Four Fold Pattern (#4): The Lord Jesus Christ

Review and Recapitulation of the Fourfold Pattern

0:03 Our study in the Word of God this morning is in reality the unfinished or the incomplete segment of last Lord's Day morning's meditation. And in the light of this, a brief recapitulation or review is in order. You will remember, those of you who have been following this series of studies, that we are examining some of the cardinal blessings of salvation in Jesus Christ.

0:33 And the present focus of our study is upon the great blessing of God's grace that comes to us within the framework of the biblical doctrine of sanctification. We have emphasized again and again that this grace of God's working with respect to the bondage and pollution of sin has three major elements.

0:59 Sanctification begins with a radical cleavage with sin's dominion and power that we may call definitive sanctification, but then it continues by a gradual process and will be culminated in a final crisis. Well, we are presently engaged in studying together some of the major elements of biblical truth with respect to sanctification continued as a gradual process. process. We have noted in the Scriptures the fact of this process, what necessitates the process, the goal of the process, the agents in the process. And last week we got three quarters of the way through a study on this vital issue of the pattern in the process. In other words, as we seek more and more to deal with sin, which is the negative element in the process, and

1:59 and more and more to be like unto our God, what is the pattern by which we are to establish that which is sin and needs to be put to death? How do we know what is like God, so that we may by His grace seek to be conformed to Him? Well, this whole matter then of the pattern of sanctification then is very,

2:26 very vital at the practical level of the Christian's progress in grace. Well, we saw from the Scriptures that there is a fourfold pattern for sanctification. God Himself constitutes the first element in that pattern. Jesus said, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5, verse 48 says,

2:54 We saw that the second element in this pattern is the law of God, that is, the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, which constitute a summary of our moral obligations, and even that summary has a summary in the great teaching that love to God and love to one's neighbor as oneself is of the very essence of moral obligation. Then we concluded our study by asserting that that the entire spectrum of the revealed will of God constitutes the third element in the pattern of sanctification.

3:32 the detailed instructions of our Lord concerning the various aspects of Christian responsibility, the many sections in the epistles in which duties ranging all the way from servants to masters to husbands and wives and parents to children, and all conceivable relationships are dealt with in detail. It is here that such books as the book of Proverbs come into play, giving us practical instruction in everything from how to avoid the wiles of a harlot as to how to control our tongues and our own spirits to the glory of God. And then even the Old Testament history sets forth the will of God for us according to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and many other portions. And so as the people of God, the pattern of our sanctification is not only God himself,

4:25 the moral law, but the entire spectrum of the revealed will of God. Now this morning, we take up the fourth, and in a very true sense, the most vital element in this fourfold pattern of sanctification, namely, the example of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Now as we come to consider Christ as the example of His people, In terms of sanctification, let me remind you that I am assuming that we are already established in our understanding and in our experience with reference to these previous cardinal blessings. It is only those who have been called and regenerated and are thereby justified and adopted

5:21 by virtue of union with Christ by faith, who are called upon to be like Christ in progressive sanctification. In other words, until Christ in His objective work for us is embraced as Savior and Lord, it is foolish to talk of Christ being set before our eyes as our patterns. We cannot hope to be like Him until we are first of all in Him. And we cannot be in Him except by faith as He is presented to us in the Gospel. Furthermore, we are speaking of Christ as example to those who have experienced that initial work of sanctifying grace, that radical breach with the power and dominion of sins.

Christ as Example: The Self-Consciousness of Christ

6:17 Well, so much for that word of introduction and caution. Now then, as we seek to trace out the wealth of biblical material, teaching us that Christ is indeed our example in progressive sanctification, consider with me, first of all, the biblical evidence which establishes this truth.

