Becoming Like Jesus Part 1
Title: The Making of a Masterpiece Part 1
Text: Romans 8:28-20
Thesis: God is at work in our lives so that we may become more and more like Jesus…accomplishing his will in us and through us.
Series: Belonging, Believing and Becoming
I invite you to journey with us as people who value:
• Belonging to a caring faith community. (Making everyone welcome and cared for…)
• Believing the truth of God’s Word. (The Written and Living Word of God…)
• Becoming more like Jesus Christ.
Introduction
What is a masterpiece?
A masterpiece is considered the greatest work of a person’s career or a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship.
The Sistine Chapel is a large chapel in the Vatican. The Chapel was built between 1473 and 1481.
It is a tall, rectangular building... 134 feet long and 44 feet wide with 68 feet vaulted ceiling.
The Sistine Chapel is the Pope's own chapel. It is used for important Masses and ceremonies. When a pope dies, the College of Cardinals meet in the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope.
The Sistine Chapel is most famous for its fresco paintings by Michelangelo.
The ceiling is the most impressive and famous part of the Sistine Chapel which was painted between 1508 to 1512. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is a preeminent example of a masterpiece. Michelangelo did not just stand on a scaffold with a long handled paint roller and slap on some off-white latex from Home Depot. It was tediously painted from a standing position with his head tilted back with his arm outstretched upward... for 4 long years.
Before he began to paint, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was carefully imagined in the mind of Michelangelo.
Along the center of the ceiling are painted nine pictures that tell stories from the Book of Genesis.
The stories start with three pictures of God making light, making the Earth, the Sun and the Moon, and making the Sea and Sky.
The next three pictures tell the story of Adam and Eve. In the first scene, God has just made Adam. He reaches out his hand and touches his finger to give him Life. There is the scene where Adam is asleep and God makes Eve from one of Adam's ribs. And then the scene of the fall of man.
The last three pictures are about Noah's Ark. They tell about a sad and sinful world and the destruction of the world by a universal flood and of how Noah’s family is saved only to show how mankind continues to be very human, even when given a second change.
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is an example of a masterpiece perfectly imagined and created.
Our text today is about the imagination and creative activity of God in our lives.
The making of a masterpiece is a long process and it usually begins in the mind of the artist or the master. The master has a vision for what that masterpiece will look like when it is completed.
So we begin with the master plan of the masterpiece the master has in mind.
I. God’s Will for Us
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Romans 8:28
Romans 8:28 is one of the most well-know and often quoted verses in Scripture. It is one of those texts we hold near and dear to our hearts. We believe and are convinced of the truth of God’s involvement in our lives. We believe God is nearby and we believe God is engaged and active in who we are and what we do and whatever occurs in our lives.
We are convinced God is at work.
A. Convictions, Romans 8:28
Our first conviction is:
1. God is at work
When we think of God being at work we imagine that God is doing something. We imagine that God is actively engaged in accomplishing something.
This is autumn and autumn means raking up the leaves that have fallen from the trees. Actually raking leaves is from a by-gone-era. We don’t rake leaves any more, we blow the leaves into piles for bagging. The last couple of days we had some folks attempting to do just that… blow the leaves off the lawn onto the parking lot and into piles for being toted away.
Our son sent me a picture of Ethan, our 4 year old grandson, attempting to blow the leaves in their yard. The leaf blower was bigger than the lad and it was a comical thing to see. He was obviously very busy at it but he was not accomplishing anything other than blowing a clear path for him to walk.
God is not just walking around with a leaf blower randomly blowing leaves all helter-skelter. God is purposefully working in our lives. God is at work with an eye for accomplishing an end.
God is not selectively at work… God is at work in every aspect of our lives.
2. God is at work in all things
Interestingly this verse follows references to suffering and how people along with all of creation groan in anticipation of freedom for death and decay. The Scripture speaks of how the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness and even prays for us with groaning that cannot be expressed by words.
So it is in the context of acknowledging the sufferings and hardships of this life that we are convinced that God is at work in all things. Christians can look forward assured that God is at work in both the good and the bad.
One translation puts it this way, “God intermingles all things…” When we intermingle we mean we mix things together.
They say, “If you ever watch sausage being made you will never eat sausage again.” I recently read about a product called “Rag Bologna” which is made in western Tennessee. It is a long stick of high fat bologna wrapped in a cloth rag. It is higher in fiber content than regular bologna, with milk solids, flour, cereal and spices added during the process. The stick of bologna is then bathed in lactic acid before being coated with paraffin wax. Sounds kind of scary doesn’t it.
Did you know that Boars Head Bologna is made from select cuts of pork and beef and that Boars Head Bologna is pure Bologna, not phoney baloney? It is delicately blended with spices and contains no by-products. And served with Boars Head Yellow American Cheese and Delicatessen Style Mustard on white bread is a sandwich kids of all ages are sure to love.
One of the wonderful things about bologna is when you mix up all that lard and stuff and throw in a few spices, fry it up and add a slice of cheese, it makes for a tasty sammich.
