Restoring the Image
Christianity 101
CCCAG October 20th, 2019
Scripture- Rom 6, Gal 2, 1 Pet 1
Intro:
A little over a week ago Tammie and I went to Michigan, and to get there we took the ferry out of Milwaukee. You drive your car onto this huge boat, and then sit in a cabin during the trip, or you can sit on deck if you can handle the wind and enjoy the cruise across Lake Michigan.
It was the first time I had been far enough away from the shore in the lake that I couldn’t see land, and that was an experience in itself- being surrounded by only water.
As I was walking around the deck I saw a red rope with a red handle marked “EPIRB”. I remembered that from watching the TV show “Deadliest Catch” that this EPIRB stood for “Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon”, and if it’s deployed it sends out an emergency beacon so the Coast Guard knows your exact location.
I was thinking about that as I meditated this week on this message. What if something had happened, and the ferry sank and I’m bobbing in the water holding onto the EPIRB for dear life, knowing the Coast Guard knows right where I am and would be sending a couple of helicopters and boats to save me.
My Dad was in the Coast Guard, and would occasionally serve as the watch officer at the Kenosha Station. His job was to monitor the marine radio for emergencies and listen for EPIRB alerts. Now imagine the watch officer at the local Coast Guard Station sees an EPIRB alert flash on his screen. He notes the time, the location, the vessel involved, and does nothing else other than go back to watching TV.
Or maybe he sends out a singe helicopter. The helicopter circles the location a few times, drops a raft, and says it’s up to us to row ourselves back to Milwaukee.
What I have described are two different but wrong ways that people think of this idea we will be talking about today called sanctification.
Some people think that God just makes a note in a logbook that St Peter uses to govern the entrance into heaven, and other people think that God provides the life raft for us, but it’s our job to work and row ourselves into heaven by our own effort.
I don’t hold to either of those ideas.
What God has in mind for us is something so much greater than we can even comprehend.
Let’s start by defining the word sanctification. If you have to ever take a theology class, the definition of sanctification is to separate something from the ordinary and make it holy. That’s the bible school definition and if you ever see it on a multiple choice test, pick that answer!
I like that definition, but it is very cold and dry. It’s cerebral and lacks any motivation to even want it in our lives because in our culture, we have little understanding of what being holy means.
Therefore, let me give you a new definition. It’s our big idea for today.
Sanctification is the restoration of the Image of God within a person.
Repeat
Quick quiz-
Name this tune from this verse- hint, it’s a Christmas Carol
“Adam's likeness now efface, Stamp Thine image in its place:”
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
That’s sanctification in a nutshell. Removing that old image of the sinful person and allowing God to remake us into His Image.
This idea of being made holy is usually seen in Christianity like this in two extremes.
This is how I see our Christian walk with God as we live our lives-
Our walk with God is like taking a narrow path up a mountain that has huge drop offs on either side of the path.
If you travel too far to the left or too far to the right you fall into one pit or another.
In the right pit are people who want to earn God’s favor through their own good works or by following rules that are largely man-made, and then tell other people that if they don’t follow those rules they are not as Godly as they are. This is called legalism. The extreme examples of this would be places like Westboro Baptist church or any church that talks more about following rules to be personally holy instead of glorifying the finished work of Christ that has made us holy through HIS sacrifice.
This is a fine line- God wants us to pursue Holiness. God says be holy for I am holy. The difference is when you trust your holiness more than you trust Christ. That’s how you identify a legalist.
On the left side ditch on the path of sanctification is equally dangerous, and it's probably the ditch that we see most often in American Christianity. This one is filled with people who used the grace of God as an excuse to live however they want. They would say that since the cross of Christ cleanses us from all of our sin and the penalty of that sin then while we are here on earth, we can do whatever we want because the blood of Christ is covering it. This is called lasciviousness which means to live without any moral boundary.
Both pits are equally dangerous in that they take your eyes of off the truth found in the word of God about the importance of restoring HIS image in your life.
