Goal #2: Be Like Jesus

Intro

Last week we discussedthe first goal of a disciple of Jesus, to Be with Jesus.

That the primary way goal of following Jesus and the universe in general is that we would “abide” in Him (John 15).

The primary way that we do this is through taking steps to be aware and intentional about the Holy Spirit residing within us. Not just being intellectually aware, but to arrange our lives and selves into a home where God lives. And making it a way of life to spend time with the Lord in every moment in every way.

This in fact is the goal of the whole journey itself. To dwell with God in your everyday.

Now we move onto the second goal

Be Like Jesus

Twitter : “You will die one day.”

- Fear of death - Rooted in unmet expectations - Fear of living without parents - Fear of not seeing EGs full life

However, throughout the NT and history we see the inevitability of death approached from a different way.

Romans 8:18 ESV

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Paul admits that this life is mostly disappointing and life after will be so much better.

This, historically, was a huge mentality that was required for being a monk. When monks would pray they would do with 3 items. The scriptures, a candle to read the scriptures, and a skull (not a prop). The skull was used to remind of them of the “Rule of St. Benedict” which is, “Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die.”

This was done, not to be morbid, or to be “punk” before punk was a thing. But, the primary purpose was that, life is fleeting, don’t waste it, hold eternity in your heart.

They did this as well not just motivation for this life, but also to prepare for the life to come. The monks saw this life as a preparation or rehearsal for the eternal life. You would often see, in monk burial sites, the phrase “Where you are, we once were. Where we are, you will soon be.” They did this to constantly keep before them that they, and we, are going somewhere, and who we are in this life is a kind of preparation for where our road is heading in the life to come.

It would be especially beneficial to remind ourselves of this truth in the time we live in today, where we do all we can to gloss over and ignore the inevitability of our demise. Social critic Neil Postman says that we as a society are “Amusing ourselves to death”.

We are the most entertained, most unfulfilled society of all time.

- Matt Chandler

- We go down the rabbit hole of work-aholism, netflix, social media, aspiration for our kids fame, anything we can think of to use as a coping mechanism to distract ourselves from the reality of our limited time here.

We are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.

-Ronald Rolheiser

David Brooks , a NY Times columnist says that most people live to develop their “resume” virtues. The things that define our earthly accomplishments and accolades we’ve recieved. Tragically, when we meet our end, we are not remembered for any of that. We are recognized for what Brooks called “eulogy virtues”. These are the things that people mainly talk about after your dead, the person we were, the character we showed, and the relationships that we’ve made.

Being aware of your fragility helps us live with the end in mind. Not waste our precious time here on earth, but to live with the goal in our sights, to become a person of love through being the Jesus.

That’s what we’re talking about today. Being formed in the person we’ve been created to be.

Being Formed

It’s important to remind ourselves that just like abiding (last week), when Jesus asks us to follow His way of life, and be formed to be like Him, He isn’t asking us to do something we aren’t doing already. All of us are being formed something (somethings) all of the time. The human experience is about change.

“It’s odd how we feel like nothing is changing, then someday we’ll look up and nothing is the same.”

-C.S. Lewis

At every high school graduation, wedding, and funeral is highlighted by pictures of the life and change that’s occured. Life changes, and the great mistake that people make is one of oblivion or naivety. We’re oblivious to how we’re being formed or aware of it but we think that it’s inevitable and we should jsut roll with it.

Let God, Let God

The fact is that all of the formation in our lives happened for a particular reason. It is not optional. Whether our habits, our sins, our triumphs, tragedies, dna, upbringing, education, inner circle, or inner thoughts… all of it for better or worse, has formed and is forming us. The choice that we all make is… are we going to continue to be formed by those things or are we going to surrender our lives to Jesus and His way and be formed by Him.

Now that brings us to the process of being formed through “The Way of Jesus”. That will be the primary subject of the rest of our time today. Essentially we want to define what exactly does it mean to “Be like Jesus”. Well let’s put it this way: The process of being formed into a person of love in Christ

The Process

Following the way of Jesus is a long and slow process that will be complete when we’re dead. Super encouraging right?

Much like any other change with our physical selves, the majority of the change that occurs, happens in small increments, over long periods of time. Surer we hand mile marker moments in our lives, but those are often the exception not the rule.

“Spiritual formation is the slowest of all the human movements.

- Prof. James Houston

This flies in the face of our “One-Click” culture. But the soul doesn’t work at digital speed. Being formed into the image of Christ is the process of our truest self being formed and that takes a very long time. If we don’t realize this we run the risk of getting discouraged when everything doesn’t get better because we read our bible 7 days in a row. Or worse we settle for mediocre, not expecting to change and over emphasizing grace and saying unbalanced things like “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” AS if thats all can be said of followers of Jesus. “Just forgiven.” Not given the path to a radically new way of living that leads to life and life abundantly

Let me encourage you (for once) You can become the person of love, patience, kindness, gentleness, etc. that God made you to be. But, it won’t happen overnight. Being formed is a long process.

Really old people are great or horrible

Of Being Formed

It’s important to reckon with the fact that we don’t form ourselves. We certainly have a lot to do with it. But being formed isn’t something that we do as much as something that is done to us.

Sheep and the Shepard

Potter and Clay

Vine and Branch

Again the idea isn’t “Let go and Let God”, we have significant responsibility. But our part is more about surrender than performance.

Without God, we cannot.

Without us, God will not.

-St. Augustine

One of the great failures of modern Christian culture is our responsibility in the process of transformation. We either think its on God to zap us into victory at the altar or all up to us to earn God’s approval. The reality is that we are called to daily surrender to the pruning Hands of the Spirit to consistently cut away everything that isn’t like Him.

Into People of Love

A follower of Jesus is a person who arranges their entire self, personality, gender, ethnicity, age, stage of life, culture, and so on around the goal of becoming like Jesus. And if you could classify one word to best describe the character of God, it would be love. Without rival.

The most important question and metric you can ask and measure yourself by is: Am I becoming more loving? Not bible knowledge, church attendance, spiritual disciplines. All good things, but not the most important thing.

1 Corinthians 13:1–8 ESV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

Are you a person of love?

enemies not just friends

patient not vengeful

forgiving not bitter

is it natural or more forced

More who you are, not who you’re forcing yourself to be.

If not, it doesn’t matter how many Sunday School badges you have. You're not on track.

The destination of the spiritual journey is to become like God and God is love.

And this shouldn’t just be us loving God in our car to our favorite playlist, but loving our neighbor, whoever they are.

That’s the defining factor between The Way of Jesus and all other self help stuff. It’s just that; it’s all about self. The Jesus way says that if you don’t love others as well then you don’t get it.

The plan all along is to become people that are overflowing with love from their truest self. but we cannot do it within ourselves.

In Christ

This term “in Christ” is used all though out the NT and a major theme in Pauls letters, as he uses it 80x’s

It’s speaks to the depth of how rooted our identity is founded in Christ. Not our job, our kids behavior, our zip code, net worth, or whatever.

Brock Purdy

The invitation of Jesus isn’t to just learn from a spiritual guru a few ways to self regulate your stress. It’s an invitation to be integrated in the inner life of God Himself in Christ. To share in the unifying Love of the Trinity. To the point were our worth, value, and identity aren’t measured by us or the world around us but only measured by His immeasurable love. A love that nothing can separate us from.

This, then, is spiritual formation: the process of being formed into a person of self-giving love through deepening surrender to and union with the Trinity.

You're becoming a person; that much is unavoidable.

And you're going to end up somewhere in life.

Why not become a person who is pervaded by the love of Jesus?

Why not end up in union with God?