Discipleship: You Were Created to Become Like Christ

Sunday, October17, 2004

PASTOR BURCHAM'S SERMON

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I remember this day as if it were yesterday. I was in my second year of seminary, and I walked into the final exam for my Systematics course. It had been a difficult course all the way along, but here was the final exam. It was worth well over 50% of my grade, so I was just a little bit nervous walking in. So the rest of the guys and I filed in and took our seats. The professor walked in the room in his usual fashion. And instead of handing out five or six or even ten pages worth of questions we were supposed to answer and show how much knowledge we had attained from that quarter, he handed out a half sheet of paper. And on the half sheet of paper was a poor photocopy of Philippians 2:5-11 in Greek. And then at the bottom, handwritten mind you, not typed, handwritten three words: “Translate and comment.” Over 50% of my grade is summed up in three words. Translate and comment? What did he mean by that? What was I supposed to do?

What I learned to appreciate and what my professor knew at the time was that, in Philippians 2:5-11, you have the essence of who Jesus is and what Jesus accomplished for us. Now this week we just focused in on one verse, and that is the fifth verse. “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” If we were to go on through 6-11, it would show us that attitude of Jesus, the attitude of a servant, the attitude of one who came for us. But the attitude of Christ Jesus is to be our attitude. Or in Ephesians it says that we are to be imitators of God. All of that is a way of saying that when God calls us to faith, when He brings us into His family and a relationship with Him, then we respond to that by wanting to live a life that is worthy of that calling or another way of saying it is that we want to become more and more like Jesus. Scripture talks about that as being a disciple or we might call that discipleship. Learning to be more and more like Jesus.

Now I want to be clear on this. When we talk about becoming more like Christ, I'm not saying our goal in life is to become a god as Jesus is a god. No, that's not it at all. There is only one God, and we are part of His creation. In fact, we're the crowning achievement of His creation. But the fact of the matter is that this creation has fallen and this creation is not the way in which God originally designed it and created it. If we go all the way back to the beginning of time, God created a perfect world and He created perfect human beings. But human beings messed that up when they fell to sin. And so all of humanity became corrupted as well as all of the world became corrupted.

So if we want to get back to what it really means to be a human being, the way God originally designed us to be, then we have to look to Jesus. Because Jesus is the only human being that was sinless and perfect in every way. If you want to know how God had originally designed human beings to act and the attitude they were supposed to have, then we need to look to Jesus.

Jesus, although He was God, became a human being. And He became a human being so He could redeem us and bring us back into a relationship with the Father. And now once we've been brought into that relationship, then we look to Jesus not only as our Savior, that's first and foremost, but also as our example of what it means to be one of God's creation. And scripture tells us then that our attitude, the way we think, the way we approach life, should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.

Well, for this morning, I'd like to focus then on three aspects of Jesus' attitude and, along with those three aspects of His attitude, there are three opportunities that God gives us in life when we can develop those attitudes of Jesus.

The first opportunity God gives us is that of troubles. Troubles, tough times, difficulties. Sometimes scripture calls them trials in our life. Those troubles are actually an opportunity for us to trust God, and that was an attitude of Jesus. Jesus trusted His Father above everything else. So troubles are an opportunity to trust God. An opportunity, huh? It kind of sounds like when you were dumped in high school and your parents said, “Well, that's just an opportunity for you to meet someone new, Son.” It just doesn't cut it, does it? Kind of like when your boss lets you go because your position's been eliminated and says, “Well, now just look at this as an opportunity for you to find out where your career path is going to go.” We can do without those opportunities in our lives. And if scripture is clear about the fact, scripture says when trials, when tribulations, when tough times come, God uses those times to shape and to mold us and to make us stronger than we were before. They're opportunities for us to trust God. God not only uses the good things in life, but He also uses the difficult things. Romans 8:28, one of my favorite passages, says, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.” Whether it's something that's really great in our life or whether it's the worst disaster that could have befallen us, God can use that and turn that around for our good. It's an opportunity for us to trust God.

It's demonstrated through Jesus. Jesus had all kinds of trials, all kinds of trouble and tough times in His life and, each time, He trusted His Father. The greatest example of that had to be when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane . You remember this is the night He's going to be arrested. Jesus knows everything that's going to happen to Him. He knows about the arrest. He knows about the crucifixion. He knows that He's facing not only the physical pain of crucifixion but the spiritual and the emotional pain of crucifixion. So Jesus is there, and scripture says that Jesus looked at His disciples and said, “My soul is so overwhelmed with sorrow that I'm at the point of death.” Later on, it says that while He was praying, His sweat became like drops of blood that dropped on the ground. Now this is a man who knows tough times. This is a man who's going through something you and I can't even begin to imagine or grasp the pressure and the stress that was on Him at that moment. Because everything in His life had been building up to this moment in time when He would be arrested, railroaded through the system, and nailed to a cross and all of mankind's sins would be put upon Him. All of that was on Jesus literally. The weight of the world was on Jesus' shoulders. So He takes time to go into the garden and to pray. And what does He pray? His prayer is no different than ours. He says to His Father, “Father, there has to be another way. If there is another way, if there's some other avenue we can take here to bring your people back to you, can we use a different avenue? Can we do something different here?” But how does He end the prayer? We all know it. “Your will be done, Father.” Your will.

