MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
RIDGE CHAPEL, KANSAS, OK
(REVISED - 2016)
TEXT: Romans 8:29 (Msg); 2 Corinthians 3:18b (NLT)
A few years ago thousands of congregations participated in Rick Warren’s “40 Days of Purpose”. In the churches that participated, for 6 weeks the Sunday morning sermons, the Sunday School lessons, the Wednesday evening Bible studies, & even the daily devotions focused on the question, “What on earth am I here for?”
Using Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven Life” as a guide, people in many congregations sought answers to that question. The answers they found were:
1. We were planned for God’s pleasure
2. We were formed for God’s family
3. We were created to become like Christ
4. We were shaped for serving God
5. We were made for a Mission
PROP. Well, I want us to focus our attention upon that 3rd Purpose – “We were created to become like Christ.”
The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:29 (Msg): “God knew what He was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love Him along the same lines as the life of His Son… We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in Him.”
ILL. In his book, “God Came Near,” Max Lucado writes about Jesus going into His carpentry shop for the very last time. Let me read a little part of it to you:
The heavy door creaked on its hinges as He pushed it open. With a few strides He crossed the silent shop & opened the wooden shutters ….
He looked around the carpentry shop. He stood for a moment in the …little room that housed so many sweet memories. He balanced the hammer in his hand. He ran his fingers across the sharp teeth of the saw. He stroked the smoothly worn wood of the sawhorse. He had come to say "goodbye".
It was time for him to leave. … So he came one last time to smell the sawdust & lumber. Life was peaceful here. Life was so … safe.
It was here that his human hands shaped the wood his divine hands had created. And it was here that his body matured while his spirit waited for the right moment, the right day – And now that day had arrived.
I wonder if He hesitated? I wonder if his heart was torn? I wonder if He rolled a nail between his thumb & fingers, anticipating the pain? I wonder if He wanted to stay? …
I wonder because I know He…knew what was going to happen. He knew that the feet that stepped out of the safe shadow of the carpentry shop would have no rest until they’d been pierced & placed on a Roman cross.
You see, He didn’t have to go. He had a choice. He could have stayed. He could have kept his mouth shut. He could have ignored the call or at least postponed it. And had He chosen to stay, who would’ve known? Who would have blamed him?
ILL. An old hymn contains these words: “To be like Jesus is my song; To be like Jesus in the throng; To be like Jesus all day long. I want to be like Jesus!” And that is what God wants for us too – to be like Jesus.
I. SOMETIMES IT SEEMS EASY TO BE LIKE JESUS
And if you’re a Christian, sometimes choosing to do what Jesus would have you do just seems to come naturally. Listen to this true story:
ILL. The story begins like this - One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from class walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying every book he had. I thought to myself, “Why would anyone take home all of his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd.”
I had quite a weekend planned (parties & a football game with my friends), so I shrugged my shoulders & went on.
But as I did, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran right into him, knocking the books out of his arms & tripping him so that he fell in the dirt. His glasses went flying, & I saw them land in the grass about 10 feet away.
He looked up & I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes as he began crawling around looking for his glasses. My heart went out to him. So I went over, picked up his glasses, handed them to him & said, “Those guys are jerks.”
He looked at me & said, “Hey, thanks!” There was the start of a smile on his face, one of those smiles that showed real gratitude. I helped him pick up his books, & asked him where he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, & we talked all the way home, & I helped him carry his books.
He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. I asked him if he wanted to play football on Saturday with me & my friends. He said, “Yes.” We ended up hanging out all weekend & the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him.
When Monday morning came, there was Kyle with that huge stack of books again. I stopped him & said, “Hey boy, you’re really going to build some serious muscles with this pile of books!” He just laughed & handed me half of the books to carry.
Over the next 4 years Kyle & I became best friends. When we were seniors & thinking about college, Kyle decided on Georgetown & I chose Duke.
I knew we would always be friends, that the miles between us would never be a problem. He was going to be a doctor, & I was going for a business degree on a football scholarship.
Kyle ended up being the Valedictorian of our class, & I teased him all the time about being a nerd. As the Valedictorian, he had to prepare a speech to give at graduation. I was so glad that it wasn’t me having to get up there & speak.
On Graduation day I saw Kyle. He looked great. He was one of those guys who really found himself during the last two years of high school. He had filled out & actually looked good in glasses. He had more dates than me & all the girls loved him. Boy, sometimes I was jealous!
Today I could see that he was nervous about his speech. So I smacked him on the back & said, “Hey, big guy, you’ll be great!” He looked at me with one of those looks & smiled. “Thanks,” he said.
As he started his speech, he began by saying, “Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years - your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach… but mostly your friends.
"I’m here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. Let me tell you a story.”
I sat there looking at Kyle & listened with disbelief as he told the story of the first day we met. He told us that he had planned to kill himself that weekend. He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so that his mom wouldn’t have to do it later. That was why he was carrying all his books home that day.
He looked right at me & gave me one of those looks (the really grateful one) & smiled. Then he went on, “Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable.”
I heard a gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment, & what I had done. After he told them about me I saw his mom & dad looking at me & smiling that same grateful smile.
Can you imagine how that boy felt when he learned the importance of what he had done that day? He really hadn’t done anything much – just showed a little kindness to someone who needed help. But what a difference it made!
Never underestimate the power of your actions. With God’s help even one small gesture can change a person’s whole life.
II. SOMETIMES IT’S NOT EASY TO BE LIKE JESUS
The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 3:18b (NLT), “As the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like Him and reflect His glory even more.” But sometimes it is not easy to be like Jesus.
ILL. Beth Moore is a well-known Christian author & Bible teacher. Listen as she tells about something rather strange that happened to her a few years ago.
