a secret to tell you.

Paul sinned. Paul sinned just like you have. He made mistakes, but here’s the difference. Paul was striving to walk in that walk that was pleasing to God every day. Yes.

He made mistakes. Yes. He failed in many ways. But when he did, the example was this is what happens when you fail. You give it to God.

You get back up, realize he’s forgiven you, dust it off and keep trying to do it again. If our answer pardon me. If our answer of would you be willing to have someone follow you to see Jesus is no, because we don’t feel our walk is strong enough, then what do we do about that? What do we do about that? Young believers today should easily be able to imitate mature believers to gain a closer walk.

Young believer comes up front and says, I realize I’m a sinner. I need a savior. And today, I’ve given my life to Jesus Christ, and I’m a new believer. And we shout, amen. We should hug their neck and shake their hands and tell them how proud we are of them.

And then what? We try to do I always try to have a new believers class. We try to get them plugged into Sunday school. We try to get them in other things. But do we, as a as a church, put our arms around them and go listen.

The walk is not easy, but let me show you. Follow me. I’ll show you this is how you do it. I’m not perfect. I fail.

I make mistakes, but I’m gonna keep trying to do it right. So you follow me, and I’ll help show you the right way. Can we do that? Can we put our arms around them and tell them that? Too many of us say, I would not want anybody following me.

You know those reality shows where they follow you around with a camera all day? You know, they don’t really it’s not real. They stage all of it. It. But what if someone came and said, I wanna follow you around all day for the next week.

I want you to just do what you would normally do as if there’s no camera anywhere around. Just go ahead and do what you normally do. I dare say none of us would do what we normally do. We would all make it prettier. We’d make it better.

We wouldn’t do the things that we didn’t want other people to know about. God sees everything we do. There’s no camera following us around, but God sees it all. Are we walking in a way that leads people to Jesus? Paul said to the Thessalonians, he said, listen.

Some of y’all are following people and hanging out with people that are leading you astray. They’re not doing the right things. Stay away from those kind of people. Instead, follow those who are leading you in the right way. We showed you how to do it.

We told you how to follow us and it by the same step following Jesus. We showed you how to do that. So stay away from those other things and follow God. Young believers should be able to imitate mature believers to gain a closer walk, but believers are not growing mature these days. Why are they not growing mature?

Because they don’t seem to have mature believers to follow. Why? If we’re not walking in the way we should, we should change that. People should be able to follow us all the way to salvation. Amen?

People should be able to follow us all the way to salvation. A lost person should be able to follow our walk in our life and see the way that we are plugged into God, the way that we follow Jesus, the things that we do in our life. They should find their way all the way to salvation by following us. Because like it or not, you very well may be the only Bible many people ever read. We should be able to lead people straight to salvation if they follow us If they follow us.

Here’s the problem today. Are we leading them to salvation? Are we leading them away from salvation? Put with me to verses eight through 10. Says this, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship, we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you.

Not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you so that you would follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order. If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat either. They did this to be role models for the Pope the people they were teaching. Everything they did, they could have done it differently, but the way they did it, they did it to be a role model to others so that they could see what they were doing.

And they said, it’s interesting, if someone’s not willing to work, don’t let him eat. Right? They did all this as role models, but then they said that if someone’s not willing to work, don’t let him eat. So many people are looking for something for nothing. I don’t want to have to work for it.

Can’t you just give it to me? I drove down the road the other day. Bunch of people standing out on the side of the road. We’re holding up a sign. Help us send our kids to some ball camp or some championship or some other thing, and they’re standing out there holding out buckets.

I noticed they weren’t providing bottles of water or selling donuts or trying to do anything to get you to to purchase something to help them. They just hold out a bucket. Just give it to me. Just give it to me. No reason.

Just stop and give this to me because I need it. Just give it to me. We in this world are walking away. We’re not willing to work. Just just give it to me.

