Doug McMasters: Alright, we're going to invite you to take your Bible and go to the book of Colossians, chapter 3, Colossians 3.
Doug McMasters: We're continuing in our Imago Day series, The Image of God.
Doug McMasters: And last week we started something that I said we couldn't finish that evening.
Doug McMasters: And we laid a foundation.
Doug McMasters: We laid a foundation about how God takes the image that was originally given to us as we were created, that was lost in its purity in the fall, that's had its implications even in this fallen world, and that is displayed to us in all of its glory in Christ Himself and how that's renewed in us in salvation.
Doug McMasters: And so last week we began to look at that, and tonight, hopefully, we'll finish it.
Doug McMasters: Last week we laid a foundation.
Doug McMasters: Today, hopefully, we can build the house and even put a roof on the top of it.
Doug McMasters: So we'll see how that goes.
Doug McMasters: And not to repreach what we talked about last week, but we looked at three different aspects of how God renews the image in us.
Doug McMasters: And first, we said that the people of God are a new creation.
Doug McMasters: If anyone's in Christ, the old is gone, the new is come.
Doug McMasters: And we said that God doesn't ask a dead man to act like he's alive.
Doug McMasters: We said the purpose of God for every believer was to bring us into conformity with the image of God.
Doug McMasters: It says in Romans chapter 8, verse 29, that we who were predestined have been predestined that we would be in the image of Christ Himself.
Doug McMasters: And so that glorious chain of redemption, which we'll look at a little bit later, is there.
Doug McMasters: And then we talked about the means of that transformation by looking at 2 Corinthians chapter 3.
Doug McMasters: And there we saw that as we gaze upon the glory of God in the new covenant, that the Spirit is operative to transform us from one degree of glory to the next.
Doug McMasters: As we gaze at Christ, we find ourselves being made conformed to that image.
Doug McMasters: And so we looked at the process.
Doug McMasters: Um sorry, we looked at the initiation of it.
Doug McMasters: We also looked at God's intent and the means of it.
Doug McMasters: And so this evening, we have three other points that we're going to look at.
Doug McMasters: We're going to look at the process of how we're brought into the image of Christ, the power that works within us, and then also the completion of that transforming work.
Doug McMasters: And so tonight we're going to close the loop that the God who made us alive is the same God who is reshaping our daily life now, that he's the God who sustains our transformation throughout our life, and that one day he's going to complete what he has started.
Doug McMasters: And that every step along the way in that journey is fueled by the grace of God.
Doug McMasters: And I think it's going to be a very wonderful and helpful perspective as we look at God's word this evening.
Doug McMasters: So let's pray together.
Doug McMasters: Father, as we come into this time in your word, we want to acknowledge you to know that what you're doing is real, that the power that is being worked within us is not ours, but yours, and that we might do so with a great degree of encouragement, that the completion is certain because it's your determination.
Doug McMasters: And Father, I pray that we might hold all these truths together, that we wouldn't lose one of them and find our walk with you exhausting.
Doug McMasters: But as we see these things, to know that you who began a good work within us is the same God who not only sustains it, but will bring it to completion.
Doug McMasters: And Lord, we look forward to that day and give you praise for it already in the name of Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Amen.
Doug McMasters: All right, so let's begin by looking at the process of God by which he brings us into conformity with Christ.
Doug McMasters: And so we're here we are in Colossians chapter 3, and I want you to look bring your attention to verses 9 and 10.
Doug McMasters: He says there, do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self.
Doug McMasters: You're being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.
Doug McMasters: Now hold your hold a finger or a ribbon or whatever you need there, and go back just a few pages to Ephesians chapter 4.
Doug McMasters: Ephesians chapter 4.
Doug McMasters: And there I want us to look, beginning in verse 22, at something that is very, very similar.
Doug McMasters: It says there, to take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.
Doug McMasters: Now, when you look at these two passages of Scripture, and knowing that Ephesians and Colossians hold a lot of commonalities, it might sort of conjure up in your mind this idea that Paul is saying exactly the same thing.
