Part 9
Goal of the Believer

Video Recording of this Message

The Goal of the Believer

Romans 8:29 “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.”

God, from the very beginning, determined that you and I would be just like Jesus.  When God is finished with the work He has begun in our lives, we will be shoulder to shoulder with the Lord Jesus Christ, brethren with Him.  He the firstborn, we just like Him.  Being like Him is, of course, beyond what we can understand right now.  We see Him through a glass darkly, as in a mirror.  We see His life in the gospels, we see how He walked and carried Himself in this earth, and we know that is partly what it is to be like Jesus.

But Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, though we knew Him that way once, we don’t know Him that way now.  He is far more than that now; He is the resurrected Christ, exalted in the heavens.  That is how we know Him today, and how God has called us to be just like Him.

When God began with us, He had fully in His mind the finished work.  When God sees us now, He does not see us as we imagine ourselves to be, but He sees us in our finished state and everything that happens to us is working in that direction, taking us there.

God creates by declaring what a thing is to be in its finished form.  Things don’t begin as they are in their final state.  They begin in weakness.  The word God speaks comes into darkness, into the void, and it births itself inside of faith, working through faith, the word God speaks works in our lives to accomplish the purpose for which God sent it.

Our job, our role, our part, is to believe what God says.  And in believing what God says, we cast down the voice that contradicts what God says.

In the beginning God determined that we would be just like Jesus.  We understand now that we take this truth through the Bible and make it our ruling understanding of the gospel.  “Jesus saved us” means that He began in us the process that makes us just like Him.  He did not save us so that we would go to heaven when we die.  Heaven is a place of waiting, it is a temporary place, it is not our final state of being.  The goal of the believer is to be conformed to the image of God’s dear Son. 

Then we take that thought all the way through the New Testament and everything God says, in the New Covenant, and in the Old, we understand it through Romans 8:29, through the understanding that what is happening in the New Covenant is that we are being conformed to the image of Jesus.

Now, the first thing that we understand is found in Ephesians 3: “That we might be filled with all the fullness of God.”  God created man with enormous capacity, but no ability.  God made humanity weak.  Everything else God created, He created it sufficient in itself, able to do what it is called to do by drawing on what is inside of it.  God did not make man that way.  God made man weak, with all the capacity to contain God, but none of the ability to fulfill our purpose.  We do not have in our humanity the ability to fulfill our purpose.

Our purpose is to be the expression of God.  Our purpose is to make God visible, being filled with all the fullness of God, so that God might reach out and touch others through us.

And so part of this process of becoming like Jesus is learning to stretch with God.  If God reaches out to touch this dark place here, can we reach with Him in us that He might touch it though us?  When God crushes Satan, can He do it under our feet?  You see, God cannot fulfill His purpose without us.  God’s purpose is to reveal Himself to creation through us, He cannot do that without us.  God’s purpose is to crush Satan under our feet, He can’t do that without us.  God’s purpose is to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ.

Our role is to believe what God says.  To believe what God says is to believe that God fills us with His power.  We understand that our fight is not against our human weakness.  We do not try to “fix” our human weakness.  Paul says, “I boast in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Consider Moses.  Moses considered himself to be a frightened little man.  Weak.  God said, “Go down to Egypt, I am with you.”  Moses said, “Ah, ah, ah, send someone else, you’ve got the w-w-wrong guy.”  And Moses carried on with that until God became angry with him. 

When Moses went to Egypt he didn’t anything at all, except one little thing.  He didn’t even talk; Aaron did the talking.  Moses was a pretty limited fellow.  He couldn’t even talk.  Did God enable Moses to talk?  No, He did not!  God gave him another person who could talk.  What did Moses do that was so great?

Moses had a little stick and he could put it up in the air and wave it back and forth.  He could do that and that is all he ever did.

Now can we do that?  Can we put our little stick in the air and wave it back and forth?  Yes, we can.  Moses did the stick thing; God did the rest.  Moses raised his stick; God did the stuff.  All that happened in Egypt, God did, but He did it when Moses raised his stick.

Can you raise your stick?  You see, it’s not up to you being a great one, to you being strong, to you being a mighty being.  No, no!  You and I are weak, that is our glory.  We raise the stick; we can do that.  We believe what God says, and God does the rest.

When Jesus said in John 7, “He that believes in Me, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water,” does that mean that we have to go around and be this great healer, this great person, who is so capable of miracles?  Absolutely not!  It is very simple.  Jesus said “Believe in Me.”  I can do that.  I believe in Him; He does the rest.  He just wants me to believe that He will move through me.

That river is not up to me.  The river will flow.  All I have to do is believe what He says.  And God will give me the simple thing to do, that little thing that I am able to do.  And that little thing I am able to do will be different from the little thing you are able to do. 

The little thing I am able to do — I can raise this stick.  Yes, I have been walking around for 40 years with my little stick, and I have used it over and over again.  I know how to raise a stick in the air.  I can do that.

And there is something simple you can do, that you are familiar with.  God doesn’t need to make you into some great image of something that you have in your mind.  “I have to become great before God can use me.”

No.  Take the little weak thing God made you able to do, lift it up to Him, and let God move as a mighty river of life through you.

Moses raised his stick, God did the stuff.

We are created to contain all the fullness of God, enormous capacity, in our weakness.  It is our weakness that is our glory.

So many Christians have the idea that human weakness is the problem, human weakness is the disaster.  No.  God made me weak, and that is my glory.  All God asks me to do is the simple little thing that I can do in my weakness and God does the rest.  He wants me to believe and when I believe, He flows out of me like a mighty river.

