Let us hear the Word of God as we find it in Paul's letter to the Romans, reading from the 8th chapter and at the 18th verse. Romans chapter 8, reading from the 18th verse. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waited for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope, for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose, for whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. Moreover, Whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? So reads the word of the living God. Please turn with me in your Bibles to the eighth chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans and to the 29th verse. Romans 8 verse 29. For whom he, that is God, did foreknow, did love from eternity, he also did predestinate. to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." In our previous reflections and studies on the theme of this conference, Living the Christlike Life, We've noted that the source of the Christlike life is union with Jesus Christ. Only as the branches are united to the vine can they share in the life of the vine. We notice secondly that the Christlike life is a life that experiences conflict. There is the conflict from the world. There is the conflict from the devil. But there is that unceasing internal conflict with indwelling or remaining sin. And if we are ever to grow into the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and exhibit thereby something of the lineaments of the likeness of Jesus Christ, We will need to be men and women and boys and girls who make it the great business of their lives to be killing sin. Let sin be killing us. And this is an unceasing conflict. This is an unceasing warfare that we are to wage. We cannot let up for a moment. It's something that we must give ourselves to relentlessly. This is what our Lord Jesus Christ meant in the garden when He said to His disciples, watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. So the source of the Christlike life is union with Christ. The conflict of the Christlike life is doing battle with indwelling sin. And then, as we saw this morning, the pattern of the Christlike life is the servanthood of Jesus Christ. Let this mind be in you or among you that was also in Christ Jesus. who being in the form of man did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself of no reputation. He emptied himself, literally himself he emptied, taking the form of a servant. It's the only place you'll ever find subtraction by addition. He emptied himself. He made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant. That was the nature of his self-emptying, taking the form of a servant. And the pattern of Christlikeness is the pattern of self-denying servanthood. That's the great hallmark of our Savior's life. I've come from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. I've come to give my life a ransom for the many. He came not to please Himself, but to serve the good of those entrusted to Him by His heavenly Father. But now this afternoon, I want to reflect with you as we close this very brief little series on the goal of the Christlike life. And we find that set before us very strikingly in verse 29 of Romans chapter 8, for whom he did foreknow. And I think there the the character or the nature of that foreknowledge could perhaps best be expressed by saying whom he did love from times eternal, whom he did choose to love in the sovereignty of his grace from times eternal, he did predestinate that they might be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And here in this 29th verse, we find in a wonderfully compressed way the two great purposes of God that dominate the pages of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. if you were to read through the Scriptures, you would find yourself increasingly becoming aware that there are two great themes, related themes absolutely, intertwined themes, and yet distinctively different themes that run like golden threads through the whole Scripture. There is, first of all, what we might call God's proximate purpose. And God's proximate purpose, we are told here, is to conform those He did foreknow in times eternal. He predestinated them. He decreed and determined that they would be conformed to the image of his son. God's proximate purpose in the unfolding of redemptive history is to conform a people whom he loved in times eternal to the image and likeness of his son. God's predestination has a telos. It has an end omega point in view, and relentlessly, God, by His Spirit, pursues that telos, that omega point of purpose, which is the goal of making judgment-deserving sinners into the likeness of the God-man, Jesus Christ. That's what God has saved you for. He's not saved you to live a life of lukewarmness. He's not saved you and rescued you from His wrath and judgment in order for you or for me to live lives of self-indulgent ease. He has saved us in order to conform us into the very likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ, to make us creaturely analogical images of His perfect Son, the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Let me just say a few very brief things about this proximate purpose. First is this, that this is God's determined resolve. It is His predestinating purpose. God determined it, fixed upon it in times eternal. And if this is God's