Being Transformed From Glory To Glory: 7 Transitions In The Christian Life Series

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” -2nd Cor 3:17-18

We as Christians are being transformed from one degree of glory to another, from glory to glory.

God has given us many things in nature to tell us about himself. Outer space tells us about his infinite power and how deep God truly is. The four seasons tell us about the cycle of fall, sin, rebirth and renewal. The laws of the universe, gravity, time, the golden ratio, tell us we live in a universe of fixed laws and structures. The word even tells us to "look to the ant" for wisdom.

Similarly, I think God gave us the caterpillar and the butterfly to tell us about ourselves. To tell us that we need a transformation to become all we’re meant to be.

We start off life as a caterpillar. We move close to the ground, like the caterpillar, six legs, six eyes, close to the ground, focused on earthly things.

Many never make it past this point in their lives. They live and die as a caterpillar, having never experienced the amazing transformation that God can do in their lives.

But today I want to talk about the power of God’s transformations in our lives. So we’re going to talk about a series of transformations that take place in the life of the Christian.

The first transformation is the transformation of salvation.

The unsaved person, the caterpillar is faced with a crisis. It’s the chief crisis for every human being on planet Earth.

It’s the crisis around our own sinfulness, our own inability, our own failures, our own inadequacy.

The crisis is brutal when we realize that our sins are leading us to disaster. We get angry. We get sad. We argue with ourselves about it. We try self help books. We try meditation. We try drinking it away. We try acting out. We try therapy or medications. Nothing touches that empty feeling within.

1. The Transformation of Salvation - lost to born again

We go into a cocoon at this point. If we really embrace the struggle, instead of denying it, and hiding from it, and running from it, if we face the question head on, we go into a cocoon.

We wrestle with the God idea. We wrestle with the pain of sin. We wrestle with ourselves. And as we wrestle and wrestle over, weeks, months, years, eventually, in the sorrow and loneliness and pain, we begin to see a light on the horizon, a hope, in one name, the name of Jesus Christ, and at rock bottom in the deep darkness of the cocoon we cry out to the name of Jesus, and suddenly, we burst forth out of that cocoon as a new creation, a beautiful butterfly, made new, transformed, different than we used to be.

As it says in the word, “2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

That is the first transformation, the transformation of salvation. We go from lost, to saved, sinful to pure, broken to made whole. But that isn’t the end. It’s only just the beginning.

2. Transformation of Surrender - letting God control your life

The second transformation, is the transformation of surrender. This is the moment in every Christian’s life usually maybe a year or a few years after they get saved, that they realize, through a crisis, or conviction, or pain, or sin, that they can’t run their own lives anymore.

They’ve got to let God practically guide the course of their life. They can’t be in the drivers seat anymore, the Lord Jesus must be.

In a moment of surrender, the believer submits themselves to God. They turn their will (choices) over to God, and acknowledge God in all their ways. And God makes their paths right.

As it says in Luke 9:23-24 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

It also says in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

We go into another cocoon, as we know something is wrong with our walk with God. We’re still trying to run our own lives. We’re still trying to be in control. We go into that cocoon, we wrestle with God, we wrestle with ourselves, and argue inside, but I want to run my own life, I want to have a say, I don’t want to go some place I don’t want to go, but in the end, we wrestle through, we get on our knees, realizing God is right and will lead us perfectly, and we surrender our will to God. God, run my life from now on, it’s yours.