and we'll read verses 28 through 30. And if it appears we've kind of gotten stuck in this section, we have. But I trust that it'll be a great encouragement to you as we consider the chain of God's eternal love. Romans chapter 8, verses 28 Here now the reading of God's very word. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren, and whom he predestined, these he also called and whom he called these he also justified, and whom he justified these he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He who spared not his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall it be tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Just as it is written, For thy sake we are being put to death all day long. We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered, but in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principality, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus." Lord God, as we look at your Holy Word together, Lord, we beg that you would come by your Holy Spirit. And that, Lord, you would open our eyes and our minds to see and to understand more of your incredible love. That, Lord, it might be a source of great joy to our hearts. It might be a strong foundation to sustain us, to hold us. and strong encouragement and incentive to press on following Jesus. Lord God, please remind us this day of what it means to be a Christian, and make us that in Christ Jesus, so that you will be proud. In Jesus we ask for these blessings. Not because we deserve it, but because as little children we come pleading and begging for your presence, for your Holy Spirit to come and to bless our hearts with your gospel. Lord Jesus, have mercy upon us. Jesus, we cry unto you. If you'll turn on the main sheet that has the date and everything at the top, maybe this will give you just a little idea of where we are. Under Roman numeral 1, the length of the eternal chain of God's love for his children. Here are these incredible lengths and these particular things that God announces that he is at work doing. That's what forms the links of this chain that spans through the ages from eternity past to eternity future, back before the creation of the world. We see in the mind of God his plan to set his love upon us, his people, by name. And then these lengths of this chain span through the ages and take us all the way up to the eternal glories that we'll enjoy when we get to heaven that will never end. And this is great encouragement for the child of God to know that this kind of love that the Father has laid upon us, has bound us to himself with. That's a powerful change. And the old adage, no chain is stronger than its weakest link. So we've gone through now and looked at several of these links, two to be exact, and we're not quite finished with the second one. We only got through half of the sermon last Lord's Day morning. looking at this thing of what does the Bible teach us about predestination. And so we just saw a quick overview of God. The God of the Bible is a God who has a plan for history. It's a plan that he's working out. It's a plan that encompasses even the things that to our eyes appear to be sad and bad. that even those things God uses for good in the end to bless his people. Today, if you'll turn over on the back sheet, you'll see under B two things that are the stated goals of God in this particular passage of Romans 8. that he has in his mind for this thing of predestination. There are two things that he reveals to us, he has planned beforehand, that he is at work doing. Look at the text in Romans 8, verse 29. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. What is it that God determined, planned beforehand in regard to his children? Two things. He planned beforehand, thing number one, that his little children, believers in Jesus, might be conformed to the image of his Son. That's what the Father planned beforehand. specifically in this passage. He tells us two things that are involved in his plan. Conform to the image of his Son, that's the first thing. The second thing is that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. That's God's plan. Now, let's look at this stated purpose of God in his plan beforehand. How do you measure success? Think with me just a minute. How do you measure success? The world measures success radically different from the way God and his people ought to measure success. Consider John Winthrop, who in 1630 came from England over to America. He left when he was a little over 18 years old. He was about 20 years old when he came. He had become a judge over in England when he was 18 years old. He left a wealthy position. He was a man who had wealth and he left that and came to the United States. His wife was near the point of giving birth and so he left her there in England to come later on the way over. His oldest son, Henry, fell overboard on the ship and was drowned. He lost all of his possessions. They were ruined by weather. Soon after his arrival, the rest of his possessions that weren't earned down in the hold of the ship were burned up in a fire. He was elected governor, but unlike most politicians in our day and time, instead of using his office to line his own pockets, he spent his family wealth that had been given to him caring for the people in his district. How's that? When his wife came over, she died because of medical facilities. Was John Winthrop of success? Well, not by the world's standards. If you measure by