Created to Become Like Christ
The Purpose-Driven Life, part 4
Wildwind Community Church
David K. Flowers
November 4, 2007
Good morning. I hope you are enjoying our church’s current emphasis on The Purpose-Driven Life. So far we have had about ten people sign up to be part of a small group. We’re excited about that, but we want to remind you it’s not too late. Please see Brent after church if you’d like to be in a group, or fill out one of our What’s Up cards that you received when you came in this morning.
Here we are into our fourth week of the Purpose Driven Life series. Week one was an introduction to why everyone needs purpose in their lives. In week two you were introduced to the first purpose for your life, which is loving God back, a word we call – WORSHIP. Last week we said okay, not only has God has created me to love him, but I’m also to love the other people he created and loves, that’s called – FELLOWSHIP. Today I want to talk to you about the third primary purpose for your life, and that’s a big word called DISCIPLESHIP. It’s a big word, but it means something very simple. Discipleship is just becoming like Jesus. That’s it. It’s God’s desire that you become like Jesus.
Ephesians 4:15 (NLT)
(15) Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.
Now this doesn’t mean that your individuality is snuffed out. You don’t need to worry about that at all. Let me tell you something. There is nothing unique about your life being a wreck. In fact nothing is more common than that. Nothing is more common than broken lives, broken hearts, broken homes, broken marriages, broken communities, broken pocketbooks, and broken churches. There’s nothing unique or special about that at all. Things like that are a dime a dozen – I see it every day. Do you know what is unique? Overcomers are unique. People who deal with desperate situations, with the mess of their own existence, with the harsh realities of life in this world and still somehow overcome, even if only in their attitude. My friends, THAT’S unique. Jesus was an overcomer. He overcame the worst possible circumstances – he was killed! And while he was living he never allowed himself to be distracted from his purpose, which was to glorify God. In doing this, he didn’t become a carbon copy of somebody else, he set himself apart as one of the most unique human beings who has ever walked the planet. I ask you, was Mother Theresa a clone, or was she distinct? Was Martin Luther King a clone, or was he unique? Ask yourself, will there ever be another Billy Graham?
If I become like Christ, it’s not that I become less Dave Flowers, it’s that I become the best Dave Flowers there could be. See, the circumstances of my life, combined with my background, experiences, and education, are unique. No one has ever had them and no one ever will again after I am gone. Because of that, my life will be unique no matter what. I will make choices and experience their benefits and consequences no matter what. But if I pattern my life on the life of someone else who understands life a lot better than I ever will, if I make the choices I believe he would make if he were in my unique place in life, my life will be better – and better lived – than if I go off making stupid mistakes and doing stupid things in the name of uniqueness. Is it uniqueness you want? Do you want to make a mark in this world that will cause people to remember you long after you are gone? Do you want to be the best version of you you could ever hope to be? Then find out how God wired you up to work best, then get in your zone and let it fly! THAT’S how to be unique and leave an impression. But remember, nobody’s totally unique anyway. Your life will bear some resemblance to somebody’s. Would you rather that be Jim Morrison or Jesus? Curt Cobain or Christ? Think about it.
God’s purpose for you is to love him through worship, to love his family through fellowship, and to become like Jesus through discipleship – for your life to bear a resemblance to his life in every way possible – for you to think the way he would think if he were you, to see the world the way he would, to do the things he would do, to love the way he loves, and to have the richness of life and the power he has.
The question I want to address today is how does this happen? How do we become like Jesus? The whole idea of discipleship is that life becomes a school for learning to be like Jesus, but I don’t just want to leave it at that. I don’t just want to say, “We become like Jesus through EVERYTHING – now go out and be like Jesus.” I want to break this down for you into three easy-to-get components. I’m going to give you all three of them right now. We become like Jesus as we experience trouble, temptations, and trespasses. Did ya get that? We become like Jesus as we experience trouble, temptations, and trespasses.
Let’s deal with these one at a time. First, God uses our troubles to teach us to trust him. See, you have to learn to trust God. Jesus trusted God completely, in everything he did and everything he said. And if you’re going to become like Jesus, you’re going to have to learn to trust God the way Jesus did. Jesus trusted God in spite of his circumstances. He trusted God when delivering the Sermon on the Mount to a huge gathering of listeners. He trusted God when confronting spiritual bigots in the temple. He trusted God when his life was in jeopardy. He trusted God for the power to heal. He trusted God to make his disciples into people who could carry on the message when he was gone. He even trusted God when he was arrested and tortured and nailed to the cross. In the final analysis, Jesus trusted God all the way, even when things didn’t look so good. Even when he faced suffering and death. If you are going to be like him, you will have to learn to trust God that way.
Hebrews 5:8 (MSG)
(8) Though he was God’s Son, he learned trusting-obedience by what he suffered, just as we do.
Jesus ran into trouble in his life and it was through that trouble that he learned to trust and obey God. And right here the Bible says that this is exactly how you will learn to trust and obey God too. Jesus said:
John 13:16 (NIV)
(16) I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.
What’s Jesus telling us here? Jesus is saying if I suffered, you’re gonna have to suffer. If I went through trouble, you’ll go through it too. You don’t get to slip off this hook and have things better in life than I did. The servant can expect the same treatment the master got.