I know, God, that I’m supposed to do good works. I’m called by you to do these good works, but listen, you’ve you’ve already promised me salvation, so, you know, I’m not too in on the work thing. So I just want you to give me the salvation, but I don’t wanna really do anything after you’ve given me that salvation. If he isn’t willing to work, don’t let him eat. If he isn’t willing to work, don’t let him eat.

Now we can apply that in in life as in someone who doesn’t wanna get up and go to work to provide food for themselves, then don’t give them food if they’re not willing to do that. It doesn’t apply to people who can’t work. It’s people that don’t wanna work. But we also can apply that in our Christian walk. If he’s not willing to work, then why should he get to take part in all of the blessings that God gives?

Why should he get to take part in all of the the things that happen that we celebrate? If someone’s not willing to work, then why are they also lifted up? Listen. Newsflash. God designed us to work.

He didn’t design us to not work. In fact, when he gave us salvation, the first thing he said is, go and make disciples. Go out and work. Tell people about Jesus. Go out and serve me by working for me.

Go out and show people how to find their way to salvation. Go out and be a role model that others might be able to follow that. Go out in the workplace. Go in the highways and the byways and tell people about Jesus. Don’t just tell them.

Show them. Show them how they can live. Imitation. Why we do imitation? We want them to follow that imitation.

We wanna be that way. How many people that play golf get the instructional videos? If you do just exactly like this, then you’ll hit 20 under par. Right? Oh, man.

If I could just do that, that would be great. I’ll spend hours swinging a golf club trying to hit just like that instructor. If you reflect Jesus and you share the gospel with people, some will come to know him as their Lord and savior. Man, I just don’t have time for all that stuff. I don’t have time to go out and knock on doors or talk to people.

I don’t have you know, I mean, I’m in the workplace. You know, they don’t like us to talk about Jesus in the workplace. I I don’t wanna I don’t wanna, you know, do that. They might think I’m different if I act that way. I hope so.

We should be different. Maybe have you ever been around a bunch of people and they’re talking and they’re using that colorful language? You know what I’m talking about? All those four letter words and things that we don’t like to hear anyway, and they’re just using them like they’re normal. And all of a sudden you walk up and they say, oh, sorry.

And they’d suddenly change their speech. Why did they do that? Oh, because they know I’m a believer, and they know I don’t like that kind of talk, so they change it. Just simply because I walked in the room. If that much can happen just simply because they know that I’m a believer and they change their speech, maybe they would actually follow and come to know Jesus.

Maybe they would actually follow. Maybe they would actually want to know why I’m the way I am and not just that I am. So many people are looking for something for nothing. Verse 10 says, Christians, we are to avoid being selfish and self serving. We’re to avoid being selfish and self serving.

This that he if he can’t, work, don’t let him eat. That’s not for those who are not able to work. But listen, we need to avoid acting like those who are selfish and self serving. Because if all we’re doing is about self and self serving, are we really living for God? The answer to that is simple.

No. We’re living for self. Look at verses eleven and twelve. For we hear that some among you are leading in an undisciplined life, doing no work at all but acting like busy bodies. Now such persons we command and exhorted the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.

Everyone keeps on walking along flawed so that others can’t imitate us. The thing that’s happening is some are acting this way and some are acting that way, and so we just decide that instead of actually doing the things we should, we’re gonna just walk in our walk. We’re flawed, but we’re gonna keep walking that way, and we’re not gonna get anybody to follow us because we don’t want them to imitate us because we know we have flaws. We know what we’re doing is not right. We know how we’re walking is wrong.

Ain’t it incredible that if you know what you’re doing is not right, why do you keep on doing it? If you know what you’re doing is not right, why do you keep on doing it? You know, you get in your car, you crank it up. Oh, that don’t sound good. Never mind.

I’ll just keep driving it. Most of the time oh, that don’t sound good. I need to get it checked out. It needs to be fixed because if it doesn’t get fixed, it’s gonna break. It’s gonna tear up, and it’s gonna be awful.

It’s gonna be worse. Christians, if you don’t fix the way that you’re walking, what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna end up leading somebody away from God instead of to him. Well, how is that possible? Because they wanna see you who call yourself a believer and say, I don’t want any part of what they do. If that’s what a believer is, I don’t want any part of that.