Doug McMasters: Maybe a little change of words, but he's basically saying the exact same thing.
Doug McMasters: But if you look at it very carefully, there's some nuances and some layers there in there that are different, and the differences do matter.
Doug McMasters: And so I want us to look at this.
Doug McMasters: So let's look at the Colossians one first, and then we'll go back to the Ephesians one.
Doug McMasters: And when you look at Colossians there, in verse 9, there's a verb that's translated there, and you can see it in the CSB.
Doug McMasters: It tells us, since you have put off the old man.
Doug McMasters: And that word since speaks to us about something that's already done, that it's a completed action, and that it's decisive.
Doug McMasters: This is already taken off.
Doug McMasters: And in the Greek there's a prefix to it that intensifies it.
Doug McMasters: So this taking off of the old man is not a loosening of your tie or maybe just a slipping off of your jacket.
Doug McMasters: This is talking about somebody who's taking a garment and just ripping it right off and casting it aside, and it's not going back on.
Doug McMasters: It's that kind of idea.
Doug McMasters: It's talking about something that's already happened.
Doug McMasters: At conversion, at the moment of your union with Christ, you were ripped out of the old self.
Doug McMasters: You were taken out of Adam, and you were put into Christ.
Doug McMasters: You were brought into a whole new realm, taken out of the kingdom of darkness, brought into the kingdom of light, transferred into the kingdom of the Son that God loves.
Doug McMasters: This is that kind of decisive movement of your person.
Doug McMasters: And so Paul here is not commanding the Christians to do something that they haven't yet done.
Doug McMasters: He's reminding them of something that's already been accomplished since you have put off the old man.
Doug McMasters: Now, take a look at verse 10.
Doug McMasters: And there things shift a little bit to what's happening in the present.
Doug McMasters: It tells us there, you are being renewed, and I've skipped a little bit, and I hope you notice that.
Doug McMasters: So the decisive action is past, but there is an ongoing process in the present.
Doug McMasters: Now I want you to notice what I passed over, that you have put on the new self.
Doug McMasters: That too is a decisive action that's already happened.
Doug McMasters: And so, sandwiched in between this having put off the old man and in having put on the new self, there is within the middle of this an ongoing process of renewal.
Doug McMasters: And notice how that happens.
Doug McMasters: It's stated with this beautiful precision: it is toward the full knowledge, according to the image of the one who created it.
Doug McMasters: Now, does that not resonate with our Imago Day series?
Doug McMasters: We're going right back to Genesis chapter one.
Doug McMasters: We're going all the way back to that moment of first creation.
Doug McMasters: This image that we've talked about has been fractured by the fall, distorted by sin, is now being restored.
Doug McMasters: And it's not being restored by human effort, it's being restored by God's divine activity, in which He's progressively bringing us into the full knowledge of God, into the image of what humanity originally was meant to be.
Doug McMasters: Now, with that in mind, let's go over to Ephesians for a second.
Doug McMasters: I wish I could stay there longer, but we can't.
Doug McMasters: Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 22.
Doug McMasters: There are three infinitives there, and I know I'm causing some of you to remember the bad days of your English grammar lessons there, but they describe the same sort of condition.
Doug McMasters: First of all, the putting off of the old self, decisive, the putting on of the new self, decisive, but in the middle again, standing there is the engine of the whole process.
Doug McMasters: Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
Doug McMasters: No longer decisive and done, but now continuous and ongoing renewal.
Doug McMasters: The putting on and the putting off are positional realities.
Doug McMasters: You have put off, you have put on.
Doug McMasters: They are the grounds of your conversion.
Doug McMasters: And the renewal is the daily progressive outworking of what is already true about you in Christ.
Doug McMasters: You might remember last week I talked about a lady who grew up in a commoner's home.
Doug McMasters: She was unused to the courts, separate from the things that were happening there in the royal house.
Doug McMasters: She had no understanding of its ways and its manners.
Doug McMasters: And the prince comes out of the castle and he finds her and he marries her.