As long as you live God will use trouble in your life to teach you to trust him. Some people, the more trouble comes into their life, the more bitter and resentful they get toward God. They’re under the mistaken impression that God exists to keep them from getting in trouble. The fact is, they can EXPECT trouble, and what really matters is how they respond to it. You have an opportunity to learn to respond to trouble like Jesus did. It’s easy to be sweet and virtuous when all is well, when you are well-rested and comfortable and have enough food and money and there are no pesky people in your life bringing you down. There’s nothing special at all about being kind and loving and virtuous during those times. But when trouble comes into your life it’s hard to trust God, and you won’t learn to trust unless it’s hard sometimes. What would happen if you decided to start lifting weights today and didn’t want to strain yourself, so you began by going outside and finding a feather on your front lawn and lifting that several times? It wouldn’t help much, would it? Your muscles will only grow and tone as you provide what? RESISTANCE! Trouble provides resistance for our faith and the only way our faith will ever grow significantly is by encountering trouble and learning to respond like Jesus would. So that’s the first way we become like Jesus. God uses trouble to teach us to trust him.
Second, God uses our temptations to teach us to obey him. What is temptation? Check this out, when we’re talking about God, temptation is a desire to do something Jesus would not do, or to respond to something in a way Jesus would not respond. Temptations are those times when we struggle with the idea of doing something that would draw us further away from God instead of moving us closer to him. Now first it’s important to understand that it’s not a sin to be tempted. Do you know that? Do you know that temptation isn’t a sin? Remember the time when you discovered an opportunity to take something at work that didn’t belong to you? That’s temptation. Temptation is always an opportunity. Now did you do it? If so, that was sin. Temptation has mental and emotional parts to it. You become aware of an opportunity to do something you should not do. That’s mental. But that awareness is accompanied by desire, and often a very strong desire. That’s emotional. You’re dieting and there’s a piece of cake on the table in front of you, and no one around. You become aware that you could just reach over and eat that cake. But the only reason that’s attractive to you is because you really DESIRE that cake. That’s temptation. Now there’s nothing wrong with being aware that you COULD do something wrong. And there’s not even anything wrong with the fact that there’s a part of you that WANTS to do something wrong. You can’t help how you feel and desire is a feeling. But what you can help is what you do, how you behave, and whether you allow yourself to meditate and focus on that desire. If you’re in the room with the cake and you aren’t supposed to eat it, but you really want to and you have a chance to do it, what’s your best bet? Get away from the cake! Get out of there! Don’t just sit staring at the cake and thinking how great it would be to eat it. Get away! Why? Because your desire will eventually overtake you. Count on it, you will eventually do what you want to do. Here’s Paul telling his protégé Timothy how to deal with the temptations presented by wealth:
1 Timothy 6:11 (NIV)
(11) But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.
And here he is again, telling how to deal with sexual temptation:
1 Corinthians 6:18 (NIV)
(18) Flee from sexual immorality…
What’s the word these have in common? What are we to do in the face of temptation? FLEE! In other words, RUN!!! Get the heck away from the cake, whether the cake is money, or power, or illicit sex, or even cake! Get the heck away from it. I want to urge you, build whatever barriers in your life are necessary to keep you from giving in to temptation. Being tempted is not a sin – Jesus was tempted in the garden to not go through with the crucifixion. Nothing wrong with the fact that temptation presents itself. What matters is – just like with trouble – how you respond. And the proper response is to RUN! Don’t indulge it, don’t play with it, don’t make excuses for it, don’t tell your concerned friends they’re overreacting and fool yourself that it’s their problem, don’t fantasize about it – just get as far away from that temptation as quickly as you can. I know people right now whose lives are a disaster because when temptation presented itself, they didn’t run. See, you don’t have to seek out sin in order for it to ruin your life. It will find you wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. So you don’t have to look for it, all you have to do is fail to run. And when you fail to run, it won’t matter whether it was because you thought you could handle it, or you didn’t listen to your friends and family when they warned you, or because you deliberately chose to sin because it’s fun. The reason won’t matter. One way or another, when you fail to flee, you will finally fall.
Every temptation is an opportunity to learn obedience. To flee temptation and move toward God. And you will never get to a point in your life where you no longer struggle with temptation. It’ll be a lifelong thing and the more often you give into it, the more power it will have over you – I can promise you that. Temptation will always test where your love really lies – with God, or with the thing that’s tempting you.
Two quick ways to deal with temptation. First, focus on good thoughts.
Philippians 4:8 (MSG)
(8) Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.
Remember, I said there’s a mental and an emotional part to this. Learn to control what you think and you learn to control how you feel. Think about good things. Second, get a spiritual partner. I don’t mean some formal thing like Luke Skywalker and Yoda, I just mean somebody who can support you when things are rough. There are a few guys at Wildwind I ask on a regular basis, “How’re you doing with the struggle against pornography?” These are guys who want to deal with that temptation and have asked me to hold them accountable and be a spiritual partner. So what temptation are you facing right now and how could God use that temptation to make you more like Jesus as you choose to obey him?
