Before I start, I want you to just talk about a couple scriptures. I'm going to probably do this every time because when I'm talking about things like the two stages of biblical growth, the four steps of biblical growth, the process, you know, it can be like, well, come on, you know, this could be boring. We're just going to go through, you know, you can't do this mechanically. Right? Even though these are the stages in what God is doing and we can see this, it can take a lifetime. And that's what God is about in our lives. And it's up and down, right? And sometimes, you know, you go to the first and second stage and you're thinking about sanctification, but then you sometimes wonder if you're even saved. You have to go back and kind of look at the scripture. So what I'm trying to do is give you an outline and scriptures that you can use to think about your own life, where you are, And then how to help other people, maybe as parents, maybe a brother and sister in Christ, maybe a husband and wife, maybe coworkers, people in the church that are needing your help. We are to be doing this together. Romans 15 talks about how we are competent to do this work of encouraging, counseling each other in Christ. So, we want to know, what does the Bible say about what is this process of biblical growth? So, I want you to come there because, I mean, I trust when I speak it won't just be boring, but if it is, find a good place to nap. But just don't snore too loudly. I'll probably come over and shake you. But you could just look at this and go, oh, they're just these steps, but it's not that way. And it's a lifetime process. And if you're like me, I have to come back to this because I forget and I get busy with life. And I forget that the most important thing that I can do in biblical change is become like Jesus. Become like Jesus as a father, become like Jesus as a husband, become like Jesus as a pastor, become like Jesus as a neighbor. How does that happen? You just can't put on the yellow or green or blue bracelet, it says, what would Jesus do? That doesn't help. You know, it might help your mind to think about it. That doesn't help. You have to be doing these things with God's spirit. Now, if I just say, this is the process, these are the steps, you can think, okay, gotta do it. All right, pastor wants us all to pull up our spiritual bootstraps this weekend and change. No, this is the work of God. So, I just wanna go over and remind you every time of really quickly of two, The first is that even though it could seem like these are just steps, when we talk about Scripture and helping someone, 1 Thessalonians 5.14 is very helpful because it says this, And of course, in the scripture talking about brothers talking about if it's not less is not talking about just elders or deacons talking about all of us brothers and sisters. And that's this work of we help one another together and in 1st Thessalonians 514 it says we urge you brothers admonish the idol. So if someone's, and the word idle here doesn't mean just someone who's lazy and sitting there, but it's talking about those who are also, and if you look at the ESV, has a sub-word there, talking about those who are recalcitrant, those who are grumpy, those who don't want to obey. Those kind of people, you have to go and admonish them. But it says about so many other of us, encourage the fainthearted. Right? And so if someone's fainthearted and says, help the weak, you don't just go, you look at their Christian life, you see they're struggling, so you come in and go, well, you have forgotten the two steps. You need to get involved in them, right? It's not like that, right? So I don't want you to think as we're going through here that, you know, we've got these steps. All I have to do is whip them out of my spiritual backpack and go do this stuff with people, right? It's by prayer and the Holy Spirit, your tender care with them. But these are the things that need to go on. You see what I'm saying? And so you have the steps, but you just don't whip them at people. You come beside them, and you live with them, and you help them, and you encourage them. It's good to know them. You need to know them. You need to know them for your own life, right? So that, yeah, when someone is recalcitrant and just plain disobedient, you admonish them. But so many people are fainthearted. You encourage them. And a lot are weak. They're just struggling. And it says that we go to help them. And it says, be patient with them all. You know? And that's, you know, we tend to get, well, okay, I've been to that person two or three times. Shouldn't that be enough, right? But it says, be patient with them all. And then the reason you do this isn't just so we can look good. The motivation behind it isn't just, you know, well, I've got to be a good Christian. But the motivation, the reason for following it as a Christian is the gospel. So whether we're at home or away, and home really means in heaven, whether we get to heaven when we do that or away now, It says, we make it our aim to please Jesus. That's our goal in life, right? Not to please ourselves, but to please him. And the reason is because of the gospel. Why do we do that? Because he died for all, all of his people, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who's for their sake died and was raised. We do this because