I see what they do, and they call their self a believer. I don’t want any part of that. Why? Because our walk is flawed, and we’re not trying to fix it. We’re not trying to get there.

The scripture tells us we’re supposed to strive to be perfect. We will never attain that, but we’re still supposed to strive to be there. You know the amazing thing about the guy swinging that golf club? He’s never gonna be perfect. But if he keeps swinging that golf club, he’s probably gonna get better.

Every time he plays, he’s probably gonna get a little better and a little better and a little better. Even though he’s never gonna be perfect, he’s gonna keep getting better. As believers, if we keep trying to walk in a better way, we’re going to get better. We’re going to walk closer and closer and closer to God if we keep striving. But if we just say, oh, I know that I’m flawed, and that’s okay.

I’ll just keep doing me. It’s alright. That’s what Paul said. Stop doing that. Paul says stay away from people that are acting like that.

The thing we need to see is Paul, an apostle of Jesus, is talking to church members. He’s talking to church members. He’s talking about Christians who are acting like the world. Hold on now, preacher. Slow down.

You’re getting a little too close. Listen. When the world looks at a believer and they can’t tell the difference in a believer in the world, it’s a problem. The problem is we’re imitating the world instead of Jesus. Church members, Christians, believers, if we keep acting like the world, people are gonna see the world.

Paul’s not holding anything back because he’s talking to them in the authority of god. Paul said, listen. You need to stop acting like the world. And he’s talking to them in that authority of God. Do you know you have the authority of God too?

We have the power of God. If you know him as Lord and savior, you have that same authority. You have the same authority. But we keep walking around like the world. We keep walking around flawed.

Today, we are afraid to lovingly tell other believers that their actions are not reflecting God. Oh, hold up. I can’t tell somebody that. But you do. Usually, what happens is when you see somebody that’s not acting the way they should, that are not reflecting God, you don’t go talk to them about it.

You say, hey. Did you see so and so? You see how they were acting? And then guess what? Now you’re gossiping.

You’re not doing the right thing either. We as a body of believers, the church universal, ought to be able to go to one another in love and say, hey, the things you’re doing don’t seem to be right. I know you say you are a believer, but the way you’re dressing or the places that you’re going on Friday night, the other things that are happening, people don’t see Jesus in you. You know what’s gonna happen? They’re probably gonna get mad because you just insulted me.

So I’m gonna get mad at you. But after it sinks in a little bit, perhaps it becomes a conviction. Either way, we’re supposed to be the person who talks to others about their walk, and they may come talk to you. It may be you that needs somebody to come talk to you and tell you about your walk because you’re not walking the way that you should. We’re too afraid to do that.

We’re too afraid to do that. And so because of that, we just keep walking around flawed so others can’t imitate us. We become the very ones Paul says to avoid. We’re walking around flawed. Paul says stay away from those.

Stay away from those people that are walking around all flawed. Stay away from those who are walking the way of the world. Stay away from those who aren’t living the way that we showed you how to do it. Stay away from those. If we don’t take seriously our job to walk as a believer every day to share Jesus Christ through our walk, through our talk, through everything that we do, if we don’t do that and we keep walking around flawed, then we become the very people that Paul says to avoid.

When you talk to people, why don’t you go to church? Why are you not why don’t you believe in Jesus? Listen, I know so and so and so and so. They’ve they’ve been Christians for a long time, and they go the same nightclubs I do, and they drink just as much beer and wine and everything else as I do. They get drunk all the time.

You know, they do everything like I do. Why do I need to go to church on Sunday morning to act the same way they do? They’re not acting any different than I am. If we’re not acting different than the world, how can the world see the difference in us? It can’t.

It’s time to stop excusing all our behavior, and it’s time to start working to be the example. We gotta work to be the example. Be the example. Instead of saying, I don’t want anybody to imitate me because I’m not that strong of a person, then let’s work to get stronger. Let’s work to get closer.

Let’s work to be the example. Think about it like this. For most people, maybe you not the best person. Along comes baby you. Alright.