the world's standards, this man really lost everything. He was elected governor 11 times during his life there in Massachusetts. But he was a man who was not a success by the world's standards. When he died, he had less possessions than when he started, and he knew much sorrow and heartache. The world measures success with how much popularity you have, how much of a good time you've had, how much ease you've had, how much power you've acquired, and how many things you have. Who has the most toys at the end of the game wins. But God doesn't measure success that way. In our day and time there are many who are wandering about aimlessly. They do not know what they are aiming for. Sadly, many who profess to be Christians in our day and time have gotten caught up in this empty pursuit of things and self and pleasure apart from the living God. But this passage tells us how God measures success, how he measures success specifically in the lives of his children, and how we ought to measure success in our own lives, our children's lives, and one another's lives. What does it mean to be a successful Christian? a successful person. There are two stated goals that God reveals to us here in this passage. One is that as individuals it is God's plan for those who belong to him in Jesus Christ to be conformed, shaped, molded, pressed into the image of his Son. And secondly, that this work of God is not going to be some isolated, remote event, but that he will be the firstborn, our Lord Jesus will be the firstborn among many brethren. So one of these goals focuses on what God is going to do in us personally, changing us as individuals. And the other goal stated here encompasses and shows a great multitude of people gathered together to love the living God. So let's look at these two goals. The first goal that God states here, that he is at work doing in his amazing love, verse 29, for whom he foreknew, those that he set his love upon, even before the foundation of the world, he also predestined. to become conformed to the image of his Son. What does it mean for a person to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ? What aspect of the image of Jesus are we talking about? Well, it's clear from Scripture that God does not cause everyone to look alike physically. In other words, it's not that when you get to heaven to be what it looks like, just a zillion, billion clones, and you can't tell one person from another. No. It is the desire and the plan and the goal of Almighty God to make his people like his Son, in that we bear his character, we have his standards, We have his heart for worship and trust and love for the living God. Now, let's look at some of the things that scripture tells us about being conformed to the image of his Son. What is Jesus like? What does he like? Well, come with me, first of all, to Hebrews 10. And we'll start reading in verse 1. For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices year by year which they offer continually make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year, For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, "'Sacrifice and offering thou hast not desired, but a body thou hast prepared for me.' whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come, in the roll of the brook it is written of me, to do thy will, O God." Now, here we have a quote from Psalm 40 about the Lord Jesus. And what is it that Jesus is about? What is it that characterizes our Lord Jesus? What is he like? That is, what God the Father is at work making us like. And you see there in verse 7, then I said, Behold, I have come, in the role of the book it is written in thee, to do thy will, O God. Now turn back with me to Psalm 40. We'll start reading in verse 6 of Psalm 40. "...sacrifice and meal offering thou hast not desired, my ears thou hast opened, burnt offering and sin offering thou hast not required, and then I said, Behold, I come in the scroll of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God, thy law is within my heart." Notice in verse 8, the Lord Jesus delighted to do the Father's will. He had and has a heart that delights in God and in God's revealed will. Turn with me to another passage in the book of 1 Peter, chapter 2. 1 Peter 2, verse 21. For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps." So here is a verse that tells us Jesus is first and foremost our Savior, but after he becomes our Savior, he is our pattern, he is our example. And it is the Father's express purpose, it's his goal stated here in Romans 8, that his plan is to make those who belong to his Son conform to his image. A Christian who has no desire to be like Jesus is not a Christian. Think about that. A person who claims to be a Christian, a follower of the Lamb, who has no desire whatsoever to be made like Jesus, is not really a Christian. The stated purpose of the God of heaven for his people is that they be conformed to the image of his son. And what is it about Jesus that we see here in verse 22 of 1 Peter 2? He committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. And while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. And so what is it that we are made like Jesus? Well, we're not the Savior. We can't die on the cross to save anybody's sins. But we can follow Jesus in several regards. We want to follow him. It is God's expressed purpose and stated that we become those who love God. That pretty well sums it up. We want to love God. We used to