We’ve said God uses trouble to teach you to trust. We’ve said God uses temptation to teach you to obey. Third, God uses trespasses to teach you to forgive. Jesus trusted God. Jesus obeyed God. And Jesus forgave those who trespassed against him, didn’t he? Think of trespasses as the things people do that hurt you. They can be intentional or unintentional but the ones that hurt most are the intentional ones, aren’t they?
What’s a trespass? The dictionary says that in this context, to trespass is to commit a sin, or to violate a boundary. When someone hurts you, they violate your boundaries. They thrust themselves into a part of your life you thought was safe and comfortable and peaceful and they drudge up chaos and hurt and fear.
The greatest trespass ever, the greatest offense ever committed against a person by another human being happened to Jesus during his arrest and crucifixion. There, scores of people deliberately pulled strings to have him tortured and murdered. And as if that wasn’t enough, they mocked him, and spat on him, and pulled out his beard, and punched him in the face. They violated a few of his boundaries, didn’t they? That was history’s greatest trespass.
Trouble happens to everybody doesn’t it? You can undergo trouble just because you live in this world. The medical test that tells you bad news. The financial disaster that comes out of nowhere. The pink slip you get at the office. That’s trouble and all it means if you’re undergoing trouble is that you have a pulse – congratulations. And temptation? Temptation is difficult, but it happens to everybody. The Bible says,
1 Corinthians 10:13 (MSG)
(13) No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face…
We’re all tempted in similar ways. When we’re undergoing troubles and temptations, no matter how bad they are, we can always say, “That’s life, isn’t it?” But trespasses are different. Trespasses involve other human beings – other people who are also undergoing trouble and temptation – who in one way or another, for one reason or another, violate us. This can come through criticism, emotional manipulation, physical violence, gossip, sabotage, disloyalty, passive-aggressiveness, or many other channels. But one thing’s for sure – it hurts in a way troubles and temptations never can. It touches us deeply. It deals a wound we may carry for months, or for years, or sometimes forever. Do you see why this is how we learn to forgive? What’s the hardest thing to do? Trust is hard, but we can eventually learn it. Temptation is difficult, but we can always run! Trespasses though – boy, it’s hard to forgive. Then there’s all the stuff with knowing we should but finding we sometimes can’t – it just wrenches us so deeply, doesn’t it? But that is our challenge in trespasses is forgiveness. And what did Jesus do when people so grossly trespassed against him?
1 Peter 2:23-24 (MSG)
(23) They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right.
(24) He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing.
He said nothing back. He remained silent and allowed God to set things right. He took all of this sin and wrong into himself because of love, and his suffering brought us freedom to live right before God. And he did it all because he loved the people who tortured him.
Let me ask you something. Are you willing to take into yourself the suffering that people thrust upon you out of your desire to see them be better? Will you take their criticism, bear their anger (justified or not), and patiently wait for God to do his work in them, being careful never to say or do anything that would put up a barrier between them and God? This is the hardest thing we are called to do, and we are very clearly called to do it. How do we handle that? Let me share with you two things I would suggest for you to deal with trespasses.
First, remember how much God has forgiven you for. Mel Gibson did not appear in The Passion of the Christ except for in one place. Mel’s hand was the first one that swung the hammer that drove the nail into Christ’s wrist. Mel was saying, “I did this. It was me. Mea culpa.” My friends, that was all of us.
Romans 5:8 (NIV)
(8) But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
In light of this, what are we to do?
Ephesians 4:32 (NIV)
(32) Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
We forgive others out of the understanding of how much we have been forgiven. In other words, never forget how much you stand in need of mercy.
Second, remember that no matter how things look around you, God knows what he’s doing and you can leave it to him.
Romans 12:19 (MSG)
(19) Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. "I’ll do the judging," says God. "I’ll take care of it."
Remember we talked about resistance? Dealing with trespasses the way Jesus would is the hardest thing we’ll do – it provides the most resistance. So what does that mean? It’s the place where you can potentially see the most growth in your life.
God’s third purpose for your life is to make you like Jesus. This doesn’t mean making you a god, it just means making you godly – having the character qualities of godliness. How will God do this? He’ll use trouble to teach you to trust him. He’ll use temptations to teach you to obey him. And he’ll use trespasses to teach you to forgive others. Will you pray with me?
Father, life makes so much more sense when we realize that it’s not about our career, it’s not about our comfort, it’s all about character and becoming like Jesus. Help us to use life for the reason You gave it to us.
Now I invite you to pray, saying something like this: God, I want to grow in character. I want to become who You made me to be. Thank you for the model of Jesus. I want to become more like Jesus in the way I think and the way I feel and the way I act. And if that means taking me through troubled times, then I say “I want Your will for my life”. And if that means going through a wilderness of temptation, please give me the strength to make the right choices. And if that means I must endure the hurts of other people, then teach me to forgive as much as You have forgiven me.
If you’ve never opened your life to Jesus Christ, say, Jesus, I can’t live like you unless I know you. So I want to get to know You today. As much as I know how right now, I want to ask You to come into my life and heart. In Your name I pray, Amen.
