Created to Become Like Christ
Created to Become Like Christ
Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:15
Everybody needs a purpose and that’s why we’re spending 40 Days of Purpose. Today we look at the third purpose that God put you on this planet for, and we find it in Romans 8:29 and other verses. Look there on your outline, “For from the very beginning God decided that those who came to Him – and He knew who would – should become like His Son”. God’s plan has always been, this is the 3rd purpose, to become like Christ. God put you on this planet to become like Jesus. He gave us a model of what He wants us to grow up like. Colossians 1:15 in the Message says, “We look at the sun and see God’s original purpose in everything”.
There’s a slow process. It’s not like all of a sudden – ZAP – you’re just like Jesus. It’s a process called “discipleship”, and it takes a lifetime. It’s going to take the rest of your life for God to build in you, the character qualities of Jesus Christ.
How does God help me grow spiritually and make me like Jesus?” We know He uses the Bible. It takes truth to transform us. If you want to grow up spiritually, you’ve got to get into this Book. The more you get into it, the more you’re going to grow. You need to read it and study it and memorize it and meditate on it and think about it and apply it in your life, because it takes truth to transform us. The other thing God uses is; He uses people, and that’s why last week we talked about fellowship. When we learn from each other, we grow and develop. And the more you get with other mature Christians, the more spiritually mature you’re going to become as you grow because you’re spending time with them. You’re never going to mature spiritually by being a lone ranger Christian. But, God uses more than just those two things.
Today, we’re going to look at 3 things that you may have not thought God uses, but He does. Let’s look at, Romans 8:28. “In most things, God works for the good.” Is that right? “In all things God works for the good for those who love Him, who have been called according to His purposes.” That’s Romans 8:28. Now, what is His purpose? Look, what does it say? Romans 8:28 tells us that God works all things for good to make us like Jesus. What does that include?” It includes “all”. Does that include bad things and painful things? Does it even include mistakes we make from sinning? Yes! It doesn’t say all things are good because there’s a lot of bad in the world, but in all things God uses it to make me like Christ.
We’re going to look at three very unexpected tools, and we’re going to see them in the life of Jesus Christ. 1.He had trouble in the garden. 2. He had temptation in the desert, and 3. He had trespasses on the cross. And if you’re going to grow to be like Jesus, God’s going to take you through these same experiences. One at a time. Now the problem is, these things don’t automatically help you grow. You have to have your heart ready, because if your heart isn’t ready you’re going to become bitter by these things rather than better. So before we look at them, let’s prepare our hearts with a song.
[Song]
1. God uses trouble to teach us to trust Him. In the Bible this word “trouble” is often called “trials”, which are situations designed by God to draw us closer to Him. They’re not designed to hurt us; they’re designed to help us. Now, it doesn’t matter if things go great in your life. It doesn’t take any faith, it doesn’t take any character to have things be wonderful. So God has to bring some things along in our life to stretch us, to cause us to grow, and these are called troubles or trials. God wants to build character in you. How does He do it? Look at, Romans 5:3-4 “…trouble produces patience, and patience produces character, and character produces hope”.
Now get this, God is far more interested in your life, in what you are, than in what you do in your career. Why? Because you’re not taking your career to heaven with you, but you are taking your character. That’s what’s going to last. And so God says that the goal of life is character, not your career, and the goal of life is character not personal comfort. So, until you understand this, life isn't going to make sense. All kinds of problems are going to come into your life – troubles, trials, difficulties – and you’re going go, Why is this happening to me Lord?” as if your life is supposed to be a life of comfort. Well it’s not. The goal of life is not comfort. This is not heaven. In Heaven you’re going to be in a place with no problems, no trials. Isn’t that going to be great?! And you’re going to spend millions and billions of years there, so this is not heaven. And if you keep thinking you’re going to have heaven on earth, you’re going to be very disappointed. This is not the place for comfort. This is the place for character development. And one of the things it takes is this: troubles produce patience, patience produces character, and character produces hope. Write this down: Every problem has a purpose. I don’t care who caused it; you, somebody else, or the devil, every problem has a purpose. What is that purpose? It’s to make me like Jesus Christ, to build character in my life.