hate God, we used to be apart from God, estranged from God, but now we have a heart like Jesus who wants to do the Father's will, who wants to please God. Notice in verse 21, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps, who committed no sin. obeyed and fulfilled the Father's will. So a Christian is somebody who is being made more and more like Jesus. We want to learn his ways, we want to follow in his footsteps. Come with me to Psalm 23. What does the Good Shepherd do? A lot, everything, for the Christian. Look at verse 1. The Lord is my shepherd. And literally, the Hebrew says, because the Lord is my shepherd, then all of these things are mine. Because the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. What does the Good Shepherd do? He leads us in paths. What kind of paths? The paths of righteousness. And so to be conformed to the image of his Son means that how we think and view things changes. Instead of thinking in terms of what is against God, we now think in terms of what pleases my God. Let's look at another passage of scripture--"He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake." And here we have a description of the Lord Jesus. In Isaiah 11, verse 1, Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his root will bear fruit, and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And he will delight in the fear of the Lord. And he will not judge by what his eyes see, nor make a decision by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth. And he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked." The Lord Jesus delights in the fear of the Lord. He delights to worship and honor his Father. So a person who is a Christian is being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. We want and yearn with all our being to love God, to follow him, to please him, to serve him. Turn with me to the book of Romans, chapter 12. So how do we decide what's right and wrong? We want to go by what God says in holy scripture, and we want to do what pleases God as he has revealed himself in scripture. Look at Romans 12, verse 1. Verse 12, Romans 12, verse 1, "...I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God," he says, I beg you, on the basis of the mercies of God. I'm begging you, on the basis of the mercies of God, of all that God has shewed upon us in Christ Jesus, to do what? To present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service of worship. Here's the reasonable response to the mercies of God. You come and you throw yourself at God's feet and you say, Lord, I'm yours, lock, stock and barrel. You bought me with your son's blood and it's my joy to follow you now. That's the reasonable response. That's not being a fanatic. Okay? That's the reasonable, that's what the Bible says, the reasonable response is. You see, the world will tolerate religion. The world will tolerate religion. But Jesus isn't religion. He's God. And God requires and deserves our love, our devotion, our total commitment to follow. And that's what God says to us here, which is a reasonable service of worship. And notice verse 2. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. that ye may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. And so the Lord Jesus, he had a heart for God. He thought correctly as he viewed things, as he dealt with issues when he faced temptations. He had a heart that was devoted to his Father, and he sorted things out in terms of what was most important. And what was most important was pleasing his Father, doing his Father's will. It was more important to Jesus than his own ease and comfort. He was willing to be tempted in the wilderness. If it was the Father's good pleasure for him to go without food for 40 days and 40 nights, he was willing to do it. If it was the Father's good pleasure for him to not take any shortcuts to rescue fallen mankind, as Satan said, if you're really the Son of God, change these stones into bread. If you're really the Son of God, throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple here, because God has said that he will give his angels charge over thee, lest If you're really the Son of God, just bow down and worship me and I'll give you everything that you've come to take from me. Just bow down and worship me and I'll give you the kingdoms of the earth. You don't have to go to the cross and suffer, but Jesus was willing to do the Father's will, regardless of what it costs. That's what it means to be conformed to the image of the Son. That by God's grace in Christ Jesus we have more and more and more and more a heart for God. A desire, a delight to do the Father's will. That our minds are permeated with the standard of what God says is right and we shrink back from doing anything that would displease our Father. You tell the truth. You turn away from temptation. When somebody is dressed in an inappropriate way, what do you do? Stand there and watch? Let your mind go? Or do you say, no, that's not right. It's not right for my eyes to look at that. When you're watching TV, what do you watch? You let your mind just go and just be filled with all kinds of things that are against you. No, it's because it's against my God. And my God is good and I love him and I want to please him and I want to honor him with what I say and with how I think, how I treat other people in accordance with what God says is true and good and right. Turn with me over to the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. Verse 