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What Yeshua Was Like

Presentation Notes

In my most recent reading of the gospels, I tried to have a focus on understanding the words of the Lord, and not glossing over the things that can sometimes leave you scratching your head.

I also tried to get a better understanding of what Yeshua was like -

his manner, and personality.

There is a lot in the 4 gospels, but they are surprisingly short for how important of a time they recorded.

It can leave you wondering why they didn’t write down every possible thing that they could remember. Maybe they did, and it just didn’t get preserved. Who knows?

I believe there is plenty, or at least enough, in there to understand what we need to.

However, it seems to leave a gap in our understanding of what exactly Jesus was like.

We have a relationship with him - this person - our Lord, but we don’t get the benefit of having a face-to-face relationship with him like the first disciples.

Yes, we have His spirit to lead and guide us, but

it’s only natural to wonder what it would be like to be in his presence.

We’ve seen many artists and actors try to depict Him.

We see paintings of fair skinned, delicate men with melancholy glances.

Regardless of which version of Jesus we like the best or think is the most accurate, we can’t really know for sure until we see him in person.

But all of these pop culture representations impact the way we imagine him to be.

When we read the gospels it’s easy to get a kind of distant, otherworldly sense about him.

He’s always saying things that are unusual, like his mind operated on another plane.

To some degree it did, but he was also a man, so it wouldn’t be fair to imagine that he just floated around delivering sermons and healing people.

He might have even stubbed his toe once, or told a joke. He got tired, and hungry, and disappointed, surprised, angry, happy, sad.

What we have from the Gospels are snippets of time recorded to teach us His sayings, to help us understand his ministry, and prove his messiahship.

They aren't a full composite of his personality.

However, in meditating on this I realized, we can know plenty about what Yeshua was like.

I’m going to be painting with a broad brush here and covering a number of things briefly, but hopefully when we look at the whole tapestry, we can get a clearer picture of who our King, our Rabbi, our God, our brother - who this Yeshua is.

-1- For one, there was nothing in his life that took precedence over his relationship with God.

There were no distractions that stole away his attention or his love.

Even when he was exhausted, he would give up sleep to spend time alone with his Father.

He was set on the will of God and didn’t let anything deter him from complete obedience.

John 8:28Then Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. 29And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.”

Yeshua never proceeded without knowing the will of God.

I believe that’s part of what it means that Yeshua “learned obedience”. How does someone who never sinned learn obedience? It’s not that he learned what obedience meant, or that he finally learned to obey after being disobedient.

It means that he learned what it meant to obey.

We don’t have a problem knowing the rules are - nor did Messiah.

But we still have to learn obedience as we do it.

Part of obedience is overcoming the mental and spiritual obstacles to doing the will of God.

It’s overcoming our rebelliousness, our pride, our desire to do what makes us feel good.

In this way I think Messiah learned what it meant for a human to obey God through his suffering.

He was determined to be obedient, but he had to work through all of the emotions and conflicting desires that come with being a man.

-2- His heart was never drawn away or enticed by any kind of idol.

Nothing that held more esteem or importance to Him

No spiritual power that he sought apart from God. No superstition that he feared or relied on.

There was no person or human power that sought either.

In short, there were no idols in his life.

-3- His word was bond. You knew that if He said he was going to do something, he was going to do it. He never made hasty, or foolish promises.
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ 34But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. 37But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

As Hebrews points out, men swear by one greater than themselves (6:16). Yeshua knew that the name of God was to be revered above all, and that no light oath was worth the risk of taking the name of God in vain.

-4- Another thing that we can know about Yeshua is that he was a Sabbath keeper. In fact, he showed us what it meant to truly keep the Sabbath - he filled it with meaning.

He showed his disciples that the spirit of the Sabbath was not adding strict rules and regulations to make it burdensome, but rather making it a delight.

It seems like he intentionally confronted the erroneous views of his religious peers.-

Recall when he was plucking grain on the Sabbath, or when he healed people, even telling one of them to take up his mat.

In so doing, he taught us that matters of life and wholeness were even more important on the Sabbath day.

Not only that, he himself is the substance that the Sabbath is a shadow of.

Therefore, by keeping the 7th day holy and resting, we are entering into the shadow of messiah that reminds us of our rest in him.

Not only our current, spiritual rest, but the great sabbath of creation, the millennium of Messiah’s reign on earth, and the eternal rest following for all the saints.

-5- Honor father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise. This life was blessed with length of days. But he only lived to be 33? Yes, he rightfully possessed all the of the blessings promised to the righteous, but he gave them up by instead becoming cursed so that we would have those blessings, including long life - even eternal life.

He always honored his father and mother.

When he was 12 he did stay back while his parents left Jerusalem. However, in a sense he was honoring his Heavenly Father.