6:41 Is it a notion of over-enthusiastic disciples that Christ ought to be their pattern? Is it some kind of an unrealistic or idealistic concept that is set before us? Well, the answer to these questions in the Scriptures is a very ringing negation. No. We find in the self-enthusiast consciousness of our Lord and also in the explicit teaching of the apostles that Christ is indeed to be the example and pattern of his people. Think with me then along those two lines as we establish from the scriptures the evidence that Christ is to be the example for his people. First of all, in the self-consciousness of our Lord,

7:35 turn with me to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 10. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 10. The Lord Jesus is speaking here to the twelve to whom He has given special authority and power as apostles. He is commissioning them, sending them forth to minister, and in the midst of this He says things that go beyond the limitations

8:04 of those things that apply to them as apostles with special authority and special power, and he generalizes with reference to something that applies to them simply as disciples, that is, as followers of Christ. Verse 24, "...a disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher." and the servant as his lord. Now he's going to apply that truth. If they have called the master of the house, Beelzebub, how much more them of his household? Now our Lord establishes this great principle, that the learner is never above the teacher, and the slave is never above the master. It is enough, he says, that the disciple be enough

9:04 as his teacher. In other words, the great end of the teacher is to reproduce in his pupil the form and style of life which that teaching embodied in the life of the teacher himself has produced. And when that teaching imbibed by the disciple fleshes itself out in a lifestyle that reflects a similarity between pupil and teacher, the teaching has accomplished its end. Now our Lord in this context says this has for His own a negative implication. They have accused the Lord Jesus, verse 34 of the previous chapter, by the prince of demons casteth He out demons. Jesus has been accused of being in cahoots with the prince of demonic powers. Now He says in applying this principle, if I have been accused of that...

10:02 And I, as your teacher, am the great pattern of your life and ministry. Then do not be surprised if, as you absorb my teaching, live accordingly, minister by its principles, you become accused of the same thing. Now, what does this passage teach us? Well, it teaches us many things. But the only use to which we are pressing it this morning is to demonstrate that in the self-consciousness of our Lord,

10:30 there was this realization that He was the pattern for His disciples. He was self-consciously aware that He was not only on His way to the cross to die for them and to do something utterly unique in which no one else could share in any way, but that in His life He was establishing the pattern by which they should live, and minister. We see it again in Matthew chapter 20. Matthew's Gospel chapter 20. And here we have an incident in which we have an ambitious parent who has great designs for her sons. Now on the surface of things they seem to be somewhat spiritual designs, but it is nonetheless a carnal ambition

11:25 She wants them to have a special place of prominence at the left and right hand of the Lord Jesus. And the Lord then turns to other matters of more pressing concern. And when the disciples realize that the discussion has been centering around this matter of prominence and who's going to be the prime minister and the assistant and all the rest in the kingdom, they get rather confused.

11:52 disturbed and upset, and we read in verse 24, and when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation concerning the two brethren. Now in that context, notice the response of our Lord. But Jesus called them unto him and said, Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be among you, But whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister, or literally your deacon, and whosoever would be first among you shall be your bond slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. You see what our Lord is saying?

12:49 as he is sorting out the strands of carnal ambition, he says, look, you are thinking like men in the world think. It's the one with the drive and the push and the charisma who's willing to ride over others in pursuit of his own ambition that makes it to the top. That's not the way we're going to operate in my kingdom. He said, no, in my kingdom, the way to the top is by going down, down to the place of a common place.

13:18 house servant, a table waiter, and even more, to the place of a bond slave. And then he says, and if you want to know what that means, look at me. For I did not come, the one who is worthy of having everyone bow before me and serve me. I did not come to be served, but I came to serve. And in that serving, to do the ultimate act

13:48 of serving others, that is, give my very life a ransom for many. And here our Lord again is self-consciously aware that His life is a pattern for His disciples. And if only they would have contemplated Him and understood what He was doing, they would never be debating and discussing and having a fuss over who is to be greatest in the kingdom. And then in the thirteenth chapter of John, we see another indication of this self-consciousness of our Lord. He was aware that his life was the pattern for his own. In John 13, we read in verse 2, And during supper the devil, having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus,

14:41 knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he came forth from God, and goeth unto God, riseth from supper, and laying aside his garments, he took a towel and girded himself. And then we read the account of how he took the place of a common servant and washed the feet of the disciples. Now the significant thing is this. John underscores that at this point, Our Lord was self-consciously aware of who He was, that He came forth from God and was going unto God. It was not that He had any misunderstanding about the dignity of His own identity, but fully conscious of it, He takes the place of a common servant, washes the feet of the disciples, and then He says these very significant words. Verse 12,

15:33 So when he had washed their feet and taken his garments and sat down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done unto you? You call me teacher and Lord. And ye say, Well, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the teacher, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an example of

16:03 that ye should do as I have done unto you. A servant is not greater than his Lord, neither one that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them. And here again is that strand of self-conscious awareness in our Lord.