of the gospel. We do this in response to Christ's death for us. I hope not to go over that every time as long or as quickly, but I don't, you know, because these are steps and we're naming them and all that, we can just be rote and mechanical with these things. But what we do is say, Lord, this is the kind of things that you're doing in our lives, and we pray about it, and we help each other, and we bring the scriptures to apply. So, let me pray, and then we'll get into it. Father in God, I'm so thankful for this session allowing me to have this time. And as we think about what it is to change from the old man to the new man, from when we were out of Christ to being in Christ, we need your help. And so I would ask that, as you've promised, when the elders especially get together, two or three, to do discipline or to counsel, you're there. But you're also there whenever your church gathers. And you've promised to help your church and to guide us. And so we ask for that tonight for Christ's sake. Amen. All right. Tonight we're talking about the two stages. It says the goal of biblical change. What we're really going to be looking at is the two stages of biblical change. I haven't had a very personal conversation necessary with all of you to know something about me, but I'm a person that does not like change. For example, in our house, for Marg to have me to rearrange the furniture is a major life-changing event. And we think it's an amazing thing that we just last week celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary. So you can see that God's grace is at work in spite of us. In full disclosure of the truth, I want to take a minute to clarify what I just said to you. You see, I don't really mind if you change to fit the way I would like you to be. And I don't mind if my circumstances around me change so that they're more pleasant for me. Actually, what I don't like are the many hard and difficult and heartbreaking changes that occur this side of heaven. And in a broken world, or especially if you had, might even have the great audacity to ask me to change. In our time together, I hope to share with you some stories about change that I hope will be encouraging and picture what change is. But I'm going to share one of them that I thought was interesting and instructive to me, it's about Jay Adams. Jay Adams is a biblical counselor. I thought of bringing information from the recent CCNF, Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, and used pictures, I thought of going through and teaching you using the life of Peter, But I chose to use a lot of stuff that I learned with Jay Adams over the year. He's been very instructive in my life in talking about counseling and biblical change. It was after that I had a lunch with him at Grove City College long time ago that Mark and I started homeschooling. It was because of his book when I was taking my senior year in college, Abnormal Psychology, and I could see myself. No, I mean, when I was taking Abnormal Psychology that I realized that so much what psychology has, that psychologists are very, very good and sociologists and psychologists are great at watching and figuring out people and seeing trends and habits, but they can't get to the heart. They don't have the ability to get to the heart because they're not going to the heart. They think the heart is fine. There's not a problem with our heart. They don't start with the example of going from us being sinners. They go from that we're a blank slate, or maybe all that our problem happens from outside the world, but not from the heart. And so, Jay Adams has been really helpful over the years in my counseling, but also my preaching. So I'm very thankful for him, and I go back to this and many other things, but I go back to some of these basics and thinking about people's lives and where to go next, and that's why I wanted to have this weekend. Elders chose this topic to share with you. But in the fall of 1977, Dr. Jay Adams, who was the Dean of the Institute of Pastoral Studies and Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, was invited to address the faculty and student body at the University Psychiatric Clinic in Vienna, Austria. It was, to say the least, an interesting place for him to be speaking. because the psychiatric college is coming from a whole different place than he was as a Christian and doing biblical counseling. And so when he went there, he went and used this title that was very interesting to them because it said this, change them into what? Because every institution is about change. The military is about changing you. Schools are about changing you. Sports teams are about changing you. The media is about changing you. Politics is about changing a nation. All of these different groups are involved in changing our culture and changing the people that are in them. And so you have to ask, change them into what? And I would have been interested to have been there a long time ago and here, especially afterwards, because he answered in his last paragraph. In Vienna, Austria, he told the folks that started there in the Temple of Psychiatry and Psychiatric teaching in Vienna where Freud and his system of psychoanalysis got its start, he ended this way. He said this, so it's always important to ask them this question which I began with, change them into what? And