You know Jesus went through many troubles and trials in His life, but His greatest was the night before He was crucified. Because He knew He was going to take the sin of the world on Him and the intensity of that turmoil in His heart was enormous. He was going to die a horrible death by crucifixion, and the real question would be, Would He trust God to know what’s best for His life, even if it meant an extremely painful death? And that’s what He struggled with. Notice, Mark 14:32, “They came to a garden called Gethsemane and Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray’.” Notice, even Jesus needed friends when He went through troubles. That’s why you need a small group. That’s why you need fellowship.
Nobody is supposed to go through the troubles of life alone. Even Jesus needed friends. He says, “If you guys would just hang out with me while I go pray here.” The stress and anguish came over Him, and He said, “The worry in My heart is so great that it almost crushes Me.” (Mark 14:34). This is major trouble He’s going through. He said, “I am almost crushed when I think of what’s going to happen tomorrow.” Most of you say, “I know that feeling of when I felt like I couldn’t make it another day.” And notice how Jesus responded to trouble in the next verse. “Father,” He said, “everything is possible for You. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet, I want Your will, not Mine!” (Mark 14:36).
Friends, if you’re going to become like Jesus, this is the first lesson you’re going to have to learn. When you go through trouble, it’s OK to say to God, “God I don’t like this”, “God I want you to take it away”, “God I know it’s possible for you to take it away”. He said, “I know everything is possible with You. Yet, this is what’s best for me. Your will be done in my life”. He surrendered to God’s plan. He says, “Whatever fulfills Your purpose in my life”.
So, to become like Jesus Christ, you’ve got to learn to trust God completely, even when things look terrible, things are falling apart. “I don’t understand it, I’m dying, I’m sinking, I’m going under the water here”. You’re going to have to learn to trust God completely just the way Jesus did. God uses trouble to teach us to trust Him. It’s easy to trust God when everything is going great in your life. The real test of your faith is, how do you hang with God when you don’t feel good? So, the next time you get into some troubles and you go, “Why is this happening?”, you’ll know why. God is teaching you to trust Him.
Let me give you some helpful things for when you go through troubles. 1. Keep a spiritual journal. I recommend this highly. God told Moses in Numbers 33:2 it says, “At the Lord’s direction, Moses kept a written record of their progress”. Now when I say keep a spiritual journal, I’m not talking about a diary. “Dear Diary, I went to the grocery store today and I saw a really handsome man.” No, the difference between a diary and a journal is that a diary records the events in your life. A journal is records the lessons and insights you learn in life. That’s the difference. What you learn today is worth looking back on and passing on.
Other values of having a journal include: 1. You see your progress. Most of us forget how much we’ve changed, and what we used to be like. But, when you have a journal, and you can go back and say, “I am making progress. I am more like Jesus than I used to be.” And that’s an encouragement when you get discouraged. And you can pass it on as a spiritual heritage to the next generation.
2. Remember the reward. In eternity God is going to reward your character development. 2Cor. 4:17 says, “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all”. Paul is saying, “You know what? What we’re going through isn’t going to last, and even if it lasted a lifetime, that’s nothing compared to the number of years you’re going to spend in eternity.” He says, “What we’re going through now is light and temporary, but we’re going to be rewarded for our character in heaven”. I love this verse in the Message, “These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times and the lavish celebration prepared for us.”
Sara Grove has written a song about how troubles make us more like Jesus, and I love the line in it that says: “In your hands the pain and hurt look less like scars and more like character; less like a prison, more like my room; less like a casket, more like a womb; less like dying, more like transcending; less like fear, less like an ending. And in Your hands the pain and hurt look less like scars and more like character.” God uses trouble to teach us to trust Him.
[Song]
Another surprising way that God works in our lives to make us look more like Jesus.
