As you may recall Carl kicked off this series with the following three points pertaining to the question “Who am I?”:
He said that:
1. I am sinner saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.
2. I am a dearly loved adopted child of GOD.
3. I am a doulos of Christ (i.e., I am a servant of Christ bought at a great price).
Carl mentioned these three passages of scripture:
1. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty. – 2 Corinthians 6:18
2. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. – Romans 8:14-16
3. See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God. And that is what we are! – I John 3:1a
And then last week John Farmer opened up his message in our series titled Can I really do that?/Our Adequacy in Christ with the following two verses:
I can do everything through him who gives me strength. – Philippians 4:13
And:
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. – John 15:7
Today we will be continuing our series with a message titled “What am I becoming? subtitled “Our Future in Christ” but before we begin Let’s Pray.
Looking back at Carl’s second point “I am a dearly loved adopted child of GOD.” we will see today how that directly relates to the “What I am becoming and Our Future in Christ.
So what am I becoming? 1 John 3:1-3 says:
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself or herself, just as He is pure. – 1 John 3:1-3
So what am I becoming? The first thing is 1. I am becoming pure like my heavenly Father. Our inward thoughts are becoming pure as we put our hope in Him. But our outward appearance is changing too.
Some of the outward characteristics of the ideal woman are recorded in Proverbs 31:25-27. These are also the ideal characteristics of the ideal man.
Strength and dignity are her clothing, And she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness. – Proverbs 31:25-27
Like the Proverbs 31 woman strength and dignity are becoming our clothing and our mouths are opening more and more to wisdom and the teaching of kindness are becoming more and more apparent in our conversations and we are working more and more diligently and whole heartedly as unto the Lord and not unto men. These are outward things that other people can see and hear.
Note how she smiles at the future. Have you ever thought that your Heavenly Father in heaven smiles at your future. He does saints!
I think too often Satan has us thinking of how disappointed God is in our behavior and how He is shaking His head at what we have done even after we put our trust in Him for salvation. That is simply not the case. We are His adopted children. When our young children behaved poorly as they were growing up, Christine and I as parents knew that they would eventually grow up and their poor behavior will be a thing of the past. God the Father is the same way. He sees your future that He has given you and He smiles knowing that your present behavior is only a passing stage in your life. He has great plans for you and your future. In Jeremiah 29:11 He says:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11
So what am I becoming? What am I becoming?
1. I am becoming pure like my heavenly Father.
2. I am becoming more optimistic about my future and like my heavenly Father, and like Him I am becoming a person that smiles at the future.
Now the fact is children do become like their parents. Even the Progressive insurance commercial on TV says “We can’t keep you from becoming like your parents but we can save you money when you bundle your home and auto insurance”. Now we have all heard people say when looking at a baby he or she is the spitting image of his or her mother or father or he or she has her mother’s or father’s lips; eyes, chin, hair, feet, nose, ears etc. These are all physical Characteristics that we are born with and in truth they are written into our DNA and we have little control over them.
Now we rarely say to an adoptive parent that his or her child has any of the physical characteristics of his or her parent that I just listed.
Why? Well in most cases we don’t have an image of the child’s mother or father to compare the child’s physical characteristics to. However in the case of the adopted child of God we do have an image of the Father to compare the adopted children of God to.
In a sense we are becoming like our spiritual parents ( i.e., the ones that led us to the Lord) and even more so we are becoming like our creator who is God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Whereas we were once self-centered and sinful now we are becoming Christ-centered and holy. Whereas we once ambivalent, but now we are becoming more and more decisive and kingdom focused.
As we grow as the adoptive children of God we start to take on His image in the characteristics of His generosity, of His sacrificial love, of His compassion, of his kindness, of His joy, of His passion for righteousness & of His love for the lost. These are all things people can see and identify with our Father in heaven.
In Ephesians 4:15-16 Paul Says:
but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what 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. – Ephesians 4:15-16
In context, Paul is exhorting God’s people to remind one another of who they are in Christ and to remind one another about the new self into which they have been made. That is something that’s all too easy to forget.