[You might think that I am some great minister of the gospel.  I am not.  I am weak and timid, often very much afraid.  But I want to be with Jesus when He comes in His glory so very much.  I always have.  And I believe what He says in the New Testament.  My web site is my little bit.  It is the simple, little thing I can do. 

And the most amazing thing to me is that people are actually spending time on my web site, people are listening to the messages, reading the articles.  It is such a blessing to me, I am moved to tears. Thank you.]

We also understand that God is at war, and through us He intends to defeat His enemies.  We understand the point of the war is concerning the word God speaks.  Most of Christianity has persuaded us to believe that the word God speaks is fulfilled only in the future, not right here and not right now. 

But we understand that this is the point of victory, that the accuser of the brethren is cast down.  That accusation, that voice of accusation that works against me in every way, in every moment of my life, that voice of accusation is there, and that voice is my enemy and I cast it down.

Here is an extraordinary thing.  I am being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ through two things.  I am conformed to the image of Jesus Christ as I, with my little cup of cold water, give.  I can offer a thirsty person a cup of cold water.  I can do this little thing and the river of God flows through me, and lives are transformed, and healing comes just because I did my little thing, believing in Jesus.

As I do my little thing, giving a cup of cold water, believing in Jesus, that river of life flows through me, and I am being transformed.

On the other hand, I stand in knowing that He that is in me is Jesus and that he who accuses me is outside of me.  I am not in a civil war; I am in the salvation of Jesus, and the war is to cast that voice of accusation down.

 As I cast down the accuser, the ages are being transformed.  We do not understand the power that moves through us.  When I say that Jesus is with me, Jesus is in me, I will not listen to that voice that tries to find fault with me — kingdoms are being shaken, millions of evil beings are teetering on the edge of collapse.  As I refuse to entertain the thoughts of accusation against me, Satan is faced with the reality that his time is almost over.

As I give a cup of cold water to one who is thirsty, and I can do that, the river of life flows out of me bringing life and healing to everyone my path crosses.  And as I stand in the love of Jesus and refuse the voice of the accuser, kingdoms of darkness are crashing into the dust. 

Simple things on our side; great and mighty things in the heavenly realms.

The three primary parts of the gospel come out of the very being and person of God.

Being filled with all the fullness of God is talking about the Father. 

The most incredible verse in the Bible is John 14: 23:  “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”

The Father wants to make you and me His home.  “Filled with all the fullness of God.”  And the Father’s expression, the metaphor, the symbol in the Bible that pictures the work of the Father in our lives is the temple.  That same metaphor I have extended to the superhero suit.  We as humans are created to contain all the fullness of God.  We are talking about the Father, manifesting Himself to His creation through you and through me.

Then when we talk about the river of water flowing out of us, we are talking about the work of the Holy Spirit, when Jesus says, “He that believes in me out of his heart will flow rivers of living water,” He is talking about the Holy Spirit moving through our lives.

That river of water is nothing more and nothing less than the Holy Spirit doing what He was sent to do, that river of life flowing out to bring healing and life and to meet people’s needs.  God is a good God, and He longs to give good things to His people.  He wants to meet the needs of every one whom He created.  Not just meet their needs by giving them things, but to meet their needs by making them fully what they were created to be. 

This is the work of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the river of life; He brings life; He is the life giver.  Jesus said, “The words I speak are Spirit and they are life.”

Finally, the overcomer is the Son of God.  The metaphor that God gives us to teach us about the work of the Son of God in our lives is the metaphor of story.  The hero, who faces usually the family member who has become the enemy through jealousy.  That hero must go on a journey; he must gather companions.  The journey contains both great difficulty and times of rest.  The quest of the hero is to deliver the people and to restore the kingdom.  But in order to accomplish that quest, there is the task, which is to face and defeat his enemy.

Of course we know that Jesus faced and defeated His enemies on the cross and after Jesus said “It is finished.”  But we also know that the full battle is not over.  The victory Jesus won on the cross, God wants to work that victory in our lives.  We become like Jesus through the process of defeating our enemies.

Why did God put Satan into this world?  For one purpose, that we might defeat him.  We don’t understand this fully, but it is what Jesus does and it is how we become just like Him.

As I defeat my enemy; this voice of accusation, as I defeat the one who challenges what God says, I defeat him by believing what God says. 

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

I defeat him by separating myself from the kingdoms and causes of Satan in this world.  I do not join in the causes and issues of this world system.  I do not fight for the kingdoms of this world.  I separate myself from them to the kingdom of God. 

And I defeat him by winning over the accusation that comes to me and says, “Daniel, you are bad; Daniel, you must die.”  I refuse that voice; I cast it down.  I stand in the One who is in me.  Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world.  As I defeat my accuser, I am transformed into the image of Jesus.

I am transformed into that image by giving a cup of cold water to him who is thirsty.  Believing that my simple believing is all I need to do, and casting down that voice, I am being transformed into the image of Jesus.  I am fulfilling the purpose for which God saved me.  Salvation is finding its completed work in me. 

And I am convinced of this truth; I will be just like Jesus.  It is not only within my reach, but it is what God is doing in me. 

It’s not only within our reach to become just like Jesus, it must be so, there is no other possibility. Unless we refuse it.  But even then, He loves you more than you know. 

All we have to do is believe Him.  When He speaks, believe Him and let His word be fulfilled in our lives. 

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