Part Three
Goal of the Believer

A Video Recording of This Message

God Will Get What He Wants

Romans 8:28-30 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

To understand what God is saying, we must begin by believing it.  It is impossible to understand God unless we believe that what He says is true.

I love Him because He first loved me.  I am called by God’s purpose.  In order to fulfill His purpose, God called me.  God knew me from the beginning, and because He knew me, He predestined me to be just like Jesus. 

Predestined is a big word that splits Christians – “free choice” versus “predestination.”  Do I choose God?  Or has He already picked me whether I choose or not?  Yes and Yes.  Most people say “predestination” is about “being saved” which to them is “to go to heaven.”  In other words, God pre-decided who would go to heaven and who would go to hell.  But Romans 8:29 is talking about becoming just like Jesus.  We don’t need to question, “Do you go to heaven or hell?”  God is not a pagan.  That question is not addressed here; it is not even found in the whole book of Romans.

From the very beginning, God determined that I would be just like Jesus - God’s purpose.

Once God determined I would be just like Jesus, He called me.  When He called me, I was conceived in my mother’s womb. The very fact that God called me, one whom He purposed to become just like Jesus, means that He also justified me, through Jesus’ shed blood.  And because God justified me, He glorified me.  I am already there.  I just have to believe what is already true.

Can God do this?  Can God determine beforehand what will be?

Isaiah 46:9-11 “Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure” . . . Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass.  I have purposed it; I will also do it.”

With God, things don’t just happen.  Nothing has just happened.  God determined His purpose before He created anything.  When God began the creation, He had exactly what He wanted fully in His mind.  Romans 8:29 tells us exactly what God wanted out of this whole thing. What God wanted from the very start was many sons just like Jesus.  That’s why He began by creating man in His image.  God created man in the same construct as Jesus in the beginning, with the capacity to be conformed to Jesus in the end.

God, before He begins any work, declares what the end of that work will be. When God speaks, He declares what He wants.  But what God speaks, when He says, “I am determined to conform you to the image of Jesus,” it is set.  He purposed it; He will do it.  You will not stand in His way or prevent Him.  It is not possible for you to prevent God from fulfilling His purpose.  Jesus will win your heart.

Will you choose Him?  Of course you will choose Him.  He will win your heart.  Jesus has the power to subdue all things to Himself.  It is called love.  Jesus will win.

God always starts anything by declaring what He wants in the end. 

Romans 4:16-21 “Abraham . . . in the presence of Him whom he believed – God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be.’  And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body . . . He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.

Look at yourself right now.  Do you see the image of Jesus Christ?  Do you see yourself fully conformed to the image of Jesus?  In your mind it doesn’t exist, but in God’s mind it already does.  And God calls those things that do not exist to us as though they really do exist.  Who is right, you or God?

In God’s eyes you are conformed to the image of Jesus.  God has His eyes fixed on the end of His works.  And the end of God’s work is that you are just like Jesus.  That is the end that God sees.  And He calls that end into existence

Abraham did not look at himself.  He looked at what God said as already accomplished.

This history of man on the earth is about one thing alone.  God is obtaining His purpose.  God’s purpose is to have many sons conformed to the image of His Son.

That purpose has never varied nor been hindered in any way.  Nothing that has happened on this earth has ever done anything to keep God’s purpose from being fulfilled.  In fact everything on this earth is simply the context in which God’s purpose is being fulfilled.

God will get what He wants - many sons just like Jesus.

The question for us is the same as for Abraham.  Do we look at ourselves and refuse to believe what He says.  Or do we look to God and believe that what He says He will do in us.  This is who we are. We are what God sees in the end.

Before the beginning of the creation and time, with God, everything is right now, present tense.  Apart from time.  Just God.  God the Father, the son of God, the Spirit of God.  Rejoicing together in love and fellowship.  God looked at Jesus; all of a sudden, He saw something through Jesus that caught His attention and caused Him to fall head over heels in love.

He saw you and me; many sons just like Jesus.

God, looking through Jesus, saw many sons.  He saw them before He ever began the physical universe and time.  God created the entire universe, including the heavens, the spiritual side of the universe, as the vehicle through which He would obtain for Himself what He saw - many sons.  And we understand that “sons” means both male and female.

God, in order to obtain what He saw and is determined to have for Himself, created the heavens and the earth.  And in creating the earth, God knew that He was placing man into a pit of vipers, a snake den.  He knew that man would fall. 

God purposed to bring forth His sons out of the limitation and the sorrow of this world.  He purposed to cause us to win the victory in this world we find ourselves in.  As we triumph in this earthly context in which we dwell, we are conformed to the image of Jesus.  There is no other way for God to fulfill His purpose.  God cannot have what He wants in heaven.  God cannot have what He wants in heaven.  His purpose cannot be fulfilled there.

2 Corinthians 3:18  “But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

We are being transformed from one level of glory to the next level of glory into the image of Jesus.  God is making us just like Jesus.  This is the New Covenant; this is the gospel, the good news.  The good news is that God has called us and is making us to be just like Jesus.

The question is “Do I believe it?”  God has declared it; do I believe it?

