Called To Be Like Jesus

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Youdoin’ all right today? Well, as I pause for you answer, because I know some of you do answer, (Laughs) bless you, I have a mental picture of so many of you about whom I know. Somebody’s just waking up, somebody’s packing a lunch for four or five or six hungry family members, somebody’s driving to work, or because this broadcast is heard at different times, somebody’s just finishing the day. And you’re hearing it, hearing the broadcast just about bedtime or even past that, at the midnight hour.

Well, however it is wherever you are, beloved, God bless you. I’m glad to be back with you. The miles drop away, and we’re together with the Word of God. I like that, don’t you? We’re looking at 1 Peter 5:10, “The God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen and settle you.” Now, He’s the God of all grace — we talked about that the last time we got together. Saving grace, grace to call you, grace to save you, grace to, to guide you in your Christian work and, and growth in your Christian life.

The grace of giving, the grace to suffer, the grace to endure, the grace to speak and love the word of God’s truth. All of this and more. All sufficient grace, “God is able to, able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye always having all sufficiency in all things may have bound to every good work.” So, God’s grace impinges upon your life, every split-second of the time. I think that probably the secret of an effective Christian life, no matter what your station in life, or no matter what the talents God may have given you, or the circumstances; I think the secret is to be aware of the fact that you need God every minute of your life. And you depend upon Him, by faith, to enable you to give your human best, filled with the Spirit of God.

The grace of God always, always, all sufficiency, all things. How many things is all? It’s everything isn’t it, in your life? God’s grace filling your life, depending upon God’s riches given to you at Christ’s expense. Exercising your faith, turning in faith to your living Lord. Trusting Him to fill you and to guide you; and then doing your dead level best. Pretty good formula for success, I think you will agree.

Now he says, “God has called us, He’s called us.” And of course you were, you were, you think of a God’s call, it’s a call to salvation, often times, don’t you? But it’s a good deal more than that. “He’s called us,” it says in this passage, “unto His eternal glory.” There is a great many different things about which Christ works in our lives on the basis of God’s call. What do you think they, they are? Well, you’ve been called to be like Him; you’ve been called to be free; you’ve been called in some cases to suffer; you’ve been called to His glory. What a, a litany of eternal truth you have, in this whole matter of the call of God. He’s called us to His eternal glory.

Let’s think about that for a little while. I’m thinking just now of the passage in 2 Corinthians 3: “We all, with open face, beholding as in a mirror,” — King James says ‘glass’, that’s our word ‘mirror’ — “beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Called, called to glory. Now what happens? It’s a process. First of all it’s a fact; God has called you to share His glory. That’s the essence of God’s plan in redeeming you. He wants you to share His glory.

Why? Because you had it originally in the Garden of Eden, in the person of Adam and of Eve. They were clothed obviously with God’s glory so they didn’t need any physical clothing. But they lost the shine of God’s glory, and they lost the preciousness of God’s precious fellowship when sin came in. They were driven from the Garden of Eden. And now you and I live in a sinful world, and a shameful world, and a world that has lost the touch of God’s glory. What’s the answer? Well God has said, “I want to restore that glory.”

And so our Lord Jesus Christ came down the stairways of the stars to be born of the Virgin Mary; born there in Bethlehem, tenderly laid in a, in a manger, in a barn, because there wasn’t any other room else where for the little Holy family. Bought up as a boy in a carpenter shop, learning obedience to His parents. This person, who was God in the flesh, humbled Himself. The extent of the humbling, think about this now; this person, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Creator, the second person of the Godhead. But He humbled Himself, He laid aside His prerogatives of being the second person of the Godhead.

And now He’s a little baby. How much does a little baby know? Not too much. Now He’s growing lad. How much does a growing lad have to learn? An awful lot. Now He’s a young man. How much does a young man have to do to face temptations? A great deal. Bible says, “He was tempted in all points like as we are; yet without sin.” This Jesus, this Savior, this Lord of ours, can share our total humanity.