Doug McMasters: And as soon as she said, I do, and he said, I do, she is now a princess.
Doug McMasters: She doesn't know the manner of the court, she doesn't know the ways around the castle.
Doug McMasters: She doesn't know the language.
Doug McMasters: All she knows is the way she grew up.
Doug McMasters: And yet she is someone completely different.
Doug McMasters: She is now a princess.
Doug McMasters: She is part of the royalty.
Doug McMasters: And the rest of her life is learning how to take on what she already is.
Doug McMasters: She's learning to be that princess.
Doug McMasters: And this is what this is talking about.
Doug McMasters: We have been moved away from the old man, the old self, the in Adam, the kingdom of darkness.
Doug McMasters: And now we've been brought into the kingdom of light and the kingdom of love, the kingdom of Christ.
Doug McMasters: We have been put into Christ, the new man.
Doug McMasters: And so here we find ourselves being renewed.
Doug McMasters: Now I want you to notice with close scrutiny just how precise this is.
Doug McMasters: Look at what it has to say.
Doug McMasters: It tells us here that we are to be renewed in our minds.
Doug McMasters: The spirit of your minds, the attitude of your minds.
Doug McMasters: This is the place of the battleground.
Doug McMasters: This is the theater, if you will, of transformation.
Doug McMasters: This is where it happens.
Doug McMasters: It's the mind that still operates according to the old patterns of thinking.
Doug McMasters: And as they're confronted by the truth of God, begin to take on the new patterns of thinking into the realm in which we've now been placed.
Doug McMasters: It is in the mind that the deceitful desires of the old kingdom still ring, and our ears, sadly, are too attuned to what it used to tell us, and we would listen to.
Doug McMasters: And there it is, crying over the walls into the new kingdom.
Doug McMasters: And he's saying, Tune your ears to the knowledge of God in your mind.
Doug McMasters: The process of sanctification starts there.
Doug McMasters: It's not behavioral modification by simply practice this and then you'll do it.
Doug McMasters: It's about spiritual renovation that begins in our thinking.
Doug McMasters: It is the Spirit of God through the Word of God in the interior thoughts and understandings and mindsets of the believer that were changed.
Doug McMasters: This is why Romans chapter 12 says this: Do not be conformed to this age.
Doug McMasters: Don't be pressed into its mold, but rather be transformed by the renewing of your what?
Doug McMasters: Mind.
Doug McMasters: Your mind.
Doug McMasters: So let me give you just an echo out of the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: We don't need to turn there, but in Zechariah chapter 3, there's one of the most striking scenes in Old Testament prophecy.
Doug McMasters: Joshua the high priest is standing there before the messenger of the Lord, and right next to him is the accuser.
Doug McMasters: Okay?
Doug McMasters: Imagine that.
Doug McMasters: The high priest standing before the messenger of the Lord, and the accuser right next to him.
Doug McMasters: And Joshua the high priest is standing there clothed with filthy clothes, it says in verse 3 of chapter 3 of Zechariah.
Doug McMasters: And that word filthy is not like you got some spaghetti stains on your shirt.
Doug McMasters: It is a rather vivid and disgusting image because what the filthy clothes are are excrement.
Doug McMasters: He is soiled with excrement all over his high priestly clothes.
Doug McMasters: This is a comprehensive defilement and is an image to represent the people of God represented by the high priest that are covered with the overt smell and appearance of their sin.
Doug McMasters: It's odious, right?
Doug McMasters: And what does the Lord tell him to do?
Doug McMasters: Uh, here's a tissue.
Doug McMasters: Uh, could you clean yourself up before you come in here?
Doug McMasters: Does he tell him to do that?
Doug McMasters: Not at all.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't tell Joshua to clean himself up, he doesn't hand him a basin and a towel and saying, here's where you need to go get things changed.
Doug McMasters: He tells him this in verse 4 take off your filthy clothes.