then his answer was this, And it's an answer that we need to know if we're going to help any man or any woman or any boy or any girl. It's this. You're planning to help people, fine, right? All of these groups, especially doctors, especially psychoanalysts, especially people in social work, they're all involved in change. The question is that you're planning to help people, that's great. We're glad for people who are involved in that. But that means changing them, and the question is not only how, but most basically into what? And the Christian replies, into the likeness of Jesus Christ. That's our goal in life, as we even go to the first answer to the shorter catechism. You know, what is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And who did that most? It was the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what God is about in our lives, to make us like Jesus. Now, being Christians, we might be successful. We might get married. We might get a great job. Those are all great things. But God's ultimate purpose in our lives is to make us like Jesus. Romans 8, 28, and 29. You know, God works all things together for God for good. Those are called according to his purpose. And then we go, yeah, baby, a new car. Never says anything about that. You may get a new car. But it says the purpose, in verse 29, of working all things, the good, is that we would become like Jesus Christ. And we so easily get our minds caught in going different places. This is my goal in life. This is what I'd like to do. And what we're centering on is how do I grow and change to become like Jesus. And so, since that's the goal and purpose of every Christian, that's what we're gonna be looking at, Lord willing, this weekend. So let us turn to 2 Timothy, chapter three. We're going through this passage in a whole, and then in particular, tonight, and then different parts later on, making some quick comments. And I'm going to pray. But I'm then going to take the passage. I'm not going to read it all right now. But we're going to take different sections at a time so we can see it open up. So let me pray. Again. Our Father in God, thank you for your word. bring it alive to us this evening as we look at these two stages of change. And we're talking about not just change with a particular problem or we're talking about biblical change. And so since we're all Christians and God is calling us to change to be Jesus, like Jesus, we pray that you would help us to see that tonight. And then to ask ourselves, where are we in this? as we look to you. So Lord God, we ask for your help and we ask it in Jesus name and for his sake. Amen. All right. I'm going to be reading a second Timothy chapter three and I'm starting there first. One to 15. No, I'm not going to read that. Let me just read. We'll get to that. First, second Timothy three, starting verse one. But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty, for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying such power." Now, just a comment here as we're working through this. This is 2 Timothy, and what's happened here is Paul is giving this letter to Timothy, who's going to take over ministry for him. He's mentoring him, and he's talking about the church here. You can look at it and say, oh, look at those awful people in the outside world. Yes, their way, but he's talking about the church. You're going to have to worry about this being the way things happen in the church. And the truth is, so many of us, myself, I read Lovers of Pleasure, that's me. Right? I want life to be comfortable. You know, I love going on vacation. Right? And I can get my mind and my whole life set on looking at those things. Right? This happens to all of us. So when you look at this, just don't think of the outside world. And when is the, when are the last days? Yeah! You know, you might say, oh, they're coming and you know, you try to figure out all these biblical numbers or names and you know, that's been done over and over again, right? The last days are from when Jesus left and ascended until he came back. These are the last days. Does this picture people you know inside and outside the church? Does it picture you sometimes? Does me. I would love to say, nope. I came to Jesus and all those things disappeared. They didn't. Right? And so we need to say, oh Lord, how do you change me to become like Jesus? So, you know, this isn't long ago and far away. This is for us just this evening. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of God, but denying such power. Avoid such people of these." Now, he's talking about that if people practice this and keep doing it in the church, you have to discipline them. Eventually, if they don't change, you put them outside the church. Then he goes on to say, from among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with their sins and led astray by various passions, also learning and never able to arrive at the knowledge of truth. Just as Janus and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also opposed the truth. Men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith, but they will never get very far, for their folly will be plain to all as it was to those two men. was of those two men. But now if you go back and look at the script, does anybody know who James and these two guys are? Pastor? Yeah, as I went back, because