determined resolve, it ought to be the determined resolve of every believer to be conformed to the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if there is no determined resolve in our lives, Even though that determined resolve be punctuated at times with failure and weakness and indolence and sin, if there be no determined resolve that we conform to the determined resolve of the heavenly Father to conform us to the likeness of His Son, we need to ask serious questions about our Christian profession, because God has saved us unto holiness. This is God's determined resolve. Do you want to be in harmony with the heavenly Father? Then give yourselves determinedly with resolve, unyielding resolve, to being conformed, shaped, and styled into the likeness, the moral glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. The second thing we can say about this is that this determined resolve of the heavenly Father is the work of a lifetime. Now, the Lord could have in an instantaneous moment conformed us to the likeness of His Son, but for many reasons, some of which you know only too well, He has chosen not to. This is the work of a lifetime. It doesn't just happen. We don't just stumble upon it. We don't undergo one seismic experience that brings us into the possession of it. It is a resolve that is enacted in our lives as day by day we give ourselves afresh to becoming changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. That's why one of the marks of a healthy Christian, one of the great marks of a healthy Christian is a deep-seated sadness that they are so unlike their Savior. Sometimes I've had people coming to me and saying, you know, Ian, I'm just the poorest of Christians. I look at my life and I think, how unlike my Savior I am. And I just want to say to them, brother, sister, oh, I know exactly what you mean. But you know, that's a healthy sign. If we are content with the little that we have, there is surely something wrong with us, something aberrant deep within us. I saw in a fridge magnet some words, probably you know them well, don't criticize me, God is not finished with me yet. You know, it's a little banal, but there's a great truth at the heart of it. It's the work of a lifetime, being conformed to the likeness of Christ. And as I said, thirdly, this doesn't just happen. Don't be seduced by anyone who promises you a quick fix, who tells you that this experience or that experience or this church or that church will bring you out of the slough of despond and bring you out of the struggle and the battle. bring you to some higher plane where you are fully sanctified, run far from them as fast as you can. Avoid them like the plague. For when I read the Scriptures, I read the apostle Paul, that godly, holy man, right in the very midst of his letter to the Romans, O wretched man that I am. O wretched man that I am." It doesn't just happen. Sanctification, growth in likeness to Jesus Christ, which is what sanctification is, is processional. But then fourth thing is that one day God will perfectly consummate that predestinating purpose and fully and unimaginably conform us to the likeness of His Son, when He will transform our lowly bodies like unto the glorious body of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Because the Christian hope, as we read earlier in Romans 8, 24, 25, the Christian hope is not the immortality of the soul. That's Platonic and Greek. The Christian hope is the resurrection of the body. the reunification of body and spirit, the transformation of the whole man and the whole woman into the image of God defaced by sin, mangled by Satan, but now in Jesus Christ perfectly restored. Now, as I say, this is God's proximate purpose, and it's a great purpose, is it not? He sent His Son into the world to redeem us, to rescue us, to reconcile and restore us, and to renew in us the image of Jesus Christ, who is Himself the image of the invisible God, Colossians 1. We are to be like unto God. But that's only God's proximate purpose. God has a more ultimate purpose than that. And God's ultimate purpose is spelled out for us by Paul at the end of verse 29. He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son that, and it's beginning a clause of consequence, in order that, to this great end, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. The ultimate purpose of God does not terminate on you or on me or on any creature. God's saving purpose does not finally, ultimately terminate on anything or anyone but on His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a final end that is more ultimate than the glorification of the people of God. I find it very surprising when I read commentaries on Romans. I don't know how many I have. I might have 40, I don't know. A friend of mine's got 127 just in Romans. You might think, are there that many? There are. But what I find remarkable when I read those commentaries is how little space is devoted here to the omega point of God's predestination. Most of the time is spent explicating what foreknowledge isn't and what foreknowledge is, and there's a place for that. Foreknowledge has got nothing to do with God, as it were, presciently looking to the future and seeing who would believe in Him and then electing them. Nothing to do with that, and that's right and good. Foreknowledge has to do with