2. God uses our temptations to teach us to obey Him. I think it’s important to be real clear about the definition of temptation. Temptations are situations designed by Satan and they’re intended to harm us. That’s what temptations are. God never tempts us to do evil. The Bible is very clear about that. They are designed by Satan, intended to hurt us. God never tempts us, but God is able, because of the greatness of His power and who He is, to use Satan’s temptations for good in our lives because temptation always provides a choice. And when I choose for God rather than choosing for Satan, Satan’s plan is ruined and I start to grow in my life.
Jesus faced temptations. He never sinned, but He faced temptations. Right after He was baptized at the very beginning of his public ministry at the age of 30, He went through an intense 40-day period of temptation out in the desert. Look at what the Bible has to say in Matthew 4:1. “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil”. Now, if Jesus faced temptations, then, you and I are going to face temptations, too. The fact that He faced temptations reminds us of some truths about temptation that help us to get through it.
1. It is not a sin to be tempted. Jesus never sinned, yet He was tempted. It’s not a sin to be tempted. Martin Luther said, “You can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair,” if you have enough hair for them to build a nest in, that is. It’s not a sin to be tempted.
2. Everyone is tempted in the same ways. One of the ways that Satan tricks us is he makes us feel like our temptation is better than anyone else’s, like “I’m really bad, I’ve got this great temptation, I’ve thought of this thing, this temptation, nobody in all of human history has ever thought of.” No you haven’t. Your temptation is just like everyone else’s. And if you’re feeling like “Wow, I’m really a bad person”, we’re sort of like the toddler who thinks they’re the first one to come up with the idea of sticking a green bean up their nose. The truth is, every one of us faces the same temptation. We’re all alike and God is able to help us through temptations.
It’s important to remember that you’ll never get to a point in your life where you become so spiritual or so old, that you’re not tempted anymore. We all are tempted throughout our lives. But remember that Jesus teaches us in that every temptation is an opportunity to do good and to make the right choice. It’s a stepping stone toward being more like Jesus. Notice what Jesus did when he was tempted in Matthew 4:10. Jesus said, “Get out of here, Satan. The scriptures say, worship only the Lord God. Obey only Him’”. He confronted the temptation.
Here’s the point. Temptation always tests whether you love God more than the temptation. That’s what’s happening when you’re tempted. It’s always a test of what do I love the most in my life. When I’m tempted by money, it’s a temptation. Do I love God most or do I love money most in my life? When I’m tempted by a wrong relationship, it’s a temptation. Do I love that person or do I love God more in my life? When I’m tempted by comfort, I just like to be comfortable in my life, it’s a temptation. Who do I love more? My reputation? Who do I love more? God or that temptation that’s come into my life? Obedience, choosing to say, “yes” to God, it’s a matter of love. It’s not a matter of duty. The Bible tells us that Jesus said, “If you love Me, obey My command”.
Now with each of these we’re giving you some practical ideas about “What do I do?” “How do I go through this?” Two helps with temptation. Number one, if you want to make it through the temptations of life we all face, 1. Keep focused on good thoughts. The Bible talks about this in Phil. 4:8 when it says, “Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right”. Temptation always starts with getting your attention, and when it gets your attention, it gets you. If you focus on the temptation, inevitably you’re going to go down the road, and you’re going to get caught up in that temptation. Some of you think, “Well, I’m like a multi-task person. I can think of many different things at once” and you’re doing all these things, but I’ll tell you two thoughts that cannot stay at the same time in your mind. You cannot keep the thought of succumbing to a temptation and the thought of obeying God at the same time in your mind. Once you turn your thoughts and focus on something positive, good, right, true, those things that God would have us think about, then all of a sudden you’ve pushed out the temptation.
Let me give you just a tip about temptation. When you’re tempted, don’t resist it. Because as you’re resisting it, guess what you’re doing? You’re thinking about the temptation! You’re getting into a spiritual tug-of-war with Satan, and he always wins! You don’t resist it, you just drop the rope and you walk a different direction and you think about something different. This is a verse that I’ve used literally hundreds and hundreds of times in my life, “Whatever’s good, whatever’s right, whatever’s true”. When I’m tempted, here is verse to use to turn your thoughts from what’s wrong to what’s right. If you’ll take a verse like this and let it turn your mind from what’s wrong to what’s right, you’ll find that the temptation starts to drop away. You refocus on something else. You keep focused on good thoughts.