Many believers want to say that if you refuse God, you won’t make it.

That is not the question.  The question is “Do I believe what He says?”

God says that when He determined that I would be just like Jesus, He already called me, He already justified me, He already glorified me.  I am already called, I am already justified, I am already glorified. God has already in His heart and mind accomplished His purposes in me.  The question is “Do I believe Him or not?”

Jesus said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.”

The question is not “Do I choose Him?” The question is “Do I believe He will accomplish what He says?”  That is the dividing line.

God said it: I believe it.

God is determined to conform us to the image of His Son.

How is this possible?  How can I look at myself upon this earth as the image of Jesus?  Is not man upon this earth a disaster, a mess, fallen and evil?  How can I make these claims about any man, especially myself?

But it is God who has said it.  God says that I, a man, will be conformed to the image of Jesus.

Who am I?  What am I?  Am I something completely different than what I have seen myself to be? 

There are three verses that take this question of being conformed to the image of Jesus to the next level out from the defining verse, Romans 8:29, to its three primary applications.  These three verses point us into the direction of the fulfillment of that primary verse.

Ephesians 3:17-20 “That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

“That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”  A fantastically impossible claim!  We cannot think about what this means.  We will end up in heresy.  Filled with all the fullness of God!

We are not interested in the history of Christian thinking, but in what God says.

The question is not “What does it mean?”  But “Do I believe it?”

Is there any indication that this verse is only to be fulfilled “in heaven”?  No, this is inside of what God is doing in us right now.  All these things in Ephesians 4 are right now.

What does this mean?  Neither angels nor animals can be filled with all the fullness of God.  No other created being has this capacity.

God created you with the capacity to contain God in all of His fullness.  Whatever is God, you were created to contain that.  You were created to contain infinity, omnipotence, the very person of God.  How can this be?

Here’s what you do with such a thought.  Believe it!  It is not a question of doctrine; it is a question of believing what God says.  “Be it unto me according to Your word.”

I, as a human, am created to contain all of the fullness of Almighty God. 

There is more than that. 

John 7.37-39  “On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”  But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive . . .”

This is the same day, exactly 999 years after God filled the temple of Solomon, six months before Jesus’ crucifixion.  At the moment of silence, at the peak moment of the ceremony, Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

What is Jesus saying?  These rivers of living water are described in Ezekiel and Revelation 22.  “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

Jesus says that He who believes in Him, out of his inner being will flow the very river of life from God that flows from His throne and makes alive everything it touches.

We not only have the capacity to contain God, but we have the ability to release God to every one we pass by in a river of life that heals and makes whole.  The very river that flows out of the throne of God flows through you, and you are able to touch other people with God himself.

God made us with the capacity and ability to release Him into the lives and environment of others around us.

Jesus said that this belongs to those who believe in Him.  Do I believe that God flows out of me in a river of life to make other people whole?  To heal everyone I pass by?

Do I believe it?  Jesus said this is the norm for those who believe in Him.

One more verse. These are parallel verses underneath Romans 8:29.  As we understand the purpose of God flowing through these three verses, we understand the gospel.

Revelation 12:9-11 “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.  Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down."  And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”

Not only are we created by God, born again, to be able to contain God, to be filled with His fullness, not only are we able to release God in a river of life that flows out of us to bring healing and wholeness to others, but we are also able to defeat everything that opposes God, everything that says, “God, You can’t do it now.  Maybe You can do it in heaven, but You can’t do it in this earth, in our lives right now, no way.”

You have the power to overcome that false accuser.  Do you believe it?  It is not theology.  Do I believe it, that the accuser is cast down, defeated?

I have the power from God to defeat and cast down everything that would limit God.

Through these three verses, the truth that God is conforming me to the image of His Son works its way into all the New Testament.  This is the gospel.  These three verses are the focus and definition of the gospel, of our relationship with God.  Everything from Genesis 1:1 to the end of Revelation is just an expansion of these three primary verses as they work to fulfill Romans 8:29 in our lives.

Is this what you teach to your children, is this what they hear?

Teaching a seventh grade Bible class, 24 children who have grown up in Christian homes, here is their understanding of the gospel: “I’ve got a ticket from God, believing in Jesus’ work (separate from me), so that when I die, I present my ticket and I go to heaven, not hell.”  That’s it!

Why? Did they read it in the Bible?  No, they did not!  This is what they have been taught.  Listen, this is not the gospel of Jesus.  The gospel of Jesus is that God is determined that we will be conformed to the image of His Son and the way that is working is we are being changed from glory to glory into that image. This is a process going on right now.

And in this life right now, we have the capacity to contain all the fullness of God, we have the capacity to release a river of life from God to bring life and healing to everyone we pass, and we have the ability to defeat every voice that would try to prevent God from fulfilling His purpose in the earth.  This is the gospel.  And from this understanding we view everything God says in the Bible.  This is what our children should be talking about, what they should know as the gospel.

At this end of the age, any other anchor, any other definition of the gospel, is going to be shaken and is going to fall.  The one thing that cannot be shaken is that God is conforming me into the image of Jesus.  Do I believe it?

“I am Your servant; let it be to me according to Your word.”

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