In the most extreme case of trials, trouble, stress, Jesus trusted the Father. He said, “Father, I know how I'm feeling and I know the pressures I'm under but I trust you, Father. I trust you will do what is right.” You see, troubles and tough times really are an opportunity for us to trust God. When life is going great and there's nothing really bad happening in our life, it's easy to trust God. It's also easy to forget about God. But it's during the tough times that it's an opportunity for us to trust Him and to deepen our relationship. And the fact of the matter is that tough times have already come into your life and tough times will continue to happen in your life. Don't be under the misunderstanding that once you come to faith in Jesus, all of a sudden life is going to be great and rosy because that's not what it says. Scripture tells us we live in a fallen world and, because of that, we're going to have a series of tough times in our life. They're just going to happen, but each one of them presents you with an opportunity, an opportunity either to turn away from God or to turn to God. You can either turn away from God, the only one who can help you, or you can turn to God, the one who has the power and the strength and the will to help you through this. Tough times, trials, troubles are an opportunity for us to trust God and to deepen our relationship with Him.

Romans 5 says this, “We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” God is shaping us, and God is giving us a strong character through each of those tough times. Now don't misunderstand, God doesn't send the tough times. It's not as if God was up in heaven, looking down, saying, “You know, things are going awfully well for Ron. Not anymore.” God doesn't do that. But just the sinful world we live in brings those times upon us. What God does do is this: God will take the worst situation and He will turn it into the best thing that ever happened to you. It won't feel like it when you're going through it but, in the end, sooner or later, you'll see it. I've witnessed it a number of times in my life. He's taken the worst thing I never, ever thought could happen to me and He turned it around to be a great blessing in my life. And I know He's done the same in your lives.

Our attitude is when the tough times come, we recognize this is an opportunity for me to trust God, to pray to Him and pour out my heart but to end that prayer by saying, “I know what I want but your will, Father. Your will be done.”

The second opportunity God gives us actually comes in temptations because temptations are an opportunity for us to remain faithful to God. Now God doesn't send temptations into our life. There is enough of that happening around us, but God can use those temptations as an opportunity for us to be faithful. And temptations are going to be a part of our life until we reach heaven above. Everyday we're going to be tempted by something, but understand this. Temptation is not sin. Do you hear me on that one? Temptation is not sin. Temptation is something the devil does and the world around us to try to pull us away from God. Temptation wants us to be unfaithful to God. Temptation wants us to sin, but the temptation itself is not sinful because temptation happens all around us. In fact, Jesus was tempted. Jesus was tempted all the time, but Jesus didn't sin. We probably all remember back to 40 days in the desert for Jesus. That was an intense time of temptation for Him. For 40 days, He wanders around in the desert. No food. No water. And the devil is tempting Him continuously. Jesus was preparing Himself for His ministry. Jesus was showing Himself to be faithful to His Father in every situation, but His temptation didn't end after the 40 days. It's not as if after 40 days, the devil said, “Well, I guess this isn't going to work.” Packed up his bags, went home, and left Jesus alone. No. The devil was after Jesus every moment of every day, because Jesus is the only who could defeat him. Jesus faced temptations every single day and every single moment of every day. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that He was tempted in every way just as we are, but He was without sin.

Temptations are an opportunity for us to remain faithful to God, an opportunity for us to put our faith into action, an opportunity for us to realize that by the power of God's spirit in your heart, you can resist temptation. It no longer works to say, “Well, I just couldn't help myself.” You may not be able to help yourself, but God living in you can stop you. God living in you can resist that temptation, and temptation is an opportunity for us to exercise that power and to exercise that spiritual strength that God has given to us.

Now let me take a side note for just a moment. We all know that we do not always resist temptations. We all know there is a struggle going on inside of us. We know what we should do and times we don't do it. We know what we shouldn't do, and there are times we go ahead and do it anyway. It's at those times when we fail that we come rushing back to the cross and we know each and every time we fail God forgives us because of what Jesus has done for us. But the fact of the matter is we are called upon to resist temptation and to show ourselves faithful to God.