16:26 that he was setting the pattern in the most practical matters of life, a pattern which his disciples were to follow, and having taken the place of voluntary humility to serve them and to set forth some wonderful spiritual realities, which it is not our concern to open up this morning, he then says, I have given you an example of

16:53 And he buttresses that teaching by saying, verse 14, ye ought, and that word ought is the word of obligation and duty. It's the word that has as its root meaning a debt. You are under an obligation as binding as a legal debt to follow my pattern in your relationship one to another.

Christ as Example: The Specific Teaching of the Apostles

17:21 Well, then, this is not only taught in the self-consciousness of our Lord, but in the specific teaching of the apostles. Christ is set forth as the example for his people. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2. A passage with which you ought to be familiar in the light of past ministries, so I'll simply allude to it very quickly.

17:49 Paul takes up, I'm sorry, Peter takes up the subject in verse 18 of servants and their relationship to their masters, and in particular how they are to relate to unjust, cruel, insensitive, unreasonable masters. And he says, when you do well and take it patiently, this is pleasing to God. Why? Verse 21, For here unto were ye called because...

18:16 Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps. And Peter uses a very graphic word. It's the only time it occurs in the New Testament. And I believe Mr. Garlington referred to it some months ago when he spoke, or at least made allusion to this passage. Christ has left us a pattern. We would say a tracing pattern.

18:43 He has left that which we are to imitate in every line and detail with respect to His patience in suffering unjustly. He has left us a pattern that we should follow His steps. Christ is the great tracing model by which we are to frame and to shape our lives. And then John gives a similar emphasis in his first epistle, chapter 2. He has set forth in the opening two verses Christ as our advocate, our great propitiation. That's the objective work of Christ for us, satisfying all the demands of God's law, turning away His wrath by His death upon the cross.

19:33 Then he sets forth Christ as our sovereign Lord whom we obey if we are truly His in verses 3 to 5. So we have Christ our propitiation and advocate. Christ our sovereign Lord. Now he sets forth Christ in another dimension, verse 6 of 1 John 2. He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also to walk in.

20:00 even as he worked. And that what? And that word ought again stands out in the text. He that saith he abideth in him is under solemn obligations to walk even as he walked. So everyone who has Christ as an advocate and propitiation has him also as a Lord, but he is also to know him and to have communion with him as our pattern. And in every true Christian, all three things meet. Then we turn back to Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2. And here the apostle has just exhorted the people of God to oneness of mind. He's exhorted them not to do anything through faction or vain glory.

20:56 To have a disposition in which it is their delight to yield one to another. And he sums up all of that by saying in verse 5, Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Be motivated. Be actuated in all of your relationships to one another with the very mind which was in Christ.

21:26 And then he opens up the indications of the actings of that mind with regard to the humiliation of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the thing that is so helpful with this text is that it casts its shadow, as it were, upon every other text that has to do with imitating Christ and shows us that it is no mere external imitation that is involved. Have this mind in you. That is an inward disposition.

21:56 that touches the deepest springs of the heart. It's sort of like the tenth commandment, which casts its shadow back upon the previous nine and tells us that those commandments deal more than with outward actions. As surely as thou shalt not covet touches the deepest springs of the heart. So when Paul says, have this mind in you, it is an imitation of Christ which is more than external behavior.

22:26 It touches, as I say, the deepest springs of the inner life. Well then, I trust these texts, both from the self-consciousness of our Lord and from the specific teaching of the apostles, will satisfy every believer with respect to this question, Is Christ to be my example? Now then, consider with me in the second place the strategic importance of this aspect of

Why Christ Is the Pattern: Centrality in God's Purpose

22:55 of our study. Why is it so vital that Christ be set before us as the pattern of sanctification? Well, its importance rests upon the centrality of this perspective in the purpose of God. For in the purpose of God, likeness to Christ is absolutely central according to Romans 8 and verse 29.