This restoration is where we have the tension between divine character and human free will. Think about that for a moment. (repeat)
I think the reason that many people are very lazy when it comes to wanting God to bring his character and image into their lives is because they only view what Jesus did as their get out of jail free card. They only view the cross as the way that God used to save us from hell. That is very true but it is only part of the story. Jesus didn't go to the cross to just save us from hell.
Jesus didn’t just record a decision and then leave us alone. Jesus didn’t just throw us a raft and tell us to row ourselves to heaven.
Jesus went to the cross to give us eternal life and not just when we die but when we come to faith in him.
I have said this repeatedly over the last couple of weeks but it does bear repeating over and over again your eternal life began when you first believed. Your spirit was born again into a new existence on a different plane then the one that you're used to living in now.
It’s like you were sick and bedbound in an ICU with heart failure- machines keeping you alive. But then Jesus came and donated his heart to you. You wake up, and suddenly feel life and in a few weeks leave the hospital and are able to live freely again.
In order to live according to the newness of your to do this he needs our cooperation.
Let’s ask God for His help this morning
Prayer
To help us understand how God restores His image in our spirits, I came up with the 3 “D’”S that will help us to remember how it works.
Number one is you need to desire sanctification. You need to want God’s image formed inside you.
Prayer
The first of the three D’s is
I. Desire Sanctification
Rom 6:1-4
6 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Christians can be some of the most vacillating people on earth when it comes to our spirituality. I think it's because we live in these fleshly bodies and forget that we are primarily a spirit being 1st. I once heard a speaker at Promise Keepers say that it only takes the devil 15 minutes to bring you from the Heights of heaven, into temptation, and then to wallowing in his pits again.
I think that's very true. As a matter of fact, I don't even think it takes 15 minutes in some cases. I think most of us just hide the bad part of our character and nature so well then, it's only when we relax a little bit that it comes out.
Every single one of us struggles with the evil that is within our hearts, and every single one of us has it. We all can be very selfish, rude, self-seeking proud , lustful, covetous, and just generally disagreeable people when put in the right circumstance.
Most of us are old enough to remember the 80s where several prominent televangelists or found to be in very deep sin. All of us are very shocked when a Christian leader succumbs to the same temptation that you and I face every day.
I don't excuse that. The Bible says not too many of you should desire to be teachers because you will incur the stricter judgment. What that means is God is going to judge each individual according to the revelation of God that they have.
Slight rabbit trail here
This is why Angels never got a savior. That’s a question people pose to me sometimes- why can’t God save the devil and his angels?
It’s because they have a perfect revelation of God and therefore were without excuse. Even in the Garden of Eden and being in perfect fellowship with God, Adam and Even only had a limited revelation, which is why humans got a second chance. It’s also why the same sin done in the pew is sometimes overlooked while the same sin done by a church leader disqualifies them from their position. It has to do with the level of revelation a person has.
This is why we need the desire to be sanctified. We need to want to be remade into God’s image. Desire is the number one requirement for it to happen. It's also one of the main ways the enemy attacks us in our spiritual lives- to remove any desire for godliness in our lives.
Let me give you some modern cultural examples of satan's attack in this area.
When are most children’s sports competitions held? Kids soccer is one of the main culprits here.
Sunday morning
When are most volunteer organizations having meetings or doing their good works?
Sunday mornings
The NFL is one of the most popular sporting events in the country. When do they play the majority of their games?
On Sundays and the start time with at least half of the country would interfere with church.
I don't think this is a coincidence but a concerted attack by the enemy of our souls to take us away from the desire for godliness in our lives because one of the most important acts that we can do to help build the image of God within us is to attend church as often as possible.
They say birds of a feather flock together and if most of your time is spent being around those who don't know God guess what you're going to Eventually emulate.
What do we teach our children about our desire for sanctification when we use every excuse on earth not to be in a place where that happens most effectively?