God loving beforehand. choosing in His electing kindness and sovereign mercy out of the mass of fallen humanity a people to the praise of His glory. That's good. And then predestination is defended, and rightly so. Predestination isn't Islamic fatalism. It's the determined purposes of a gracious, sovereign, righteous, almighty King. And all of that is right, and all of that is good. but barely a word is devoted to what actually is the climactic omega point, ultimate goal of God's saving purposes, which is not the salvation of sinners, but the glorification and cosmic preeminence of His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Before we begin to develop that, let's sing together from Psalter 4, 2, 3 again, verses 4 and 5. Psalter 4, 2, 3, verses 4 and 5. On Calvary all day, who with their folly pray, to God's all-merciful creation, ♪ And most loving salvation ♪ ♪ The hope of Him we want ♪ ♪ For He alone is God ♪ ♪ Come, all ye gods drawn near ♪ ♪ And worship Him with fear ♪ By His dominion won. O Zion, then rejoice, When in her gates her voice The judgments of Jehovah Which thou hast for Fortuna. Her daughters take with her, For high above the earth. Thou who art God alone, Hast made thyself a throne. God's ultimate purpose in saving sinners is not the saving of the sinners, but the cosmic glory of His Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. And perhaps nowhere is this more dramatically pictured for us than in Ephesians chapter 1 at verse 10, where the apostle writes that, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him. Now, there isn't an English translation that I've come across that I think adequately highlights what this 10th verse is actually saying. There is one word and often two words that are strangely omitted. This is how I think the 10th verse should read. And if you have a Greek Testament in front of you, if any of you have, hopefully you can see the point I'm making. that in the dispensation of the fullness of time He, the Father, might gather together in one, under one head, all things again in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. So God's ultimate purpose, as Paul expresses it here in Ephesians 1.10, is to, in the fullness of time, to gather all things together under one head again, even Jesus Christ. You see, all things were created by him, through him, and, says Colossians 1.16, and for him. When God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing by the Word of His power, it was through the eternal Word of God. And Jesus Christ, as it were, is the eternal Son. The eternal Word was the constituted King of the creation. But sin entered in and defaced and defiled and deformed God's creation. God's saving purposes are cosmic. And God's purpose in Jesus Christ is again, again, ana kephalaio, if you know any Greek, ana, again, to head up, kephala, the head, to head up in Christ and under Christ, all things. And so we read in verse 29 of Romans 8, in order that he, the Lord Jesus might be the firstborn among many brethren. The word firstborn, as you know, has the idea of first by way of eminence. It's the idea of primogeniture. He is the firstborn. He is the preeminent one. And he speaks here of Jesus being the firstborn among many brethren. It's one of the great pictures of the gospel that God is creating a family for Himself and a bride for His Son. And Jesus Christ in that family is the elder brother. He is not only our husband, He is, counter-intellectually, our elder brother. You know those great words in Hebrews 2, isn't it? I will declare your praises among my brethren. Here am I and the children God has given me. That's why we don't need worship leaders in the church. We have a worship leader. He's called Jesus Christ, and he orchestrates the praises of God at the right hand of the Father. And he does so as our elder brother. It's a remarkable thought, I think I touched on it maybe tangentially yesterday, that John Owen brings out in volume two of his collected works, that thoughts of communion with the saints were the delight of the Savior's heart from eternity. He looked forward with anticipation, and language is strained when you come to think of this, but he looked forward with anticipation and expectation to having a bride to love. and to die for, and to have a family, as it were, where he would be the elder brother in that family. And all of that is comprehended in these words, that he, in order that he might be the preeminent one among many brethren. And you see what Paul is saying, that the goal, the determined, the predetermined goal of God, is the exaltation of His Son. One of the great delights a husband has is seeing his wife honored. When my wife is praised in any way, my heart soars. You know that, don't you? Your heart soars you think, rightly so, rightly so, and more if you knew, rightly so. And it's a pure joy because, in a sense, it's reflected joy. And so it is with the believer. What's the believer's greatest joy? When the Savior is being magnified, when people are honoring Christ, when they're speaking well of the Redeemer, when they're singing His praises, when they're honoring the God-man. That's where the believer's joy is at its sweetest, purest, and highest, is it not? Is it not? I hope it is for you. You see, it's reflected glory. God makes us into the likeness of His