Some things we need to understand about temptation, first and foremost is temptation happens in the mind. It doesn't happen anyplace else. Temptation starts and begins and ends in the mind. If you look back to the beginning of time, the temptation Adam and Eve fell to started out with a thought that was planted in their mind by the devil. The thought was God is holding back on you, God is saying you shouldn't eat that because He doesn't want to be fair with you because if you eat that, you'll be like God. It was the thought that was planted in their mind and then it was the action after that as they fell to sin. It always starts with a thought for us. We see something. We think about something, and we're tempted to do something, to say something. But it always begins in the mind. Our natural reaction then is that we concentrate real hard and we think real hard that we need to resist this and actually the opposite is true. We need to change our mind and to change what we're focused on and to change what we're thinking about. Scripture in Philippians 4 says, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, think about these things.” When temptation comes, we need to change what we're thinking about.

Let's use this as an example. Let's say you decide you're not going to have chocolate anymore, okay? I know for some of you that would be an incredible sacrifice, but you're not going to have chocolate anymore. You're on a diet or whatever, but you're not going to eat chocolate. So you walk into the kitchen and then sitting right there is your favorite candy bar. So you look at that candy bar and you say I'm not going to eat that candy bar. No, I can think of 100 reasons why I should not eat that candy bar. No, I'm not going to eat it. You know, I remember eating those candy bars and they are really, really good. In fact, I like that candy bar better than five other candy bars, but I'm not going to eat that candy bar. No, sir. I've done it before, but this time I'm going to remain strong.” You're going to eat the candy bar. You know you are. The more you think about it, the more you try to resist, you're going to fall. Now if you were to take the candy bar and throw it away, take the candy bar and give it to the neighbor kid, walk outside, eat an apple, go exercise, do anything else where you completely forget about the candy bar, then you're not going to eat the candy bar.

That's what it is with temptation. If something is tempting you and you say, “No, I'm not going to do that. I can think of 100 reasons why I shouldn't do that. I'm just going to focus in on that.” You're going to fall. But instead you walk away. You change your environment. You change what you're thinking about, whatever's lovely, whatever's true, whatever's pure, whatever's noble. Think about these things. That's how we resist temptation. That's how we capitalize on the opportunity to remain faithful to God.

The third opportunity God gives us happens when somebody sins against us or trespasses against us, because trespasses are an opportunity for us to forgive. And Jesus had an attitude of forgiveness. In fact, that's the whole reason He came and lived among us is so we could be forgiven. And if we're going to have that attitude of forgiveness, the best opportunity for that to happen is when somebody trespasses against us, when somebody sins against us. But let me say this: This is the most difficult thing for us to do. To truly forgive another human being when they have hurt us, when they have sinned against us is the hardest thing for us to do. It's easy to say. It's for me to say, “Oh, I forgive you.” But to truly mean it and to truly understand what forgiveness is about is difficult. Because when people sin against us, when they lie about us to our friends, when they betray a sacred trust, when they treat us unfairly, when they mock us or make fun of us, that cuts down to the heart and for us to forgive them the way God forgives us, because God says, in forgiveness, He chooses not to remember that sin anymore, that it's wiped out of His mind. For us to forgive another person like that is difficult, but by God's power, we can. Because scripture tells us to have the same attitude as Jesus and Jesus' attitude was one of forgiveness.

It was best displayed when He was on the cross. Yes, He was there dying as a sacrifice so that all mankind could be forgiven. But would you just look at the scene for a moment. God's son, the one who was there at creation, is having His creatures nail Him to a piece of wood. The almighty powerful God of the universe is being suspended in the air on a cross. He's going through excruciating physical pain. At the same time, He is paying the debt of all of mankind's sin, including the sins of those who are gathered around Him. So as He is paying the debt for their sin, as He is redeeming them so they can have eternity with God, they're mocking Him, they're laughing at Him, they're hurling insults at Him, they're spitting on Him, they're calling Him names. And what does Jesus say? “Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.” That's the attitude of Jesus.

Even in a situation that you and I can't imagine, Jesus says, “Father, forgive them.” Knowing God's love and forgiveness, we also can forgive. In fact, each time we're hurt by someone else, each time somebody sins against us can serve as a reminder of what God has done for us, serve as a reminder that we've done this to God. And yet, what is His attitude towards us? Does He resist forgiving us? Does He do it reluctantly? No. For Jesus, there's not another option. The only thing He can think about doing is forgiving us, choosing not to remember that sin any longer.

When we think about God's forgiveness in our life and the power of His love and how it's changed us, that gives us the power to forgive another person. And each time we forgive another person, it reminds us again of the love and the forgiveness that is ours in Jesus.

It all has to do with our attitude, changing our attitude. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Developing that attitude of Jesus is called discipleship. Amen.

Copyright 2004 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church