I want to stop for a moment and just ask you how strong is your desire to see Jesus Christ and his character formed in you?
Pause
I think if we're all honest with each other we would say that in many ways we fall short in disciplining ourselves to allow God to form and shape Jesus's nature and character in our lives.
That's why we need the second D of sanctification and that is
II. Determination
Gal 2:20
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
How many people here know who Dwayne the Rock Johnson is?
He's becoming one of the most famous action stars of our generation and as well known for being a former professional wrestler an being just a giant of a man when it comes to bodybuilding. He is also a motivational speaker who talks a lot about what it takes to remain at the Top of your game when it comes to being successful. He is so laser focused at remaining at the level he is at that no matter where he is filming in the world he has a semi-trailer full of workout gear that follows him everywhere.
I’m not talking about just a bow flex and a couple of free weights I am talking about enough workout equipment to fill a local gym or workout center. He calls it his iron paradise.
Every single morning of his life he is up between 3:30 and 4:00 AM 2 eat a small breakfast before doing an hour of cardio which is usually a run and then an hour and a half to 2 hours in his iron paradise lifting weights.
He has said in some of his motivational speeches that he knows the moment he takes a day off an allows laziness to set into his life that his time of being a success is over.
That's an earthly example of someone who is very determined to meet a goal.
Honestly, I think sometimes grace can make us lazy.
Since Jesus has done everything for us in dying for our sins, and giving us eternal life we have a tendency to be lackadaisical when it comes to sanctification and our part in it.
Our part in allowing God to form the image of Christ within us is a bit counter intuitive in that it comes through a deliberate and determined surrender to God.
When we think about what I just said it sounds like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth. How do you have a deliberate and determined surrender? It sounds like its opposite of what we should do.
But that's why God's Kingdom is not the Kingdom of this earth. We have to unlearn what we have learned. On this earth you rise to whatever level you work the hardest for. Just about anyone could be a millionaire if they wanted to work hard enough in the right ways and sacrifice everything else to do it. That's the way the American way of life works.
In God's economy it doesn't work that way.
Growth is seen through death.
Progress is seen through surrender
how far you are lifted up it's seen by how low you are willing to put your own desires.
The first shall be last, and the last shall be first
That is why this restoring is always seen through a determination to let God's character and plan for you to push out your own desires, wants, and needs.
But you have to be determined in this surrender.
Fortunately, the bible shows us how
Phil 2:12-13
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
This is how we work out our sanctification by surrendering to God- by surrendering and trusting in His work in your life. Be determined to surrender and stay surrendered. This is how God’s power, presence, and provision mold us and shape us into his image to show Jesus to the world.
Finallly, we get to the last D of sanctification-
III. Dedication
1 Peter 1:3-9
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
This last week in school, I was studying something called the integument. That’s the fancy medical term for your skin.
As health care professionals one of the things we have to do sometimes is called an incision and drainage.
We often have a person come to us and points out an area on their body usually right under the skin that is red and inflamed and filled with something. We numb it up make a small cut and squeeze out all of the sickness that is within them.
This is a way of seeing what verse 6 is speaking about here when it talks about suffering.
How many people here, when you signed up for Christianity, looked at all the available options, and chose to sign up for the suffering plan?
I don't think anyone in their right mind signs up to deliberately suffer.
But suffering is how God gets the nastiness that is within us out of us. He makes the cut and then lets the circumstances squeeze all the nasty out so that He can replace it with HIMself.
That is sufferings and persecution's role in our spiritual growth. Dedication to God’s plan for our lives helps us to get the bad out so that the good can take its place.
And the good in this case is the restoration of the image of God being shown to a world that desperately needs to see it.
Desire determination and dedication. These are the 3 keys to allowing God to sanctify you and set you apart to be a vessel that carries his presence, his power , in his message to this lost and dying world .
Adam’s likeness now efface, stamp thy image in it’s place!
Prayer
Q&A
Mention membership- pray for food during fellowship meal