As I sat there in the Knoxville Airport, waiting to board a plane, I had a Bible on my lap… I’d had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I say that because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have the Spirit of God really working in you.
You could end up doing things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for…your ego. Let me tell you what happened.
Sitting there, I tried to keep from staring at the old man, but he was such a strange sight. Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin & bones, dressed in clothes that obviously must have fit him better when he was 20 or 30 pounds heavier. His shoulders were so bony that it looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt.
The strangest part of him was his hair & nails. Stringy gray hair hung over his shoulders & down part of his back. His fingernails were long. Clean, but strangely out of place on an old man.
As I tried to imagine what his story might be, I found myself wondering if I was having a Howard Hughes sighting. But, of course, Howard Hughes has been dead for a long time now.
So there I sat trying to concentrate on God’s Word to keep from thinking about the old man in the wheelchair. But all the while my heart was growing more & more overwhelmed with a feeling of concern for him.
I’ve walked with God long enough to learn that when I begin to feel what God feels, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may even be embarrassing. I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my spirit & I started arguing with God in my mind.
“Oh no, God, please no. Don’t make me witness to this man. Not right here & now. Please, Lord! Not now. I’ll sit down next to him on the plane & do it then.”
Then I heard it… "I don’t want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair.” The words were so clear. My heart leapt into my throat, & my thoughts spun like a top. Is God giving me a choice between witnessing to this man or brushing his hair? “All right, God, I’ll do it. I’ll witness to him. I get the point. I’ll go & witness to him right now.”
Again as clearly as I’ve ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind. “That is not what I said, Beth. I don’t want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair.”
“But Lord, I don’t have a hairbrush. It’s in my suitcase on the plane. How can I brush his hair without a hairbrush?” And in that instant 2 Timothy 3:17 flashed into my mind: “I will thoroughly furnish you unto all good works.”
"I stumbled over to his wheelchair, knelt down in front of him, & asked as gently as possible, “Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?” He looked back at me & said, “What did you say?” “May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?”
To which he responded in volume ten, “Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you’ll have to talk louder than that.” I took a deep breath & blurted out, “SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?”
At that point it seemed every eye there fastened on me. I watched him look at me with absolute shock on his face, & he said, “If you really want to.”
Are you kidding? Of course I didn’t want to. But God didn’t seem interested in my personal preference right then. He pressed on my heart until I uttered the words, “Yes, sir, I would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don’t have a hairbrush.”
“I have one in my bag,” he responded. I unzipped his bag & got his hair-brush, hardly believing what I was doing. Then I stood up & started brushing the old man’s hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled & matted.
I don’t do many things well, but as a mother of 2 girls, I’ve had plenty of experience untangling knotted hair.
A miraculous thing happened as I started brushing that old man’s hair. As far as I was concerned, everybody else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man & me. I brushed & I brushed & I brushed until every tangle was out of his hair.
Beth Moore continues, “I know this sounds strange but I’ve never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart that I – for those few minutes – felt a portion of the very love of God. The emotions were so strong & so pure that I knew they had to be God’s."
His hair was finally as soft & smooth as an infant’s. I slipped the brush back in the bag, went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, & said, “Sir, do you know my Jesus?” He said, “Yes, I do. I’ve known Him since I married my bride. She wouldn’t marry me until I got to know the Savior.”
He went on, “I haven’t seen her in weeks. I’ve had open-heart surgery, & she’s been too ill to come & see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, ‘What a mess I must look like for my bride.’ Thank you, thank you for what you’ve done.”
Beth Moore writes, “Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we’re completely unaware of its significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare times when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known. It was a God moment, & I’ll never forget it.”
Just then a boarding call was made for his flight, & I found that we were not going to be on the same plane. So I told him “goodbye” & wished him a good flight home.
I still had a few minutes, & as I gathered my things together, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, “That old man is sitting on the plane, sobbing. And I think they’re sobs of joy. Why did you do what you did? What made you do it?”
I said, “Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!” And we shared a few moments together about Jesus.
Beth Moore wrote, “I learned something about God that day. He knows if you’re hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you’re sick, or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees & He knows.” (Abridged & adapted from Beth Moore, April 20, 2005, Knoxville Airport)
SUM. Yes, He knows. And He cares. Jesus cares, He really does care about us.
III. JESUS MADE THE HARDEST CHOICE OF ALL
And because He cares, He made the hardest choice of all!
ILL. A few minutes ago, at the beginning of this sermon, Jesus was in the carpentry shop & we were saying:
He didn’t have to go. He had a choice. And had He chosen to stay, who would’ve known? Who would have blamed Him?
He could have come back as a man in another era when society wasn’t so volatile, when religion wasn’t so stale, when people would listen better. He could have come back when crosses were out of style.
But His heart wouldn’t let him. If there was any hesitation on the part of his humanity, it was overcome by the compassion of his divinity. His divinity heard the voices … the hopeless cries of the poor, the bitter accusations of the abandoned, the dangling despair of those who are trying to save themselves.
And his divinity saw the faces. Some wrinkled. Some weeping. Some hidden behind veils. Some obscured by fear. Some earnest with searching. From the face of Adam to the face of the infant born somewhere in the world as you hear these words, He saw them all.
And you can be sure of one thing. Among the voices that found their way into that carpentry shop in Nazareth was your voice. Your silent prayers uttered on tearstained pillows were heard before they were said. And your... need for a Savior, was met before you ever sinned. …
Since He could bear our sins more easily than He could bear the thought of our hopelessness, He chose to leave. It wasn’t easy. Leaving the carpentry shop never has been. (Abridged & adapted from “God Came Near” by Max Lucado)
INVITATION