Doug McMasters: And then he speaks directly to Joshua in that same verse and says, This I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with festal garments, wedding dresses, wedding attire, the celebratory whiteness of celebration and enjoyment.
Doug McMasters: And moments later in verse 5, a clean turban is put on his head, and he is clothed while the messenger of the Lord is standing by.
Doug McMasters: There's that putting off, putting on picture right there in the prophet.
Doug McMasters: Now notice it was God doing it, removing the stench and the sight of the filthiness of sin, and giving him the clothes that were right for being in the presence of God.
Doug McMasters: In the early church, this imagery was actually practiced.
Doug McMasters: In ancient baptistries, and they found this in an excavated baptistry in Ephesus, archaeologists had found robing chambers right next to baptismal pools.
Doug McMasters: And what would happen is baptismal candidates would literally take off a robe and then step into the water of baptism and then come out of the water and be clothed with a white robe.
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: And the architecture matches that.
Doug McMasters: They would have the dressing rooms, the baptismal pool, and the robing chamber.
Doug McMasters: There they found that in archaeology in Ephesus.
Doug McMasters: So when Paul is speaking here, I wonder if that practice wasn't already in place during the New Testament era.
Doug McMasters: If it was, these people would have really understood exactly what Paul was saying, having already put off the old man and having already put on the new, now that I'm dressed in the white robe, I'm learning to live according to the dress I have.
Doug McMasters: And here we are tonight.
Doug McMasters: Some of us know that that old garment has been removed.
Doug McMasters: We are a new creature in Christ.
Doug McMasters: But we also know that when Tuesday arrives, there's the possibility of those old patterns of our life reasserting themselves.
Doug McMasters: We get on the road, we're headed to work, and that guy cuts us off.
Doug McMasters: And we've got a few words we're used to saying, and they come rushing to our head.
Doug McMasters: The old ways of thinking, the old reflexes, the old anxieties, the old self-reliances, they surface.
Doug McMasters: And when they do, you wonder, am I changing?
Doug McMasters: Is this process actually happening?
Doug McMasters: Think about it this way.
Doug McMasters: A patient goes in and they have a major surgery, and they've had a hip replacement.
Doug McMasters: And the surgeon is already done to work, the old joint has been removed, a new joint has been put in, the surgery is done, and the surgeon is saying it's a success.
Doug McMasters: And as soon as you stand up, you will go, Oh, that hurts.
Doug McMasters: What is it that's happening?
Doug McMasters: The muscles haven't learned to cooperate with the new joint yet.
Doug McMasters: They're still used to trying to compensate with the weaknesses of the old joint.
Doug McMasters: But now that the surgery is there, it's done.
Doug McMasters: And that old limp reasserts itself.
Doug McMasters: And it's not because the surgery hasn't happened, it's because the muscles need to be trained to move according to the new joint.
Doug McMasters: And so the physical therapist said, Let's get you moving, let's get you walking, let's get those muscles attuned to the new you.
Doug McMasters: That's sanctification, if I can use that as an analogy.
Doug McMasters: The decisive acts have been accomplished.
Doug McMasters: You've been united with Christ.
Doug McMasters: Your old self has been stripped away.
Doug McMasters: You've been brought into the new self, who is Christ, and the renewal is ongoing.
Doug McMasters: It's daily and it's sometimes painful, but it's always the purpose work of the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: He is conforming you to what is already true about you in relationship to your position with Christ.
Doug McMasters: And the implications of this is not simply the Christian life waiting for a future deliverance from sin, or a matter of pretending that the struggle with sin doesn't exist, but it's a matter of seeing that renewal as it's already underway.
Doug McMasters: So if you're a new believer, you shouldn't be surprised by the gap that you know of what's true of you and what you're going to experience in your daily life.
Doug McMasters: There's a lot of new renewal of your mind that is going to be taking place.
Doug McMasters: And that gap there is not an evidence that you're not converted, it's the evidence of what God.
Doug McMasters: Is bringing you into more and more each day.