Some friends of ours adopted a child from Russia whom no one wanted because the child’s birth mother was an alcoholic and the child was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). The common symptoms of FAS are low body weight, poor coordination, hyperactive behavior, difficulty with attention, poor memory, difficulty in school, learning difficulty and speech and language delays. I read that the average life span for these individuals is about 34 years. Now my friends knew all of these things would make life difficult for them and their other children. Yet they looked to the almost certain dismal future of this child where he was and decided that they could make it better. So they adopted him and made him part of their loving family. God does that same thing for us. Our future was even more dismal. There is nothing that we have done that warrants His love but He knew that His love was going to be a game changer for our future and it was and is and it will continue to be.
Another friend of mine named Bob has been suffering for about 5 years now from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) also known as (Lou Gehrig’s disease). If you have never heard of ALS, it is a neurodegenerative disease that is characterized by the death of motor neurons, which are the nerve cells that control muscle movement. His ALS started out weakness in his legs feet and ankles and hands. Gradually he lost the use of his legs and his hands and arms. He had difficulty swallowing and had to be put on a feeding tube. He had difficulty breathing and had to wear an oxygen mask infrequently at first but now he has to wear it 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
The average life expectancy after a diagnosis of ALS has been made is two to five years, but some patients may live for decades. The famous physicist and devout atheist Stephen Hawking for example lived for over 50 years after he was diagnosed with ALS.
Now Bob emails me by typing on a special electronic keyboard on his computer monitor. He does this by moving the curser on the monitor with his eye and blinking to type one letter at a time. He has typed me some very long e-mails this way. One with almost seven hundred fifty words in it. Can you imagine the incredible patience it took for him to do that? His wife told me that Bob is awake all night and sleeps most of the day so I haven’t been able to visit him recently. However, I got an e-mail letter from Bob last Sunday morning right before church. This e-mail contained between four and five hundred words. In it Bob said that he found out that his favorite TV Bible studies come on at 3:30 in the morning and he has been able to watch these now that he is awake at that time. Think about that. God allows Bob to stay up all night long so that Bob can learn more from the WORD of God about his heavenly Father who adopted him.
Paul Instructs Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:14-15
Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. – 2 Timothy 2:14-15
Bob said in his email “I hate to tell anybody what I think about all the time.” He said I have to admit that most of my thoughts are about myself and managing all my systems that have eroded away. I think of things I want to do, if I was able, and a lot of things I started and need to finished, or ways I could fix some of my current problems if I had my pre ALS abilities. He said my mind also drifts into the past a lot and I wonder if I had done somethings differently, where or how would I be today. He said after too much of that, I have to remind myself that
“The steps of a man are established by the Lord. He said that sometimes I have to ask myself “do I worship fun or God?” He said I really hate to admit (even to myself) that truthfully, I do both. He said I’m glad Jesus loves sinners, and I’m glad that I’m hid in Him in God (the Father). If not for that I’d end up with the multitudes of the lost souls at the great White Throne judgment. He ended his e-mail to me by saying: “Times are looking like we are getting close to being caught up in the air.
God Bless you,
brother Bob”.
What am I becoming? I am becoming a person like Bob who is doing his best to present himself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. I have a lot of painful trials that I have been through and that I am still going through at this present time and so do you. Yet we need to remind ourselves like Bob that our steps and our circumstance are established by the Lord and that He delights in our ways. We need to remind ourselves to “Do your best even in our own personal trials to present ourselves to God as one approved, as workman who does not need to be ashamed and as one who correctly handles the word of truth.
So what am I becoming?
1. I am becoming pure like my heavenly Father.
2. I am becoming more optimistic about my future like my heavenly Father and like Him, I am becoming a person who smiles at the future. And the third thing is: 3. I am becoming a person who is doing my best at navigating through my own personal trials to present myself approved to God.
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