He especially honored his heavenly Father.

-6- “Matthew 5:21 You have heard that it was said to the ancients, ‘Do not murder’ and ‘Anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ will be subject to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to the fire of hell.
He never showed hatred or animosity toward people, or despised them for personal reasons. He hated sin, and openly rebuked hateful, wicked behavior. However, if any of the hypocrites or sinful people were to repent, he welcomed them with open arms.

7- Matthew 5:27-28 You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Again, we see Yeshua giving the original intent of the law. It was never about just outward obedience, but God was after the heart.

And he lived this out perfectly.

One never caught the Lord’s eyes gazing at a woman. He never spoke crudely or joked about them inappropriately. In the rare instance he was alone with a woman, you could be absolutely sure that he was about his Father’s business, and speaking of the kingdom.

He was adored by many women, but was never accused by them of unwholesome behavior.

Several pious women, some of them wealthy - supplied for his needs. Luke records that “Mary Magdalene, … Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.”

-8- In fact, at times he had many followers, and while most were poor, donations were given to him and his ministry, but he never misused this for his own personal benefit. However, there was one that was secretly dipping his hand into the money sack - and we know what kind of man he was.

There is another form of theft which we do not always consider - that of glory, honor, reputation.

He never stole glory or honor by putting others down to lift himself up.

Though he was worthy of all glory and honor, it was determined by God that he should exercise that right, partly so that he could be an example to us.

Philippians 2:Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

-9- You knew that he was never going to stretch the truth to make himself seem better or hide something.

Every word that he spoke was true, honorable, and just. Even when they sought his life, he did not change his words.

-10- In this day and age we are bombarded with temptation to be covetous. Every advertisement tries to appeal to your desire for more and better things.

Companies play on this by always having a new model of something, just so yours feels outdated when you see someone else has the newest version, even though it’s usually only very slightly different, and sometimes even less functional.

Yeshuas always accepted God’s will for him and was content with what he had. Often he had nothing - not even a place to lay his head. But he did not merely accept this because it was all he knew. Other times, he was being invited to eat with the prominent rabbis and surrounded by supporters, and there were rich women following him to support him financially.

How do I know these things? Because Messiah was sinless. He is the pure and spotless lamb that takes away the sin of the world. The only way that he could do that is if he himself never sinned. These are the 10 commandments. Yes, they are moral guidelines - but these words were made flesh in the person of Yeshua.

Not only did he live them perfectly, he enriched their meaning and showed us how they apply to our daily lives in the matters of the heart.

Not only that, he is love manifested. God is love, and in him dwelt the fullness of the godhead, bodily. He was a man, like you or I, but he was the perfect image of what love actually looks like. He loved us with the most supreme form of love, self-sacrifice - even death on a cross. How much more then do we know that when he was on the earth, his every word and deed was done out of love.

He was patient. He never gave up on anyone. Even after spending years with his disciples, they still didn’t understand some of his teachings - the ones they had heard probably dozens of times as he traveled to different cities. In each place the people would flock to him, but he had the messages that we have recorded, are likely the same or similar to the ones he gave in every town and village, because the people had the same problems, the same questions.

Patience does not mean that we never feel frustration. When his disciples could not cast a demon out of a boy, Yeshua said of them:

“O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.”

A passionate rebuke does not mean a lack of patience. Did he continue to rail on them? Did he give up on them? When they came to him afterward privately, asking why they couldn’t cast out the demon did he say: “because you can’t do anything right! I have to do everything around here.” Of course not, he told them the truth, what it was they were lacking, and gave them hope “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

He was kind. The Lord had thousands and thousands of interactions. When the multitudes were surrounding him, begging him to heal them, cast out demons, to teach them, he never lacked kindness.

As I mentioned before, he did not envy anyone. He did not boast, was not proud, nor rude. When the Lord was tired, and in need of rest, and there was still a crowd of people, patients in need of healing, possessed in need of deliverance, his words were still spoken in kindness, and his compassion did not wane.

He did not seek his own, but the benefit of others.
He was not easily provoked - though provoked he was.

When the disciples did wrong, spoke foolishly, or doubted God in the flesh, he did not bear record of it. This is the kind of man that he was. You never had to fear him holding it against you or bearing a secret grudge.

He never rejoiced at wrongdoing even when it was against his enemies, but he rejoiced in the truth - even when the truth meant his own death.

He was the kind of person that bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, and endured all things.

As you can see there are 66 books outlining exactly what kind of person Yeshua was. He was God. Any ideal that we can imagine, he embodied. He was the perfect man. Anything that the Scripture says is good - that was his character. He was courageous, merciful, compassionate, unwavering, formidable. Ultimate power under perfect control. He followed his Father’s will with perfect obedience and submission. His love never ended. Now, go and do likewise.