Here’s baby George. Guess what? All these things that I was doing before, I don’t want that to be the example to this little baby. And so as this little baby is growing, I’m doing my best to be the best version of me that I can possibly be in order that that child growing up will not fall into the pitfalls that I did, but instead will walk in a better way than me. It’s the same thing as a baby believer.

If you are a believer and these baby believers come along, then we’re to strive to try to help them to see the right way to walk and not the wrong way to walk. We work to be an example for our children. When the children come along, we should be working to be an example for the baby Christians that come along so that we can help them to grow up and be examples to others. It’s time to us to work to be the example and not to be the deterrent. If we can’t say follow me, and I will show you how to live a godly life, then we need to examine why not, and we need to correct that.

We need to examine why not and correct that. If we’re saying that, we already know why not. We already know what it is that’s not right in our life. If we’re saying don’t follow me because I won’t lead you the right way, we know what’s wrong. Are you willing to do the work?

Are you willing to get corrected? Are you willing to listen? Our men’s group, we call the watchmen. The passage in Habakkuk that we’re basing that on. One of the things is Habakkuk said, I don’t understand.

I’m waiting for your answer, and I’m waiting for your correction. Why does he say I’m waiting for your correction? I’m waiting for your correction because I already know I’m wrong. I already know that that the way I’m thinking, there’s something wrong here, so I’m waiting for you to correct me, and I will take that correction to walk in the right way. That’s what we all need, the correction, to walk in the right way.

We need to be able to do that. Paul was not afraid to say, follow my example, and we shouldn’t be either. Paul was not afraid to say that. Again, Paul was not perfect. We get this idea sometimes of biblical characters that they were perfect.

They walked around perfect. We see Paul walking around in his nice robe with his little belt on and his sandals, and he’s perfect. And everything that Paul says, now listen to me because I’m perfect. He didn’t say that. He wasn’t perfect.

Paul was flawed just like we are, but he wasn’t afraid to say, follow me because I’m trying every day to live the right way, and you should too. Believers, we need to start saying, hey. I’m not perfect, but I’m really trying to live for God every day. And I’m willing to pray for you and try to show you exactly what I’m doing. I’m willing for you to follow me because I want you to know the Jesus that I serve.

I’m willing for you to follow me because I don’t want to think that I said, don’t follow me because I’m not doing the right thing. And instead, you went off and followed the world and spent an eternity in hell because I was unwilling to show you the path to Jesus. We should lovingly help each other see where we need work. Some of you are prayer warriors. Other people have a hard time praying.

Some of you are willing to do whatever it takes. Others are, well, I don’t have time. Some are willing to to go out and and to knock on doors. Some are willing to, lead Bible studies. Some are willing to do whatever it takes, and others not so much.

Listen, we all need to help each other see how we can be better. When we come together as a body of believers, we become better. We’re We’re stronger together. Verse 13. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good.

Do not grow weary of doing good. Sometimes you get weary of doing good. Why? There sometimes there’s weeks I’m telling you, we’re at the church four days a week. Sometimes we’re up here even more.

We’re up here doing all the things that we think that that’s what everything it takes to be doing good. And sometimes that is the things that we need to be doing, but sometimes we get do so much stuff trying to do good. We look around and we’re just worn out. Paul says, don’t grow weary of doing good. Don’t grow weary of doing good.

It’s hard to always strive to do godly things, but we need to make sure we don’t let ourselves grow weary. How do we do that? Anybody ever heard of the Sabbath day? You know why there’s no work on the Sabbath day? It said, on the Sabbath day, god, what, rested?

God didn’t need to rest. He was setting an example for us to rest. We need to rest. We need to rest. Sometimes, we just need to rest, but don’t use that as an excuse.

I need to rest, then rest, then get back at it. Don’t rest and then get stuck in the rest. We gotta get back at it. Take the rest. Get back at it.

We need to recharge. You know, every job that you do, you have vacation. Why do you have vacation? You need to rest. You need to take a break from what you’re doing, but they want you back.