1, "'I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.' with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. Now, this expression, he ascended, what does it mean except that he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth. He descended as himself also, he who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to the mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming, but speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in all aspects into him. He is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body. for the building up of itself in love. And this I say, therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind. You see, a person who is apart from Christ has a futile mind, a darkened mind. You can't think straight. Remember Nebuchadnezzar? We saw Nebuchadnezzar. When Nebuchadnezzar refused to acknowledge that heaven reigned, Nebuchadnezzar couldn't think straight. And we've got a country full of people who can't think straight. Why? Because they deny God is rightful for us. Whenever people, no matter how smart they are, no matter how many earned PhDs they have, I don't care how much schooling they've had, if they deny that God is the creator and that scripture is his holy word and that he knows what's true and good and right, they are fools. Now, they may be real sophisticated folks, but they're even more dangerous than fools like me. Before I was converted, I was an unsophisticated folk. Well, let me tell you, sophisticated fools are dangerous. Sophisticated fools are dangerous, even more dangerous than just someone who's not sophisticated. They've honed their art of arguing and pressing and being more consistent with the application of rebellion against Almighty God. And they're going to do a whole lot more damage. And we've got a country full of people who can't think straight about the most basic things of life because they deny that God is God. And they want to put themselves in God's place. But a Christian is somebody who has come to know the mercy and the love of Jesus. And we yearn, because the Father has put this in our hearts, a desire to be like him. A desire to be like the one that we love. I've used this illustration before, but I'm going to tell you. I love chicken liver, fried chicken liver. Fried chicken livers are just, it's hard to get better than a good fried chicken liver. I know they're not good for you. I shouldn't like them. I don't eat them, but just on rare occasions when I just can't stand it, I sometimes go a year and not eat a fried chicken liver. Well, let me tell you something. My bride does not like liver. And when I first got to know her, I promise you, the first time I went to visit her, I didn't show up with a carton of fresh chicken liver. And so here honey, I've got something for you. Why? Because I knew she didn't like that. Well let me tell you, that's how Christian is. A Christian yearns to know what pleases the one that we love. And we order our thinking and our lives in regard to that. And so if God Almighty wants us to tell the truth and to not take what isn't ours, you think about you young people. You're tempted in school work sometimes to cheat. Why not? We've got a country full of people doing it. Why not? Because it's wrong in God's sight. See, that's why. And so this is a powerful, powerful, powerful truth. And that's how you measure success. See, you may not have the highest grade in the class, but in God's sight, you're going to be a success if you conform to the image of His Son. You may not. have illicit pleasure. You may not be doing drugs and flying high, but the world says you don't know where it's at, but in God's sight you're a success. You're doing what's right in the sight of God, and he'll bless you for it. Let's look at another passage of scripture, Philippians 2. There are a couple more things here in Ephesians before we press on. This I say together and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way. if indeed you have heard him, and have been taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life you lay aside the old self which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the Christian." What is it that a Christian is desiring? I want to be like Jesus. And what does that mean? It means the way you think. The priorities you have. That we now want to think what God says is true and good and right. Now think about it. We've got 80% of the people in this country professing to be Christians. 80% of the people in this country profess to be Christians. And what is this culture like? There's something not right. And what's not right is we have a country full of people who claim to be Christians but who don't know Jesus Christ. Because those who know Jesus Christ yearn to be like him. And why? Because that's the Father's plan. It is the Father's stated goal. It is his plan. He has predestined his children to be conformed to the image of his Son. And so if you claim to be a Christian and you have no desire to be like Jesus, you tell me what's going on. You don't know Jesus, because the Jesus of the Bible is at work changing and transforming rebels who hate God, like Henry Johnson used to be, to be people who love God. When I talk to some of my friends that I grew up with, my high school friends, they are amazed that I preach the gospel. You know why? Because I ain't what I used to be. Praise God. I'm different. By the grace of God. It's just