Follow My Example

Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me (1 Corinthians 4:15-16).

Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).

What’s your gut reaction to this command from the apostle Paul, that people should follow him? If I’m being honest, I’d have to say that the first thing that comes to my mind is, “wow, that sounds pretty arrogant.” And it gets worse if I imagine myself saying the same things. But is my immediate reaction correct? If we accept, as I do, that Paul wrote this letter under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, then calling others to follow his example is not arrogant at all, but simply something that the Corinthians ought to do. And we should follow his example as well.

But there’s still a hesitation when I consider my own case. Can I say the same thing Paul did to the guys in my small men’s group? What about the kids in my pre-teen class? Can I really tell them to follow my example? Who am I to point to myself as an example of following Christ? But then I turn it around, and I ask how I could presume to teach anyone without being able to say, “follow my example.” Okay, I don’t know that I’m actually a teacher in my small group; I’m really more of a discussion facilitator. But the children… yeah, that’s clearly teaching.

If I’m following Christ, then other people ought to do the same thing, and follow Christ as well, right? In other words, they should follow my example. But if I’m not living in a way that pleases Christ, why aren’t I? Do I not know how I’m supposed to live? Or do I know but don’t believe that I can live that way? Or is pleasing God a lower priority for me than pleasing myself? I hope you’ll agree that if any of these were the case, I’d have no business teaching. Especially not teaching children.

Now, someone is sure to ask, “what about humility?” And that’s a good question. Aren’t we suppose to be humble and not claim to have all the answers? But I think Paul answers that question too, earlier in the same letter, when he writes:

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

The things Paul taught were not his own ideas, but only what God gave him. That’s where the humility came in. That’s why he can praise the Corinthians for holding on to what he taught them (1 Corinthians 11:2). He was not praising them for holding on to his wisdom, but for holding on to the word of God.

Equally, I have a serious responsibility to faithfully teach whatever God gives me to teach rather than my own ideas. Which means I have to be extremely careful to distinguish between the two. I think this is part of the reason James says, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1). And if I do that then the people I’m teaching, at whatever level, have a responsibility to hold on to what I give them, and to put it into practice.

Okay, that’s me. What about people who aren’t called to teach? Are they off the hook for being examples? Before I consider that, I do want to note that the number of believers who have been called to teach in some way is quite a bit larger than you’re probably thinking. Parents, for example, are teachers. As are grandparents and great grandparents, aunts, uncles, and older siblings. Even neighbors and family friends, people who are not remotely in the group James was talking about, need to be able to say, “follow my example.” Is this getting uncomfortable yet?

Moving outside of our family and friends, humans are a social species. We were created to live together as a society, and an inherent part of that is that we learn from each other, and more of that learning comes from watching what people do than from listening to what they say. That’s the way God intended the human race to function. More than that, it’s the way he intended the Body of Christ to function (1 Corinthians 12:12-26). The parts of a body don’t grow separately; the entire body grows together.

So, am I mature? No, scratch that. Wrong question. Am I one step, even if it’s a small one, closer to maturity in Christ than some other person I know? Then God has put me in their life to be an example to them. Just as any Christian I know who is at least one step (even a small one) closer to maturity in Christ than me was put into my life to be an example to me. If I’m actually living in the identity God has given me as his son, not perfectly, but practicing and letting his Spirit train me, then isn’t that an example that other Christians should follow? When Paul writes in Philippians 2:12-14 that he has not obtained his goal or been made perfect yet, he makes it clear that we aren’t supposed to wait until we’re perfect before we start consciously living as an example to others.

Still, I’m reluctant to tell anyone to follow my example. This might not be so bad if it was because I’m such a modest person. Unfortunately, that’s not the reason. The truth is that I resist telling other people to follow my example because there’s too large a part of me that doesn’t want to have to live up to being an example. “Hey, don’t follow me! I’m always screwing up,” sounds humble, but in reality, what I’m really trying to do when I say that, is give myself an excuse for not obeying what I know Jesus wants me to do. Ouch. My reaction to the idea of being an example is both a warning and a wake-up call. There really is a part of me that doesn’t want to be an example, because it doesn’t want to have to live up to that level of responsibility.

But it’s too late because I already am an example, and a leader. Like it or not, from the moment I became a child of God I’ve been an example to others, even if it’s only been recently that I’ve started actively trying to be aware of what I am an example of and ask, “do my words and my actions teach others how to live as followers of Jesus?” Furthermore, my influence is slowly growing as the relationships I have with other people grow, both in numbers and in quality. And I hate to break it to you, but unless you’re stranded on a desert island reading this article (and if you are, why don’t you use the internet that you are clearly accessing to call for help?) then God is also calling you to follow Paul’s example by being an example. As he writes to the Philippian church:

Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do (Philippians 3:17).

Notice that he tells them to follow “those” (plural) who live the way Paul does. We are to be examples. And we are also to follow the examples of others who have gone before us. That’s the flip side.

Ignoring the crowd, marching to my own drummer, sound romantic, but it’s not really something we humans do very well, despite what the advertising agencies tell us. Humanity is a social species. We are influenced by one another. Whose example am I following? Who is following mine? The answer to either question is never “no one.” We follow the example of the people around us. We can’t coompletely avoid doing that, but we can be deliberate about which examples we follow. Paul implies in this passage in Philippians (and anthropological research back this up) that if we do not choose consciously which examples to follow, we will chose our examples unconsciously. In practice, this means we will most likely follow whatever is most popular among the subgroup of people we hang out with. Rejecting the example of the people around us requires a deliberate choice; it doesn’t just happen. Which means that I should be constantly praying about both the example I’m following and the example I’m setting. And after praying, I have to make some deliberate choices.

Now, I would be remiss if I did not mention that this whole process – following the example of believers who have come before me, while setting an example for those who will follow – can be abused. In fact, it has been abused. A lot. Even in Paul’s era there were people in the church who were trying to manipulate others into following them, either for monetary gain or simply to stroke their own ego. Nevertheless, Scripture does not tell us to go it alone, but to be discerning. To be, in the words of Jesus, “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). I am to follow the example of people who are following Jesus (1 Corinthians 11:1). That means people who act like Jesus acts, serving others in humility rather than puffed up with their own greatness. And in the same way, I am to set an example by following Jesus, not by my own wisdom, or for my own glory.

And I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not easy to be intentional about setting an example, while at the same time pointing people toward Jesus, rather than to my own righteousness. (“Look what an obedient follower of Jesus I am!”) I know that I often get it wrong, and it’s likely that I get it wrong even more than I think I do. But one thing I do:

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14).

Follow my example, then, as I follow the example of Christ.