Doug McMasters: If you're a mature believer and you feel kind of stuck or stale, or perhaps feeling like renewal isn't actually happening, don't think of it like regression, but God making it aware that he is drawing you further than where you're at.
Doug McMasters: That he loves you just as you are, but he loves you so much he won't keep you as you are.
Doug McMasters: He will bring you into conformity with Christ.
Doug McMasters: And so he calls us to press into the scriptures, to allow the word of God to adapt and to change us, to confront those settled patterns.
Doug McMasters: And so what you can do is get into the word and pray this.
Doug McMasters: May the word have its transforming effect in me as I read it.
Doug McMasters: May it renew the spirit of my mind.
Doug McMasters: May it give me new desires and increased inclinations and a longing to be drawn more and more into the likeness of Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Now that is the process.
Doug McMasters: Now we want to talk about the power that is there.
Doug McMasters: So let's go to Galatians chapter 5.
Doug McMasters: Galatians chapter 5.
Doug McMasters: If the renewal of our mind is the engine of sanctification, and the putting off and putting on describes the daily shape of our Christian life, then where does the power come from?
Doug McMasters: That's the question we're going to answer.
Doug McMasters: And one thing we need to know is that information alone is not transformation.
Doug McMasters: Merely knowing something doesn't change us, and we know that.
Doug McMasters: But look at Galatians chapter 5 and verse 22.
Doug McMasters: The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Doug McMasters: Against such things there is no law.
Doug McMasters: Now, before we go any further, I want to draw a contrast here by taking a look at verse 19.
Doug McMasters: Paul there, which he has just finished talking about in these verses, lists what he calls the works of the flesh.
Doug McMasters: Now, do you hear a difference there?
Doug McMasters: Works of the flesh, plural, multiple, fragmented, disjointed acts of rebellion, and they're listed there.
Doug McMasters: These are produced actions, works, effort-based, scattered, disjointed.
Doug McMasters: But when Paul turns to the what the Spirit produces, he does not say fruits of the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: He says fruit of the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: One unified, organic, interconnected reality.
Doug McMasters: This is not a list of nine separate qualities where you could say, you know, my self-control's doing pretty well, but my goodness, my gentleness needs some help.
Doug McMasters: He's not saying that.
Doug McMasters: What he's saying is, this is the fruit of the Spirit with nine expressions, but it's one action because you don't get love without joy, and you don't get patience without gentleness, and you don't get self-control without faithfulness.
Doug McMasters: They all come together.
Doug McMasters: They grow together because they come from a single source.
Doug McMasters: And that source is not us.
Doug McMasters: The source is the Spirit of God dwelling within us to produce his own life in display of the character of Christ in our daily experience.
Doug McMasters: Now feel the difference between the two.
Doug McMasters: The flesh works and it produces sin.
Doug McMasters: The spirit produces fruit, something that grows organically from a life that is not our own.
Doug McMasters: The difference between works and the fruit of the spirit are like the difference between a factory and an orchard.
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: You go into a factory and you labor in the still mill and you go behind a machine and you stamp out the products, and you come out of there exhausted.
Doug McMasters: And the products are your sin.
Doug McMasters: But you go into an orchard and you don't make the fruit happen.
Doug McMasters: Yes, you might tend the soil and water the roots, but the life of the tree is what produces the fruit.
Doug McMasters: This is the fruit of the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: It's not a product of our discipline.
Doug McMasters: It is the evidence that God's life is flowing through us, and He is producing His fruit.
Doug McMasters: Now, hold on to that thought.
Doug McMasters: Let's go just a couple pages away from Philippians chapter 2.
Doug McMasters: Philippians 2.
Doug McMasters: Verse 13, 12 and 13.
Doug McMasters: And Paul gives here us the theological architecture that holds this together for us.
Doug McMasters: Therefore, my dear friends, just as you've always obeyed, so now not only in my presence, but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Doug McMasters: For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his own good pleasure.
Doug McMasters: This is one of the most carefully balanced statements in all of Paul's writings.
Doug McMasters: And if you lean too heavily one way or the other, you're going to distort it.
