Made To Be More Like Jesus Series

Living a Purpose Driven Life part 4

(Made to be More Like Jesus)

Brian A. Moon

(Based on the book Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren)

Welcome to week number four of the 40 Days of Purpose! For those of you just joining us we have come to the conclusion that a life without a purpose is no life worth living so we are exploring just what our God given purpose for living is all about.

In all there are five basic purposes that God has made us for and we have explored 2 of them so far.

The first purpose of your life is to know and love God or worship him. And the second purpose of your life is to learn to love your spiritual family or to have real fellowship with other followers of Jesus.

Tonight we will look into the third reason God made you and we will open with this verse from the Bible:

“For from the beginning God decided that those who came to him – and he knew who would – should become like his Son (Jesus)”

Romans 8:29 TLB

Underline “become like his Son” in that verse.

That is a clue to your third purpose, which is, You were made to be more like Jesus. God has given you the purpose of becoming more like his Son Jesus Christ. God wants you to be involved in a process that will last your whole life in which you are slowly but surely developing Jesus, perspective, passions, priorities, and personality. In short God wants to develop in you a Christlike character! He wants you to become a Godly man or woman!

The Bible says, “God wants us to grow up… like Christ in everything.” Ephesians 4:15 MSG

When you were a baby you did baby things… you pooped and vomited all over yourself and thought it was just fine, you always had someone there to clean you off and give you a fresh diaper. But if you were starting high school and still pooped and vomited all over yourself there would be a problem right? As we grow up physically we can begin to handle some things on our own… “Mommy wow, I’m a big kid now.”

That is what God wants from us spiritually, he wants us to grow up and learn how to do some stuff for ourselves. Also like growing up physically you don’t go from diapers to designer gowns over night, it takes time. That is why God will use your entire life to grow you up spiritually into a fully devoted follower of Jesus. This process is called “Discipleship,” the process of growing up spiritually. So how does God do this… well two things automatically jump into most people’s heads if they have grown up in and around the church, the Bible and other believers. And the “church kid” answer would be right. God uses the Bible, our ultimate standard for living and changes us by it. When we read it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on it, God changes us.

God also uses other Christians to help grow us up.

There is a lot that can be learned from each other and that is why small groups are so important like the ones we started a few weeks ago. If you are not in one write “small group” on the back of your response card and we will get you plugged in. But, God also uses more than these things to change our character he uses some unexpected things!

The Bible says, “In all things God works for the good for those who love him, who have been called according to his purposes.” Romans 8:28 NIV

In most things God works for the good??? Is that what that verse says? No it says in ALL things… Let me blow your concept of God a little here. A painful experience in your life, like for me losing a fiancé just a few months before getting married, God uses for good in my life. He uses it to make me more like Jesus. Let me blow your concept of God away even more… God even uses things you and me sinning and messing up to bring about Christlike character!

In all things God works them out for good!!! Do you believe that? I believe that there are three unexpected things that God uses to develop our character, three things that we might consider bad that God turns around and uses for good.

One time a photographer for a national magazine was assigned to get photos of a great forest fire. Smoke at the scene hampered him and he asked his home office to hire a plane. Arrangements were made and he was told to go at once to a nearby airport, where the plane would be waiting. When he arrived at the airport, a plane was warming up near the runway. He jumped in with his equipment and yelled, "Let’s go! Let’s go!" The pilot swung the plane into the wind and they soon were in the air. "Fly over the north side of the fire," yelled the photographer, "and make three or four low level passes." "Why?" asked the pilot. "Because I’m going to take pictures," cried the photographer. "I’m a photographer and photographers take pictures!" After a pause the pilot said, "You mean you’re not the instructor?"