And now He’s dying on the cross of Calvary. Strung up there, His body waits suspended by spikes through wrist and ankles. And His legs bent, so that in order to breath at all, He has to lift the weight of His body to get the pressure off the diaphragm, so that His lungs can fill once again in an agonized gasp of air. They said that many of the victims of crucifixion died not of their wounds but of suffocation, because they simply became to weary to lift their body one more time, to take one more breath. Be that as it may be, there it is our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord of glory He’s called. And now H’s our sacrifice for sin. But He rose again from the dead the third day; He’s alive today; He went back to the Father; and He’s at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you and for me.

And now we have Paul saying, “We all, with open face beholding in a mirror the wor-,” — that’s the Word of God — “the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image even as by the Spirit of the Lord. The blessed Holy Spirit comes to indwell in the believer.” And now comes that wonderful, wonderful change in a person’s life. You and I have seen it now and again, in real life as we call it. I can recall one or two examples of people whose faces had been marred by sin, and whose countenance had been hardened by years of sinning and the rough circumstances through which they had gone. And you see them — the, the face tells the story of what they have been.

There’s a frightening statement that turns out to be true in most cases. After age 50, people get the face they deserve. And here’s this person who’s lived fast and hard, and through many years of sins. And now he’s become a Christian. And we begin to see a subtle transformation in that life, as God the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer is making changes in the personality and in the attitude and in the approach to living. And wonder of wonders, it does seem as though those hard lines that, that signal a life of self-serving and sinning, those hard lines on the face are softening somehow or other. And there comes a glow inner beauty that you never saw before.

Now I’ve seen that happen, sometimes through the years, and I guess some of you have as well. “We are changed,” it says, “into the same image, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” What image? Beholding the glory of the Lord. God has called us to His eternal glory, has called us to His eternal glory. Can you grasp that? What is it that God wants to do in your life? Ultimately He wants you to shine like the Lord Jesus Christ.

John says, “We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” God wants you to shine like the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says that, “In the ages to come, might be known by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God.” He wants to set you on exhibit, in the glory, as proof that God was right all along. Satan’s big lie was, “God is wrong,” that was his big lie, wasn’t it? “Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day either of ye shall be as God’s knowing good and evil.”

What was he saying? “God is trying to cheat you. He’s wronging you. God is not right, He’s wrong.” — that Satan’s lie, and it still is being worked today; we call it secular humanism today, or in it’s worst form, atheism. What is God’s plan? Through millions, and millions, and millions of, of blood bought believers, filled with the Holy Spirit, to restore the heavenly shine that was lost yonder in the Garden of Eden; so that you and I throughout all the ages to come, “The ages of the ages after time should be no more, will be there shining with the glory of God, as proof that God, God is right.”

“That ye may prove,” says Paul in, in Romans 12, “that ye may prove what is good, and what is acceptable, and what is, is, prove that which is good, acceptable, and perfect, perfect; namely the will of God.” God is right and, and He’s going to prove it, beloved, by you and by me. Now how, how do you get the shine? We’ll wind up this broadcast with that. Do you like this? Is it interesting to you or not? I hope it is. It thrills my own soul, and I get so caught up with it, I forget to, to wonder whether you’re getting it, (Laughs) bless your heart.

How do you get the shine? He said, “We all with open face beholding, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord.” Do you know that absorbing the Word of God in the Bible will make a difference in the look of your life; it will make a difference in the appearance of your life; it’ll make a difference in the inter attitude that shines out through you; it will make you shine with the glory of God.

Now I can prove this to you if you’ll simply try it. You spend a few more minutes each day, in the Word of God: reading it, praying over it, meditating on it. Spend a few more minutes each reading and, and meditating and praying over the word of God; and I can guarantee you, that you will see a change in your life. This happened to me on one occasion, when one of my deacons back in the 1940’s came to me. I was a pastor of a little church. And the deacon came up, he said, “Preacher, you’re preaching different. What happened to you?” Well what was happening was that I was spending more time in the Word of God. God will make a difference; the shine of His glory will show up if you spend more time in His Word. You try it.

Dear Father in heaven, oh make us shine today with the glory of God. I ask in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!