I wasn't sure, it never says exactly who they are. Sometimes you'll get a reference, and Pastor was exactly right, Janus, or however you would say that, his name means he seduces, and Jambres, if he didn't pronounce the J and it was an H. I don't know what it is. I should have went back and looked. It means he who makes rebellion. But it was either, they think, the two men who were the Egyptian magicians who opposed Moses, or the two men that worked with Aaron to make the golden calf. That's the best they can get to it. But as you go back in scripture, their names are not ever specifically mentioned. So we don't know who these guys are, but they, especially if they were the ones, the golden calf, they were among the Israelites, right? And so within the church, especially the liberal church, but we're not saying we don't sin. We struggle with being like Jesus. The world captures us in our thoughts. Okay. So then, um, Where do all these problems come from? Bad upbringing? A good upbringing? Lots of money? No money? Where do these kind of passions come from? Where do these sins break into the world? Not enough education? Now those are all things that could make it hard. You know, because some kids from very rich and well-to-do families get in trouble, don't they? They rebel against all that and steal and use drugs, right? And sometimes poor kids get involved in gangs, right? So it doesn't, it's not, those things make life harder. But we have to understand, first of all, where do all these things that we deal with in our own hearts, even though we're redeemed, and where does the world, where do they come from? They come from the heart! Right? Go to Mark 7 with me, verses 14 to 23. Gospel of Mark. Jesus is very clear. The Pharisees and others were worried about the disciples sitting down to eat and they hadn't washed their hands. And it wasn't that they washed their hands, but they didn't do it in a ceremoniously way that the Jews demanded at times. You dip your hands, then you dry them off, and then you go over here and you do something. And it was this whole rigmarole rather than just, you know, let's wipe your hands off and eat. It's time to, you know, chow down. And so they said, oh, you're disciples, you must not be godly. They don't wash their hands in a spiritual way. And this is what Jesus says to them. He called to the people to him and said to them, hear me all of you and understand there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him. It's not the outside culture. It's not how you were brought up that defiles you. Now, you can learn lots of bad habits and it can be tough for you. But the problems of all these things that were listed in 2 Timothy, Jesus says, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. And when he'd entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him and said, what are you talking about? And he said to them, Are you also without understanding? Do you not see what goes into a person from the outside cannot defile a person? Sin enters not into his heart, but his stomach. It's expelled. Thus he declared all foods clean, and he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and they defile a person. Right? So all the problems we have in the last days come from our hearts. You can't blame it. My mother made me do it. She loved my brother more than me. You know, my parents died when I was young. And I'm not making fun of those, but we can, those are tough things. We all have tough things, but they don't make you sin. You sin because of what's in your heart. And so, as we're going through 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, understand this happens outside the church, but it's also the struggle that's still going on inside the church if we're not changed. How can the liberal church deny the Lord Jesus Christ? How can they say that it's not an abomination for two men to get married and a pastor to do it? Right? Their hearts are wicked. Their hearts haven't changed if they do those kind of unbiblical things. It comes from the heart. Our sins, and we have to know that and believe it and say, oh God, always coming before Him and say, Lord, deal with my heart. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. So let's go back to 2 Timothy 3. Back in 2nd Timothy chapter 3, Paul has laid out to Timothy what he's going to have to do inside and outside the church. Now he's going to talk about the first stage in these next scriptures. It's the first stage of biblical change. When someone changes to start becoming like Christ, what is that first stage? Verse 10. Paul is talking to Timothy. You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, which persecutions I endured, yet from all of them the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and imposters will go on from being bad for worse, deceiving and being deceived." So Paul has been talking about his own life in ministry. Now he's coming to Timothy and he's going to talk about this first stage of biblical change. He says this, But as for you, continue what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from your childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. The first stage of biblical change is coming to Christ. When someone comes to me for biblical counseling and they say, Pastor, I've got this problem. If they're not a Christian, I don't