what God has done. I assure you, I didn't change my way. God's plan and He is conforming me and Christian, He's conforming you to the image of His Son. You can learn the hard way or you can learn the easy way. I've had to learn a lot of things the hard way. Whoever came up with this adage, experience is the best teacher. Mercy, that's the hardest way to learn. The easiest way to learn is to go to the Lord in his holy word and say, Lord, what do you want me to believe and do? And that's what pleases you. That's what I want to do. That's what I want to be. All right, let's look at another thing about the Lord Jesus. Let's look at how he prayed. Oh, we can't leave there in Ephesians 4. One more thing. Therefore, laying aside falsehoods, speak truth, each one of you." How come we don't want to lie anymore? It's because God is a God of truth, and we want to be like Him, for we are members of one another. Verse 26, "...be angry, and yet do not sin." Do not let the sun go down on your anger. God doesn't want Christians to just pretend that evil and wrong doesn't exist, but he wants us to deal with wrongs about us in accordance with what God says is right. He wants us to have righteous anger. Better be careful. Awful easy to start out with righteous anger and end up losing it. Be angry and yet do not sin. God wants us to be angry about wrong, beginning in our own lives. Do you remember Matthew 7? What do you do when somebody does something wrong? God says, take the two-by-four, the log out of your own eye, and then go and you can help your brother with the stack of sawdust. Seek humility. Do not give the devil an opportunity, verse 28, let him who steals, steal no longer, but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need." Everything is different when you come to know Jesus. Instead of thinking, what can I get? We have a desire to give, to minister to the people around us. to not see who we can take to the cleaners. We got a country full of that. A country full. I mean, just think. You can't even do the most simple things in this day and time that people used to do because of lawsuits. You know why? Grief. Grief. People are afraid to do anything in this day and time. Because they're afraid they'll get sued. Why? It's not because of the court. It's not because of the law. It's because of greed in the hearts of people in this country. We've got a country full of people who profess to be Christians. Look at this nation. May God have mercy upon us. And God has predestined, he has planned beforehand that those whom he sent his love on will be predestined to this goal, to be conformed to the image of his Son. Let's look at one more thing, and we've got to hurry. Time flies when you're having a good time. You know one of the things that's going to characterize a person who wants to be like Jesus? It is whole soul commitment and trust in God. And there's nothing that expresses that trust and acknowledgment, I need God, I need fellowship with him, I need to be close to him more pointedly than prayer. Now, if the Son of God needed to pray to his father much and on a regular basis, what about us? How much more are we to be people who are constantly praying, talking to our God, telling him we love him, asking for help? praying that he would give us wisdom and insight. Let's just look at a few verses. Luke 15, verse 16. But he himself, Jesus, would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. How often would he do it? Often. Luke 6, verse 12. And it was at this time he went off to the mountain to pray, and he spent whole minutes in prayer to God. Is that what your Bible says? And he spent the whole night in prayer to God. Luke 9, verse 18. And it came about, while he was praying alone, the disciples were with him, and he questioned him, saying, Who do the multitudes say that I am? We just find Jesus praying all the time. Luke 11, verse 1, and it came about that while he was praying in a certain place, after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples. Verse 36, but keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place and to stand before the Son of Man. Luke 22, verse 32, but I have prayed, look at verse 31, time and time and behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not, and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. And so Jesus was permeated with doing the Father's will. He delighted to do the Father's will. He was one who trusted in the Father and yearned to be close to the Father. And it was exemplified in his prayers. Now, do you ever go through the day and you don't think about God? Do you ever go through the day and you just don't even think about Him? You get too busy. May God deliver us from this practical atheism. God has predestined that his children, who know the mercies and love of Jesus, be conformed to the image of his Son. And Jesus constantly was thinking and having communion and having fellowship with his Father. If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. Be like Jesus. who, although he existed in the form of God, did not recount or regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow." He had a servant's heart. And if you want to be like Jesus, you're going to have a servant's heart. What? My mama took a big chunk of her piece of pie and gave it to me. And you know what I did? I ate it. And I enjoyed it. Sort of. And I remember after I was eating the last bite, I thought, You just ate your mama's pie. And I