Doug McMasters: It has to be held in balance.
Doug McMasters: And what we find out here is that there's genuine human responsibility, that we are to be active in working out our own salvation.
Doug McMasters: Salvation and sanctification are sanctification, it's not passivity, it's not quietism, it's not sitting in your chair waiting for God to do something to you.
Doug McMasters: And it's certainly not what I heard in a church in Southern California where someone said, God put him in a trance for three days and he came out sanctified.
Doug McMasters: It's not that passive.
Doug McMasters: But when it comes to the ground and the foundation and the reason for that imperative for us, we are told this for it is God who is at work in you.
Doug McMasters: That energy that leads us is God's.
Doug McMasters: And what that energy does is it produces the willing and the working.
Doug McMasters: When you stop and you sit with someone and say, Let's pray now, that prompting is God's active working in you for his own good pleasure.
Doug McMasters: When you say, I want to change this action or this habit or this thought or this pattern in my life, even if the change feels slow, even if it feels like failure more than success, the very desire and the movement toward that is God working his work in you to both will and to work according to his good pleasure.
Doug McMasters: This energy is God's.
Doug McMasters: We're not told to walk by the Spirit in order to get the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: We're told to walk by the Spirit because the Spirit already lives within us, and the life is already flowing into our life.
Doug McMasters: And so the Christian motivation is not one of guilt, it's not one of fear.
Doug McMasters: It's taking on board this breathtaking truth that God's life is active within us, that He is doing something, the transformation of our person.
Doug McMasters: So let me just sort of bring us into a couple places.
Doug McMasters: If we're a parent, exhausted, feeling a little thin, aware that you might have been a little short with your children this afternoon, in a way that didn't reflect the fruit of the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: The Bible doesn't say try harder tomorrow.
Doug McMasters: It says God is at work in you, both to transform your desire and to give you the strength.
Doug McMasters: Your job is not to manufacture patience within you.
Doug McMasters: Your job is to remain connected to the vine, to walk in step with the spirit, to return to Christ when you've wandered, to trust that the fruit is growing when you don't see it.
Doug McMasters: If you're a young person and you're trying to figure out who you are, what your identity is, caught in the middle of comparison traps that social media has weighed down upon your conscience, and you're measuring yourself against those curated images that aren't even real about the people that are there in front of you, you're not left to simply construct an identity.
Doug McMasters: You've already been given one.
Doug McMasters: You are in the kingdom of God.
Doug McMasters: You are in Christ.
Doug McMasters: And if you are in Christ, the Spirit is at work within you.
Doug McMasters: And if we're here tonight and we're in the middle of a season of difficulty or perhaps even suffering, when it feels like the fruit is absent, when it feels like the joy is dim, when it feels like the peace has gone, let me say this.
Doug McMasters: Fruit grows in those seasons too.
Doug McMasters: Yes, just as we have now in spring, blossoms, but there are also seasons of dormacy.
Doug McMasters: There are seasons in which it looks like the tree is dead, but that tree is not dead.
Doug McMasters: The roots are still drawing water, the life is still present, and in God's time, that tree is going to blossom and it is going to bloom and it is going to grow and produce glorious fruit.
Doug McMasters: The Spirit has not left you.
Doug McMasters: He is working even in the difficult times to prepare you for a season of fruitfulness.
Doug McMasters: And that leaves us with one more point.
Doug McMasters: The process, the power, and then the completion, the perfected image and glory.
Doug McMasters: So we come to this final movement.
Doug McMasters: Last week we started with the people of God being made a new creation.
Doug McMasters: We moved to the purpose of God so that we might be conformed to the image of his son.
Doug McMasters: We trace the means by beholding that glory of Christ in the new covenant and being transformed by the Spirit as we gaze upon that glory.
Doug McMasters: Tonight we've walked through the process, the renewal of our mind, the power of the Spirit, but now we end at our destination.
Doug McMasters: The completion.
Doug McMasters: Let's turn to first John 3 and verse 2.