Son in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers, in order that people will see that we are but creaturely analogical reflections, saved creaturely analogical reflections, blood-bought, saved creaturely analogical reflections of the image of God, who is Jesus the Christ. Now, there is a self-interest in becoming more like Christ. There is a righteous self-interest, because nothing more gladdens God our Father than seeing the likeness of His Son in our lives. And His smile means everything. There is a righteous self-interest. The more like unto Christ, we become by the grace of God, by the grace of God alone. The more, as it were, the smile of the heavenly Father rests upon us, and there is a righteous self-interest, but it's not self-interest but Jesus' interest that is the Christian's absorbing preoccupation, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. So, I want this afternoon to leave you and to leave myself with a question. What is the great purpose that drives your life? There was a book written some years ago. I never read it. I quite liked the title, but I heard things about it, and I thought, no, I won't bother. The purpose-driven life. What's the purpose that drives your life? Is it the same purpose, if I can put it like this, I hope appropriately, is it the same purpose that drives the inner being of the heavenly Father to bring glory to the Son? Is that the purpose that drives your life? Or would your nearest and dearest, your wife, your husband, your children, your parents, your friends, would they be astonished to discover that you thought, that I thought, that the great purpose that drives our life is the cosmic glory of the Savior Jesus Christ? The Christ-like life That's what God's about in your life and my life. That's what he is pursuing relentlessly in every area of your life, as a husband, as a wife, as a son, as a daughter, as a father, a mother, a friend, as a scholar, as a would-be scholar, as an engineer, as a road sweeper, as a housewife, whatever it may be. If God, in His great grace, has brought you to His Son, Jesus Christ, then you can be sure of this. He has a relentless determination to make you like His Son. And He will not stop relentlessly pursuing that resolve until He conforms you to the likeness of His Son. And that's why we are called to walk in step with God. Paul writes to the Galatians, Galatians 5, keep in step with the Spirit. And if you know that context, Galatians 5 from verse 21 to the end, he's saying, how do you keep in step with the Spirit? You keep in step with the Spirit by mortifying sin and by cultivating Christlikeness. And at the end of the day, what are we going to say? We're going to say, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto your name be the glory. It's a very wonderful thing to see something of Jesus Christ in another's life. That's actually what brought me to faith in Jesus Christ. I had no Christian background whatsoever. I didn't know one verse in the Bible. Well, that's not quite true. I actually had memorized David's lament over Saul on Mount Gilboa because my teacher at school thought it'd be a good thing to do. Didn't know what it meant. How are the mighty fallen? Tell it not at gas. I knew nothing of the Bible. There was a boy at my school who was very, very different from me. I was in the academic stream, he really wasn't. I was really into sport, he wasn't too bothered. I was really into girls, he wasn't too fussed. But there was something about him that at first I thought was weird, then I thought it was odd, then I thought it was interesting, then I thought it was desirable. I didn't know what it was. Now, interestingly, years later we met and I said, you know, it's interesting, Albert, that the Lord used your life to bring me to Christ. You never spoke to me about Jesus. And he said, Ian, I was always speaking to you about Jesus. I don't remember him once speaking to me about Jesus. But I remember his life. I remember the something, I couldn't, I wouldn't know what it was. Someone said, well, what is it about his life? I don't know, he's just different. And late one Saturday night in Glasgow, I bumped into him in the city center. I'd been out, I think, on the town with a friend, and he had been at a gospel, whatever. And he said, why not come tomorrow afternoon to the young adults Bible class that I go to? I didn't have a Bible. I don't think I did. I said, well, okay, because I liked him. And a man preached in John 3, 16. I'd never heard that before. I'd never heard that God loved the world. I never heard that Jesus Christ died for sinners. And the Lord saved me. And it was a life, it was a life that impacted me. May God give us lives that impact this dark world. that maybe in the coming week someone will come to you, maybe not using these words, and they'll say, twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. And you can say, let me tell you about Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Let us pray. Our God and Father, we ask you to write your word upon our hearts. We pray, Father, that your word would not be lost to us. And we pray, gracious Holy Spirit, that you will make us more like our Savior so that he would have the preeminence in all things. And we ask it in his name and for his sake. Amen. Our offerings for the work of God's kingdom.