can remember thinking, you know, why would mama do that? Why would she give me... I mean, this is good pie. I can understand if it was bad pie. You know, you don't mind sharing bad pie. Oh, here, let me give you mine. The whole thing. But it was good pie. Why would she want to share a real good pie with me? I didn't understand that. I do now. It was because she knew Jesus. And those who are conformed to the image of his Son have a servant's heart. We want to give of ourselves. Even when the pie is real good, we delight to give. That's God's plan. Now, if that's God's plan, what are we to think? How do we measure whether somebody is a success, whether somebody is a good Christian? Well, I'll tell you, one of the ways, one of the cheap ways is, are you growing to be like Jesus? Are you hungry to know the will of the Father? Are you hungry for the word of God? May God rekindle in your hearts, because of the love of Jesus, I want to know what pleases my God. May God rekindle in our hearts a dependence upon God that we are willing to pray. May God rekindle in our hearts a desire to be his servants, to spend ourselves, to minister to one another in our homes and among God's people, and then outside the walls of this church family, spending, giving of our lives for Jesus' sake. That's what it means to be conformed to the image of God, standing for what God says is even when the rest of the country is going the other direction. The way we think, the way we order our homes, the way we raise our children, all of these things are involved in being conformed to the image of Christ. We're going to look in closing at two verses, and we're not going to even get to point two. Look at Titus 1. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed. When the Lord called me to preach the gospel, one of the things that I immediately thought was, I don't want to become a preacher. You know why? Because some of the meanest, orneriest people I had ever had to deal with in my life were preachers. Hypocrites are a dime a dozen. Now Jesus didn't need any hypocrites. So when people say, well I'm not going to I'm not going to become a Christian because I know a lot of people who profess to be Christians, and I'm better off than they are. There's a lot of truth to part of that. Those who profess to love Jesus and don't really love him, you remember what Jesus said in Revelation 3? I would that you were hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth. Those are shocking words. Jesus said those words. Those who are cold toward the Lord, they're going to have less judgment. They're going to be judged, but they'll have less judgment than those who say just empty words, I love God, but really don't. But by the grace of God, here's what we are like. Look over in Titus 3. Verse 1, Remind them to be subject to rules, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be uncontentious, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. 4. We also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to be as lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. What changed us? But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by his grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. We want to be conformed to the image of his Son, more and more and more. Why? Because Jesus is loving, and we love him, and we want to love him better, and we want to love him more. Now, if you're here today and that's your heart's desire, may God encourage you and strengthen you and bless you, and may he make us more like Jesus. And if that's the Father's plan, Then a Christian says, Lord, I want to give myself to you and I want to not fight against your plan. I want to read the Bible. I want to use the means of grace. I want to attend worship services. I want to do everything to put myself in the way of your tools that you say you're going to use to do just that thing. I can remember when I was in school one night, I said, Lord, help me learn this uh, uh, history. I had tests the next day. And you know what I did? I put that book under my pillow. And I slept on it all night long. And you know how much of that history went into Henry's little pea brain that night? Not much. You know what I needed to do? I needed to read the history book. And then I needed to pray, Lord, help me learn the history lesson. And I fear that there are people who profess to be Christians who say, Lord, make me like Jesus, but they don't want to use the tools that God has said he's going to use. It doesn't do any good to have a Bible collecting dust. I mean, you can say, Lord, make me like Jesus, but he wants you to read the Word. He wants you to hunger for Him, to know Him better. May God stir us up to want to be conformed to the image of Christ, because that's God's plan. See, predestination doesn't make people lazy. And a lot of people who say it does, they say it's a damning teaching. Let me tell you, properly understood, It is a very sweet, it is humbling, but it is a very sweet and powerful teaching. To stir us up, we want to give ourselves anew to our Lord Jesus. What's going to keep you being a servant? Is it always fun to be a servant? Sometimes it is. People who love you in return. What about when you have somebody who doesn't love you in return? What's going to keep you going? The love of Jesus. The love of Jesus. The love of Jesus. It's so great. It's so wonderful. It confirms it. It controls it. It keeps it. It hangs on through it.