Doug McMasters: Dear friends, we're God's children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed.
Doug McMasters: We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.
Doug McMasters: Now notice how this builds the argument.
Doug McMasters: First of all, our present identity.
Doug McMasters: We are God's children now.
Doug McMasters: Not we will be God's children.
Doug McMasters: It's not aspirational, it's a settled present reality.
Doug McMasters: You are God's child right now, at this moment.
Doug McMasters: You're His.
Doug McMasters: But then there's a tension.
Doug McMasters: What we will be has not yet been revealed.
Doug McMasters: There's something coming.
Doug McMasters: Something coming that is connected to our present identity, that is real, and our future destiny will exceed the capacities that we have at this moment to fully appreciate.
Doug McMasters: It's beyond what we can ask or think.
Doug McMasters: However, we have some idea.
Doug McMasters: Because he says, when he appears, we will be like him and we will be able to see him as he is.
Doug McMasters: And there is that idea of conformity.
Doug McMasters: We know that we are gods.
Doug McMasters: We don't know quite all what that means, but we do know that we will be conformed to the image of Christ himself.
Doug McMasters: We will bear his likeness, not partially and then not progressively, not approximately, but fully and completely and finally conform to his image.
Doug McMasters: And we will see him as he is.
Doug McMasters: The beautific vision to see God in his glory, something that hasn't been done on earth, accomplished in an instant, when all of that process of sanctification has been realized in its complete fullness, to see him and to be like him.
Doug McMasters: Now let's go to Romans eight.
Doug McMasters: Why is this not just simply a wistful thing?
Doug McMasters: Well, we mentioned it last week, but we need to hear it again.
Doug McMasters: In verse 30 of chapter 8.
Doug McMasters: He though well begin in verse 29.
Doug McMasters: For those he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters, and those he predestined, he also called, and those he called, he also justified, and those he justified, he also glorified.
Doug McMasters: This is what theologians call the golden chain of redemption.
Doug McMasters: It starts with God in his predestination, and it moves through God's purposes all the way to glorification.
Doug McMasters: A certainty that is as certain as your justification.
Doug McMasters: And there's no break in this chain.
Doug McMasters: There's not a link that is severed.
Doug McMasters: Every single person that has been predestined, he calls, and everyone he calls, he justifies, and everyone he justifies, he glorifies.
Doug McMasters: Every single one.
Doug McMasters: There's not a dropout between predestination and glorification.
Doug McMasters: There's no casualties along the way, because it's God who began this work who is going to complete it.
Doug McMasters: Not because we're strong enough to hold on, but because he's faithful enough never to let go, which is where Paul finishes the chapter.
Doug McMasters: Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Doug McMasters: So let's finish by looking at Philippians 3.
Doug McMasters: Philippians 3.
Doug McMasters: And here we'll stop because we'll see the substance of that glorification in this passage.
Doug McMasters: In verse 20 and 21, chapter 3.
Doug McMasters: Our citizenship is in heaven, and we're eagerly awaiting for a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.
Doug McMasters: It's not just simply a spiritual metaphor or poetic abstraction.
Doug McMasters: Paul is talking about your body.
Doug McMasters: You know, the one that aches, the one that ages, that one?
Doug McMasters: The body that bears all the marks of the fall, disease, and disability and decay, and eventually death.
Doug McMasters: That body, that body is going to be transformed.
Doug McMasters: And it is transformed into the conformity of the body of Christ's glory through the resurrection and the ascension into the heavenlies.
Doug McMasters: Your body will be made like his resurrected, glorified body.
Doug McMasters: And notice the power that accomplishes it.
Doug McMasters: The language of this will take your breath away.
Doug McMasters: By the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.
Doug McMasters: The power that holds the universe in its order.
Doug McMasters: Did you catch that?
Doug McMasters: Every single, every single element, every single molecule, every single atom, every single particle, every single subparticle that operates within the scope of God's sovereign control is the power that will transform this into the likeness of Christ.