2.) Get a spiritual partner. I know none of us like to talk about our temptations, but one of the ways to defeat them is to be open about them, to bring them out into the light. Get a spiritual partner, someone who can help you. Eccl. 4:9-10 says, “You’re better off to have a friend than to be all alone…If you fall, your friend can help you up”. So many of us, as we go through life, we have a temptation that’s been overwhelming. It might be new and it might be lifelong. But the truth is, it’s something you’ve faced alone. This step is saying, “Go tell someone else about this”. They’re not going to drop their jaw too far, because guess what? They’ve faced the same kind of temptation as you. This step of recognizing, “I need someone to help me through this,” is a step that you need to take to begin to set that temptation aside in your life. At the start of 40 Days, we talked about not going alone, at least getting a reading partner. The best place to look for this spiritual partner is in your group, somebody that you trust. The Bible tells us that the Apostle Paul, who God used in great ways because he resisted a lot of temptations in his life, had a lot of spiritual partners. In fact, it tells us the names of those people, guys named Barnabus and Mark and Apollos and Timothy and Epaphrus and Titus. All these people that he brought into his life, and one of the reasons he was able to live such a great life of faith is that he wasn’t afraid to have partners who he walked through life with.
But here’s the question. What temptation are you facing right now and how could God use that temptation as you choose to obey Him as an opportunity for you to grow in character?
God wants to make you like Jesus Christ. It’s the third purpose that He put you on this planet for. He wants to build your character now so you can be rewarded in eternity. This life is not what it’s all about. This is preparation for eternity. God uses trouble to teach us to trust, and God uses temptation to teach us to obey.
3. God uses trespasses to teach us to forgive. What are trespasses? Well, if trials are situations designed by God to draw us closer to Him and temptations are situations designed by the devil to draw us away from Him, from God, then trespasses are situations designed by other people designed to hurt us. Yes, there are people in life who want to hurt you intentionally, and that’s why the Bible says in the Lord’s Prayer, “Lord” we’re to pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” Now this is the tough one. It’s one thing to handle trouble and it’s another thing to handle temptation. But the most difficult tool of all that God uses in our lives to make us like Christ is this one. And bearing the hurt of other people without retaliation is, without a doubt, the most important and the most difficult step in becoming like Jesus Christ, because it often involves being misunderstood, being criticized, being judged, being hurt physically or emotionally or verbally, it may involve abuse.
Now let me be real clear. These are not good things. These are evil things, and God is not the author of evil. God does not cause these things. God hates sin. But He didn’t even protect His own Son from these things. Even His own Son was misunderstood and hurt and judged and abused. What makes you think you’re going to be let off the hook? You see, on the cross Jesus Christ not only carried our sins, He also endured enormous abuse from the people who were right there. Notice this first verse, Matthew 27:39-44. It says, “The people passing by (looking at Jesus on the cross) shook their heads and hurled insults at Jesus…and the elders made fun of Him…Even the bandits who had been crucified with Him insulted him in the same way.” And what was His response? Look at the next verse. “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive these people, because they don’t know what they are doing’”. In 1 Pet. 2:23 it says this “They called Him every name in the book and He said nothing back. He suffered in silence, intent to let God set things right”. What did Jesus do? What was His response to trespasses? He yielded His right to get even. He absorbed the hurt. He put up with the pain. He responded to evil with good. That’s what Jesus did.
Now, if you’re going to grow up spiritually and if you’re going to become like Jesus Christ, you’re going to have to learn the same thing. The truth is in life you’re going to be hurt. This is not heaven. This is a fallen world. Everybody sins. You hurt other people. Other people hurt you. We hurt each other intentionally and unintentionally. You’re going to be hurt often in life. And if you’re going to become like Christ, you have to learn to forgive. You say, “Well, how do you do that?” Well, how can you learn to forgive if you’ve never been hurt? You can’t! You can’t learn to forgive unless somebody’s hurt you. And yet forgiveness is one of the primary qualities of God and God wants you to learn to become like Him. So there are hurts that are allowed in your life in order to make you like Jesus.