help them with taking care of that problem because I'll just make them a Pharisee. Now I'm nice to them, and I can tell them some nice things to do, but if their hearts aren't changed, it's just going to be outward motions. They don't have the power of the Holy Spirit to help them to change. And so the first stage, which Timothy had here, is salvation coming to Christ. Biblical change means becoming like Jesus Christ. And you can't have the first stage of biblical change unless you are in Christ. What did Jesus said? Being born again. When Nicodemus came to Him at night in John 3, Jesus answered and He said, Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews, a Pharisee, came to Jesus at night and asked Him about spiritual things and how to enter the kingdom of God. And Jesus answered and say, truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born again, he can't see the Kingdom of God. You can't become like Christ if you don't know Christ. You can't become like Christ unless you're first changed and come to Him. The substantial change requires the Holy Spirit's alteration of the heart. The heart is your inner life known only to God and yourself. Outward changes of any significance must begin there. Anything less is unbiblical and inadequate view of change. So when someone comes to me and they say, oh pastor, I'm doing this in my life and I'm doing that in my life, the first thing I go to, do you know Christ? Have you been born again? And if they haven't been, I say, I can help you, but there's a wall stopping you from coming to Christ. You have to go through that wall. The wall's too high for you to climb. It's too slippery for you to get over. It's really a good border wall into the kingdom of heaven. You can't earn your way in there. You can't climb over there by your good works. God's not going to come and pick you over there. You have to go through a door. And that door is the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father for me. I can't help people change biblically unless they're first Christ. And so you have people have to be evangelized. They have to know Jesus Christ and have a new changed heart. Telling them the right thing to do without being saved and having the Holy Spirit to help them make the change only makes them Pharisees trusting in their good works. Only in Christ can I offer someone help. Therefore, if someone is in Christ, he is what? A new creation. What? The old is passed away. The new has come. You see, without that change, without the Holy Spirit, without repenting of your sin and coming to Christ, there is no biblical change. There's lots of change people can do. By God's common grace, He's helped lots of people that aren't Christians get off of drugs. He gets people that aren't Christians to stop doing lots of things, beating their wives or hurting their children. Sometimes that happens. His common grace, God allows change to happen, but we are agents, and the church is agents of biblical change. And that we're nice to non-Christians. When someone comes to me, I'm sympathetic to them, I'll help them, and I can give them a few things to do. Yeah, if I know some guy coming to me and says, oh, I'm beating my wife, well, I tell him to stop. But I'm saying, you don't have the ability to really change and love her unless you come to Christ. I'm not going to just say, oh, well, I can't help you unless you come to Jesus. Go home and beat your wife. I don't say that. Yeah, I work with them, but there really is no long and lasting change without first coming to Christ and having a new heart, having His Holy Spirit, and then having the ability to begin making those changes. That's the first stage of biblical change. But now Jesus goes on, I mean, excuse me, God goes on in his word through Paul to Timothy. He shows us the second stage of biblical change. So if we're in 2 Timothy 3, let's go back there to verse 16. Because our growing and changing now to become like Christ, God uses His Word. You know, there's a lot of people who, I go back to the, what would Jesus do bracelets? They're not the worst thing in the world, right? It was a fad and all that. But you know, people would say, oh, what would Jesus do? Oh, I think he'd be very nice, or I think he might do this. Well, we can think lots of things, but we need to think what he thought and do what he thought. And we only know that through the scriptures. And so the second, first stage of biblical change is what? coming to Christ, salvation coming to Christ, right? Now what we're going to look at is the second stage is sanctification becoming like Christ. So you come to Christ. Right? By the Holy Spirit working in your life, someone sharing the word of God with you, repentance and faith. He says, he said to Timothy, that's what happened to you from the sacred writings that you learned from your mother and Eunice. You've done that. But he now, the people that you're gonna work with, you're gonna have to help them become like Jesus. How do you do that? And notice it's the scripture. Right? We're going to start there. We're going to spend a lot of time there. And I'm going to tell you something. So many of us, when we came to Christ, someone said, oh yeah, you got to really start reading your Bible. Right? You all know that? How many have done that? Right? You got to read it every day. You done