Doug McMasters: The same power that governs the motions of the galaxies and sustains the existence of everything is the power by which God will bring you into a glorified new creation.
Doug McMasters: So there it is.
Doug McMasters: The whole story.
Doug McMasters: Genesis 1.
Doug McMasters: God created humanity and his image.
Doug McMasters: And here it is again, that image, now once again, whole, unbroken, and radiating with the very image of God Himself.
Doug McMasters: What a wonderful thing.
Doug McMasters: Sanctification is a process along the way to this movement.
Doug McMasters: It's not the end of our Christian life, it's simply part of the process.
Doug McMasters: And the scriptures tell us this: just as we born the image of the man of dust, so we will also bear the image of a man from heaven.
Doug McMasters: 1 Corinthians 15, verse 49.
Doug McMasters: And in Revelation 21 and 22, the dwelling of God is with man, and they shall see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, the image restored, and the likeness complete.
Doug McMasters: So let's just sort of pull all of today together for a second.
Doug McMasters: And think about a galler or not a gallery, but an artist's studio.
Doug McMasters: And there is a block of marble.
Doug McMasters: And the artist is standing there before the raw stone.
Doug McMasters: What does the artist see?
Doug McMasters: What no one else sees?
Doug McMasters: The finished.
Doug McMasters: Product.
Doug McMasters: Before the first chip falls, that artist knows exactly what's hiding inside that marble block.
Doug McMasters: And so the artist begins.
Doug McMasters: She strikes with a chisel.
Doug McMasters: It's not a random strike.
Doug McMasters: It's not a careless strike.
Doug McMasters: It's a precision strike.
Doug McMasters: Every blow purposeful.
Doug McMasters: Every removal intentional.
Doug McMasters: Some strikes large and dramatic.
Doug McMasters: But all of it operating on the stone as sections of it fall away.
Doug McMasters: Other strikes are fine, detailed, delicate.
Doug McMasters: And if you weren't paying close attention, perhaps even imperceptible.
Doug McMasters: But the artist knows what she's doing.
Doug McMasters: To the untrained eye, watching from the outside, you might look at the process and say, it's a pretty violent process.
Doug McMasters: Walking away with a chisel and a hammer.
Doug McMasters: But the sculptor knows what she's doing because she's already seen the finished product before she began.
Doug McMasters: And she doesn't stop.
Doug McMasters: She doesn't take her chisel and her hammer and say, that's close enough.
Doug McMasters: Because she isn't going to finish until she obtains what she started to make.
Doug McMasters: You see, God is not experimenting with our life.
Doug McMasters: And he is not going to settle for where we're at.
Doug McMasters: Because he has already seen the finished image before the beginning.
Doug McMasters: And he's going to bring that image into full completion.
Doug McMasters: That is our glorification.
Doug McMasters: That is the promise.
Doug McMasters: And it doesn't depend upon our performance.
Doug McMasters: It's because the sculptor is at work.
Doug McMasters: He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: Philippians 1, 6.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Father, we thank you for this eternal hope that is ours.
Doug McMasters: That it is not based upon how optimistic we might be or how wishful we can utter our desires.
Doug McMasters: But we can hold it with a settled confidence and expectation that what you've promised you are going to perform.
Doug McMasters: And so, Father, may our heart be anchored in that.
Doug McMasters: And Lord, for today and tomorrow and the next and all the days that we have, let it be that which steadies us, even though the process of sanctification might feel painful or slow or even stalled.
Doug McMasters: Let it sustain us when we feel like the power of transformation is outside our grasp.
Doug McMasters: To know that what you started, you'll finish.
Doug McMasters: It's certain because you're faithful.
Doug McMasters: That's why you promised it.
Doug McMasters: And Father, with that in mind, we thank you that you would take us, who by our own wicked works and deeds have produced works of the flesh and have lived within them.
Doug McMasters: That you would take us, and you would desire to renew your image in us, so that we might be renewed according to the image of our Creator.
Doug McMasters: And we thank you in the name of Christ.
Doug McMasters: Amen.