Now again, this is the toughest one, so let me give you two tips. Two little helps for when people harm you intentionally or unintentionally. 1. Remember that God has forgiven me. The Bible says “Forgive others, just as God forgave you because of Christ” (Eph. 4:32). God will never ask you to forgive anybody more than you’ve already been forgiven by Him.
2. remember God is in control. When you’re being hurt by somebody else, yes, they may mean it for bad, but God will use it for good in your life. In fact that’s the very thing Joseph said. Do you remember Joseph was betrayed by his own family in the Bible, and his brothers took him out? They so disliked their younger brother, they sold him into slavery and then lied to their dad and said, “Oh, he was killed by a bear”. Not exactly, you know this is a dysfunctional family. And yet God had a plan in it all, and as he was taken to Egypt and went through all kinds of things - falsely accused of rape, thrown into prison…the first 40 years of Joseph’s life went down, down. He had no idea why things were going wrong in his life. And yet he trusted God the whole time. He maintained a forgiving spirit. And God knew exactly where he was and had him exactly where He wanted him to be and over time raised him up to be second in command under Pharaoh. And it was his plan that saved two nations, Egypt and Israel, from starvation when the famines came. You read that story. And later the brothers come to this man, not realizing it was Joseph, and they went to ask for food to take back to their home. And when Joseph reveals who he is, they are afraid he is going to kill them. And yet he says this, on your outline, “You meant to hurt me, but God turned your evil into good to save the lives of many people, which is being done.” (Genesis 50:20). Would you circle the phrase “save the lives”? He said “You meant it to hurt me but God turned it into good to save the lives of many people”.
I read this letter from a 17-year-old young woman in a church. She grew up in the church. She wrote her story of how her neighbor across the street sexually abused her for years. And she kept it a secret. But this neighbor was finally caught for the rape of another woman and was put in prison and she was called to testify in court about her experience, just as a young teenager. I won’t read the whole letter, let me just read the last paragraph:
“Pastor, by allowing God to take control and lift the burden of my hurt from my heart, God gave me strength. Today I can truthfully say that because of the trials I’ve faced, I’ve been made stronger. Recently I read a book called Where is God When It Hurts? and there was a sentence that I’ve found to be true. It says this, “Faith in God offers no assurance against tragedy, but in every case suffering offers an opportunity for us to display God’s work”.
That is spiritual maturity. That’s the level of maturity that I know adults who are 40, 50, 60, 70 years old don’t even have! God uses trouble to teach us to trust, and God uses temptation to teach us to obey, and God uses trespasses to teach us to forgive, because we can’t become like Jesus without learning to trust and obey and forgive. Now I am absolutely convinced of two things: Your greatest testimony as a believer is how you handle hurt. How do you respond when other people hurt you? Do you respond like Jesus did? The second thing I’m convinced of is that you are most like Christ when you suffer in order to save others. Who do you need to forgive? Listen to this.
[Song]
God’s third purpose for your life is to make you like Jesus Christ. And if that’s true, then He’s going to take you through everything Jesus went through. Why would He exempt you? That means He’s going to take you through a Gethsemane, an experience of trouble, where you learn to trust His love. He’s going to take you through a desert, an experience of temptation, where you learn to obey Him and do the right thing. And He’s going to take you to the cross, a time of trespass, where you learn to forgive. But there is a promise. Look at these last verses on your outline. “We go through exactly what Christ goes through”. Here’s the good news. “But if we go through the hard times with Him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with Him.” (Rom. 8:17)
Now, I don’t know what you’re going through these days, I don’t know. There are so many people here today. I don’t know what you’re going through. But I do know how God wants you to respond to it, regardless of what you’re going through. I am confident of how God wants you to respond. It’s the last verse on your outline. Let’s read it together. This is this week’s memory verse. Read it with me. “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).