Right? Come back to work. Ready to go. Go get a rest. We all need a rest.

That rest, the Sabbath, the rest is resting in our worldly work, but resting in God. That means that while we’re resting, we’re spending time with the father getting rejuvenated. We’re spending time with the father asking him to replenish our strength. We’re spending time with the father, thank him for all that he’s done. We’re spending that time with him.

That’s the true rest, is resting from the world and resting in God. That’s the true rest so that we don’t grow weary of doing good. We need to stay strong in that. Why? Because if we grow weary of doing good, who’s gonna tell the rest of the world?

How’s the rest of the world going to know if we’re the ones that are supposed to be telling them that we’re so tired that we can’t do it? That we’ve grown weary. If you find that the reason you can’t say imitate me is that you don’t know Jesus, then today that can change. Maybe the reason you can’t say imitate me is you don’t truly know Jesus. You’ve just been imitating Christians.

You’ve just been saying, oh, well, I go to church on Sunday morning. I’m a member of the Sunday school class. I even have a a brand new Bible. So, of course, I must be a Christian. If you’ve never given your life to Jesus Christ as lord and savior, you missed the step.

Maybe you’re doing all the stuff, but you don’t know Jesus. That’s why you can’t say, hey. Follow me and let me show you Jesus because you don’t know yourself. Maybe what you need to do is spend that time trying to find out, do you know Jesus? Listen.

Today, if the Holy Spirit has shown you you don’t know him, then that can change today. You can call upon the name of Jesus. The scripture says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord and believe that god raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. Today, it can change. The question is this, do you know him today?

You can’t let others follow you to Jesus if you’ve never met him yourself. Perhaps as a believer, you know Jesus, but you still would say today, I I don’t know about telling somebody to follow me because I’m not sure that I’m strong enough in my walk. Then let’s get stronger together. We have this thing, maybe you’ve heard of it before. It happens at 09:30 on Sunday morning.

It’s all called Sunday school. It’s not a social hour. Sunday school is so we can learn more about the savior that we want to serve, and we can draw closer to them. There’s a Wednesday night thing also called bible study. Again, it’s not a social hour.

We study God’s word to draw closer to him. That’s not enough. There’s five other days of the week that you need to have time with god. Do you know him? Are you close to him?

Are you trying to walk every day so that others will see Jesus in you? You’re going to make mistakes. I make them every day. You’re going to fail. Ask God to forgive you.

Get up and keep going. You know, one of the most encouraging videos that I’ve ever seen on a on a computer screen was a person that was running a marathon. And they were getting to the end of the marathon, and they were just so weak, they fell down. They fell down, but you know what? They they weren’t too far from the finish line.

They got up. Somebody hand them a bottle of water. They tried to choke some water right quick, and and they stood up and they took off trying to run again and down they fell. And they got up and they dusted themselves off again, and they took off and down they fell. They fell, like, five or six times before they could ever get to the finish line.

Right before they got to the finish line, several of the people that had already finished came back across the line and helped them cross over the line. You see, they were running the race to finish. They were failing. They were falling down. They were hurt.

They were exhausted, but they kept getting up and they kept trying and they kept trying and they kept trying. And as long as they kept trying, other people came along to help them along the way. Believers, you don’t have to do it alone. You know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and you’re part of a congregation of a body of believers. Those believers will come along beside you if they know you need it.

But we try to hide everything. We don’t want them to know. We need to call on our brothers and sisters to help us, but we need to keep striving for that finish line. Hebrews says, run the race to finish that is set before us. We’re supposed to keep running that race, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

If we do that every day, people will see Jesus in us. If we fail, keep going. We gotta keep going. We don’t know exactly where the finish line is because we don’t know when our last breath will be. We don’t know when Jesus will return.

But we know he said, run the race to finish. Keep running. Keep running. Keep sharing. Keep imitating him that others would come to know him as lord and savior.

Most important thing we could ever do is lead someone to Jesus Christ. That they too might have salvation because you took the time to imitate Jesus. Let’s pray.