that? Yeah. That's good. But I did it to earn my salvation again. Like, you know, I gotta be really a good Christian, so I gotta read the Bible, right? And I had charts, and I had things I would check off, and I had a different color for every year. And if I were working with you and I wanted you to read the Bible, I'd have my charts in my Bible from five years that I'd read the Bible in the morning and the evening, and I'd check them all off. And if I were working with you, I'd kind of let them slip out of my Bible. And you'd say, wow, he's really spiritual. You know, then you think, then they say, oh, I want to be like him, right? But it was, so much of that was just, I read the Bible and I checked it because then I could show you, I've got it made. Meanwhile, my wife and I are having arguments at night, right? The reason you read the scripture is because you can't get there on your own. God has to direct. He has to speak to your heart. He has to change your heart that's changed by the world every day when you go out there. And you're hearing different things on television. You're hearing different things at school. You're hearing different things from family. You're hearing different things from your friends. And they're saying, no, no, no, at Christianity, this is the way it is. And you have to come back and get taught in the Word again to become sanctified, to be like Jesus. You have to know the Word, and the Word has to be working in you by God's Spirit. And so now I go to the Word, and I go there often because I, as much as I like to eat, I need that so much more. I was trying to figure out today. You know, am I going to wear, and Sunday I'll wear a suit, right? Am I going to wear a sport coat today? Am I going to wear no sport coat, you know? And going through this, Pastor said I had a great range, right? I think, do I wear a nice shirt? And so today, you know, I had my wife and my daughter and my granddaughter, three women there, and I'm trying on different clothes, right, you know, and doing all this stuff. And, you know, all these, you know, and I'm going, just let me wear what I want, you know. But they're going, right. But I wouldn't have treated them well on my own, right, because I just want what I want. And if I don't have the word of God and if I miss it, some days I missed it, you know what? I'm speaking today and the only thing I could do was pray because I had to finish printing all these things, you know? And I had to figure out what to wear and I had to pack and then I have a little bit of a leak in the basement, I had to push the water out of the garage because it's been raining so much and I didn't get my quiet time and so how could I possibly speak, you know? We do it because we need it, not because we've got to check it off. The scripture is how God directs. The Holy Spirit will direct you by His word, encourage you with your word, discipline you with your word, help you with your word, so you're not reading it to check it off because it's your food. You need strength. You got to have vitamins. You got to have many. You'll get scurvy. You know, the sailors in the 1800s didn't have any oranges when they came across. They got scurvy and their bones got soft and broke and bent. You know, and all they needed to do was drink some vinegar, have some oranges. Right? But they weren't eating the right stuff. And we'll eat. We'll take in everything. Oh, I got to get my TV show. I got to get my Facebook. I got to get my. I'm not saying anything so evil. They're not. But all those things capture us and we don't eat the right stuff. Let's go to 2 Timothy 3.16 and look at the second stage. which is our sanctification, becoming like Jesus. And here, Paul tells Timothy the second stage, how it happens with the Word of God. How does sanctification happen? And we're looking at how God uses His Holy Spirit to bring His Holy Word to change His holy people. 2 Timothy 3, 16. All scripture is breathed out by God. Yes, men wrote it, but God is speaking to you in His Word. It's interesting, you know, in church, people walk into church, right? And if someone's praying, what do they do? Stop, right? They're not going to walk in, right? But if someone's reading the Word of God, what do they do? They just hop right in, right? Well, the important thing you should stand still for is the Word of God, because God's speaking to you. When we pray, we're only speaking to Him, which is more important. The Word of God, right? And so here, 2 Timothy 3, 16, look at it. This is what God uses to change us and why we need it. All scriptures breathed out by God. He spoke to the prophets and all the read the scriptures and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and training and righteousness, that the man of God, of course, the Christian, that the Christian may be competent, equipped for every good work. If you are competent and equipped to do everything in your life in a godly way, who are you like? Yeah. This whole second stage of biblical change is that we're going to be competent, the one who is competent, the one who saved us, our Savior. We come that way as God works, which we'll be looking at. The four steps of biblical change is God uses these things in our life to make us like Jesus. Let's go to a passage you're familiar with, Matthew 20 and verse 16. Most of you know this as the Great Commission, right? Excuse me, Matthew 28. The commission was going to happen a little quicker. Matthew 28 starting in verse 16. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountains to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me, Now, this is the job of the church, okay? And the thing he's going to say is biblical change, right? First, all authority in heaven has been given. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What's that? Coming to Christ, salvation. Right? Jesus sent the people, the church, out to the world to save them. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Making disciples in that way, that's the first step. And then, it says, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And when you observe all that God commands you, you become like Jesus, right? Who did everything that God commanded. Jesus sent the church out to do these two steps of biblical change, which are saving people first, coming to Christ, and then sanctification, that they would become like Christ. John Murray talking about sanctification says this, becoming like Jesus, the pilgrimage to perfection in the eternal state is not one of inactivity. It's not let go and let God. The journey proceeds a pace, the most intense exercise on our part. Our working is not suspended because God works. Our God's working is not suspended because we work. The one is not suspended by the other. They're complementary. Our working is grounded in God's working. Our working receives its urge, strength, and incentive and cause from God's working in us. So, we're going to be working in the Word of God, understanding these changes, the two stages. I trust that all of you here at least know about salvation, and most of you have received salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of you children may not have yet made your baptismal vows your own and trusted Jesus on your own. There may be some adults here who haven't gone through that first step of biblical change yet. I would love to talk to you about the joy of knowing Christ and of having a new heart. But what we're talking about this weekend is how do we become like Jesus? What's He doing? How do we help others to become like Him? Because if you take on the name of Christian, whose name is in there? Christ, right? And so that means that I am a little Christ. Let me ask you, if people were to watch you this week, have films In your house, as you interacted with your family, your co-workers, your brother, your sister, would it be a nice Christian movie we'd want to show? Or would it be a horror show? Right? And so we need Christ. And we need him to be working in us. And these are the steps of how he works to become. And we will be working in them. right the very day that the session asked me, I gave them some titles and they asked me to do this. I was struggling. Because I know my own life. And I know those very areas that I'm not like Christ. And so, I'm not telling you, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the perfection won't happen till heaven. That's the joy of going to heaven. You won't sin anymore, and you won't have the long war that sanctification talks about, where we keep fighting. In my life, I've lost 100 pounds and over 100 pounds three times. And right before the session asked me to do this, I was going up again. Now, I've had doctors tell me, oh, you just have a slow metabolism. Just don't worry about it. Yeah, I do have a slower metabolism, so it's harder for me. But right before the session asked me to do this, I just had to get back with the Lord again and say, Lord, I'm not living for you this way. And since they asked me, I've lost 15 pounds, I think maybe 18. I'm not saying that to brag or anything else, but I said, I've got to do these very same things because I can tell you all the right spiritual words, but not do them. And do them from the heart. And so what I'm really calling you and me as the church is say, okay, we can come and get one more notebook. We can come and hear a lot more talks and take notes and put them on the shelf. But Lord, I want to become like Jesus. Will you help me? And will you equip the others around me so they can come with me and help me and come beside me? And I can tell them when I'm struggling and not be afraid to do that. Or tell them that my heart in my house has fallen apart, or my child, or my wife, or my husband. And people not just, you know, you'd be afraid to do that, but we have the scriptures that say, okay, what do we do? Let me go there with you. Let me pray with you. How do you handle that? What does the Bible say about that? So the goal is to say, we're all in this work together. This is what Jesus is doing with this church, and we need each other. We need to be praying for each other. We need to ask, how are you doing? Oh, fine. And we're not, right? And say we're struggling. And say, well, what can I do to help you? And I've never gone back to the Lord and said, Lord, I need help that he hasn't helped. It's just that he does enough of the work that I get far enough along that I can start saying, oh, now I can do what I want to do. And I go with that battle within my heart, right? We need people to come along and say, yeah, I'm battling with that. I'll help you. And what I'm saying is God has given us what we need as a church. This isn't individual