Things we originally thought ruinous were not and in fact have contributed to who you are today.
That’s why we can look back at a failure or a loss or a tragic and heartbreaking experience and see how God has worked in all the intermingling of your life circumstances to bring you to who and where you are today.
And God is also at work for our good.
3. God is at work for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
We generally think that when God works for our good that it means if you lost a job God will give you a better job. Or if you got dumped at the altar God will give you a better husband. Or if you lost your home to foreclosure God will give you a better house in a better neighborhood.
Thinking circumstantially and materially is certainly one way God works for our good. For example, I had a job offer that was absolutely a life-dream job. We resigned from our church. We found a house in Nyack, New York. We hired movers. And one week before we were to move I received a call telling me the President of that organization had nixed my offer. It was a shock to the VP who had hired me… since when do Presidents get involved in micro-managing hiring? And the thing that made that experience so devastating was, what we later learned, was that he noticed on my resume that Bonnie and I were married in 1970 but we had a son who was born in 1969. To him, my employment was an issue of a lack of morality and Christian character.
If you think I was not angry and devastated and bewildered you would be wrong. I do not believe it was God’s will that a man misjudge Bonnie and me. I do not think it is God’s will that anyone be misjudged or denied opportunities on the basis of the whims of anyone in a position of power. But this I do believe… God intermingled that circumstance with all the other circumstances of my life… not to give me a better job but to make me a better person.
It is God’s gracious activity in our lives in and through the hard things of life that form us spiritually.
William Barclay says in his little commentary on Romans, “If a person loves God and trusts God and accepts God, if a person feels and knows and is convinced that God is the all-wise and all-loving Father, then that person can humbly accept all that God sends to them.”
When a person does not love and trust God that person will likely become an angry and resentful person to the detriment of his character and spiritual vitality.
In verse 29 we affirm what we believe to be true about God’s work and will in our lives.
B. Affirmations, Romans 8:29
For God knew his people in advance and he chose them to become like his Son…, Romans 8:29
(Those whom he foreknew a long time ago, he also predestined or designed to be conformed to the image of his Son.)
There are two clearly stated affirmations.
1. God foreknew
Foreknowledge means to know what is going to happen before it happens.
A sonogram or ultrasound, is a medical procedure that uses sound waves to create a picture of something that is happening inside a person’s body. People who are expecting a baby will likely have a sonogram that will produce a black and white image that they then proudly show to their family and friends. My experience is that interpreting a sonogram is a lot like interpreting a Rorschack Ink Blot. It’s like anyone’s guess.
It is essentially a test designed to give the parents a sneak peak of what is to come… parents like to know what color to paint the nursery.
A sonogram is hardly comparable to God’s foreknowledge but just as we can catch a blurry glimpse into the development of a baby, God is able to clearly look through the ages to come and know who will embrace him or reject him. God knows who will make a decision to come to Christ and God knows who will not.
Ephesians 1:4 says that God foreknew all that even before he created the world.
And the text goes on to say that those he foreknew he predestined them to be conformed to the image of Jesus.
2. God predestined
Predestination means to decide or determine it is going to happen before it happens. Those whom he foreknew long, long, long ago he also determined that they would become like Jesus. It is God’s will that we become like Jesus Christ.
God not only saw that we would be, he decided who we could be. For us who are Christians life is a process through which we are being shaped into the image of Jesus.
Conclusion:
Once again, this is hardly an adequate way of explaining foreknowledge and predestination but it is like this.
In the automobile industry design artists make elaborate drawings of concept cars. The auto industry then having actually designed a concept car, set about creating that concept car which becomes something of a prototype.
I enjoy seeing concept cars at the big auto shows. In 1998 Lorri and I attended the Chicago Auto Show at Soldier Field. It was there that I saw the Chrysler Chronos concept car. It was the most beautiful car I have ever seen. It was long and large and aerodynamic. It had stunning curves and proportions. The interior was as elegant as any interior I have ever seen. It had the look of an outsized European sports car.
The Chrysler Chronos had 21 inch wheels and a modified Viper suspension. It was powered by a V10 engine and had all the promise of power and performance any one could wish for. I was so enamored by the Chrysler Chronos I wrote the Chrysler Corporation to see if they ever sold their concept cars… they don’t. Apparently they just sit around in some Chrysler museum.
They never made another Chrysler Chronos.
But if you will indulge me a bit, I would not have you think of Jesus as a concept car… the Godhead did not roll out Jesus as a concept car to test the waters, so to speak, to see if he would catch on with the public. Jesus was not an idealized concept. Jesus was and is the concept to be emulated and imitated and mass produced.
We may think of Jesus as an original masterpiece and then of ourselves as reproductions of that masterpiece… the difference being that only a well-trained eye could distinguish between the original and the reproduction.
God’s will is that we be conformed or shaped or made into the image of Jesus. It is God’s will that we become more and more like Jesus.
So we end this morning where we began.
God is at work in our lives so that we may become more and more like Jesus…accomplishing his will in us and through us.