work. This isn't work that we do just on our own. It's called the body of Christ. And the reason it's called the body of Christ is we're called to work together with these changes with one another. And that's what we're going to be looking at. And we're going to be saying, Lord, how can I change to become like Jesus? How can I take care of this area of rebellion in my life or this area I'm just falling apart? I don't know. I feel like I'm sinking. I'm telling you, God has answers and he's got people to help you. And it's your brothers and sisters. And what I'm hoping is that God will equip us this weekend to begin doing that. How do we become like Christ together? How can we talk about that? What are the steps? What do we do? How do we do it? And I want to tell you that every time I've gone back to the Lord and said, okay, Lord, I don't just want to play church. I don't just want to play pastor. He's always been gracious and ready to help and able to help and sent people to help. And if I've asked them, they've been willing to help. Jesus ended the Great Commission. He started and ended. He said this, and Jesus came to said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. So he's got all that you need. But he says, behold, I am with you always into the end of the age. He'll help us. There's a prayer that St. Augustine said, and it was this. When God gives you commands, his prayer was this, excuse me. His prayer was, Lord, command what you will, but grant what you command. Lord, do you want me to become like Jesus? Then you need to give me everything I need to become like Jesus. What I'm here to tell you this weekend is that he has in his word, and he has in his church. And that's what He's used through the years. And we'll use every other means. We'll look for something new on the television, some new program, something where He's given what we need by His Spirit, His Word, and His people. And we can act like that. What God gives you to do to become like Jesus, He will give you what He commands and make you like Jesus. I'd like to end tonight by going to a passage in Ezekiel, because I want you to see that these things are there, and this passage in Ezekiel is Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel chapter 36. And what it is, it was the promise of the new covenant. It was the promise of what God is going to do in us and with us. What would happen when Jesus came and the power of the Holy Spirit dwelt within us and the body of Christ was put together. And so that's this promise I want to look at. I want to show you that both things are in this promise that we've looked at. It was given in the Old Testament. and exactly what we have provided in new. Ezekiel chapter 36 verses 23 to 36, 26, 27. The first he pictures in a long passage here, salvation that would come to God's people through Christ. Ezekiel 36, 23 to 26. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name. which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord. God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes, I will take you from the nations and gather you from the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness. From all your idols I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove your heart of stone and from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. That's pictured the new covenant in the Old Testament. That's the coming to Christ. And then the last verse is that we would become like Christ, verse 37. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey them. Beloved, let me encourage you. because I know that in my own Christian life, I get pretty discouraged at times of what I know I should be and I'm not. Thankfully, the Lord Jesus has already done it all in my salvation. I'm justified by him, but now he's about working in his church, you and me, that we would become like Jesus. And my encouragement to you this evening, and as we learn this week, as he's given us all that we need, for biblical change to become like Christ. First, He's called us to Christ, and now in our salvation, He wants to make us like Christ. You have here tonight, in God's Word and His Spirit and His church, all that's needed. May He help us become that church, not in name, but in reality, that we would be indeed more and more little Christs, loving each other, and loving this world. I would ask you to pray for me and for us this weekend as God leads us on this journey. Let us pray. Our Father in God, I thank you that your word directs us in all of life, but especially in coming to Christ and becoming like him. I thank you for this church. I know so many in it that are yours and love you, that you have done that work of giving us a new heart. You've taken our hearts of stone and made them hearts of flesh. And Father, we need so much encouragement on our walk to become like Christ. There are so many snags and pitfalls. We think of Christian and Pilgrim's Progress who would go to Vanity Fair for a while, or he would go and sleep because the rest is long and wild in a field, or he would stop and fall asleep, or he would get amongst some companions that led him in a different way. And Father, in this travel with you, there's so many things that easily capture us. Would you lead us back to yourself in new ways and build your church and make us like Christ? For we pray in his name, amen.