23:24 Whom he did foreknow, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he, Christ, might be the firstborn among many brethren. As God, and here we find ourselves impoverished by human language, as God conceives of those upon whom he has set his love, Those whom He foreknows, He marks out with distinguishing love and affection. The attendant of God's foreknowledge is His foreordination to make them into the very image of His Son that Christ may be the elder brother, the firstborn among all His brethren who share the family likeness.

24:19 So that likeness to Jesus Christ in this text is placed at the very central place of God's purpose in salvation. When salvation is conceived, it is salvation which will ultimately issue in conformity to the Lord Jesus. Now is this an arbitrary thing on the part of God? Is there some rationale for this? Is there some reason?

Why Christ Is the Pattern: The Image of God Revealed Concretely

24:47 I would like to answer by saying yes. And my answer has two parts. First of all, because in Christ the image of God is perfectly revealed in the concreteness of our situation. And secondly, because in Christ the law of God is perfectly obeyed in the complexity of our situation. In Christ the image of God is perfectly revealed in in the concreteness of our situation. Turn to Hebrews chapter 1, please. In Hebrews chapter 1, speaking of the Son of God, the writer to Hebrews says in verse 3, "...who, being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power,

25:45 when he had made purification of sin, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Christ as the second person of the Godhead, or we should say the Son of God, the eternal Word as the second person of the Godhead, has always been the effulgence of the glory of the Father. But now it is with the incarnate Son of God. with the incarnate Word that we have to do as Christians when we seek to know Him and have communion with Him as our pattern. And here John's Word in John 1.18 is so helpful. And may I plead with you as you turn to the passage to pray that God would come by His Spirit and make these things real to us. I'm very conscious as I preach this morning

26:41 of struggling even to find words to make decent sentences. And I'm not quite sure of the cause of all of that, but I must in honesty confess it, that if I could, I'd close my Bible and go home right now. That there is a heaviness upon my own spirit and a lack of sense of utterance in my preaching, and I'm very conscious of it. And God knows the cause. My own conscience is clear before God.

27:10 Ask God to help us as we touch these holy things. John chapter 1 and verse 18. No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, and a better translation is all the modern versions have it. God only begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared him. And that word declare is the word from which we get our English word to exegete. Now when a man exegetes a passage of the word of God, he doesn't put something there. He opens up what is there. And now this passage tells us that though no one has seen God at any time, there is one who has exegeted him, who has opened up to us what God is like. And that person...

28:04 Is the incarnate Word even our Lord Jesus Christ? And when we turn to John 14 and verse 9, we have a similar statement from the lips of the Lord Himself. In John 14 and verse 9, Philip asks the question in verse 8, Show us the Father and that will suffice us. Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long with you, and do you not know me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. How sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Here our Lord says, To see me and to understand and perceive who I am is indeed to see the Father. Now do you see why Christ is set before us as our example?

28:57 We looked at the passages last Lord's Day which tell us, Be ye holy, for I am holy. Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. But then we ask the question, what is God like in the concreteness of our situation? God in Himself knows nothing experimentally. He knows all things, but He knows nothing in terms of experience of what it is to live in a sinful world.

29:26 God does not know by experience what it is to have to relate to father and mother and brothers and sisters and to responsibilities and to feel physical weariness and weakness and opposition and rejection. God is above all of those things. No, no, says our Lord. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. What is it to be like God in the concreteness of our situation? It is to be like Christ.

29:56 who has revealed God not in abstraction, not in philosophical terms and notions and ideas, but he's revealed God in the concreteness of this life in which you and I are called upon to live. And then secondly, this is so vital because in Christ the law of God is perfectly obeyed in the complexity of our situations. Galatians 4.4 says of our Lord that in the fullness of the times He was sent forth made of a woman, made under the law. And in this position, He takes the place of an obedient, dependent, submissive servant and son. We read through the Gospels statement after statement such as the following, I do nothing of Myself.

30:54 We hear our Lord praying, not my will, but thine be done. We hear Him stating, I do always the things that please my Father. As the Father hath given me commandment, even so I do. Now what does all that language mean? It means that our Lord has taken the position of one under the law of God.

31:16 and renders perfect obedience to that law in the same set of circumstances in which we are called upon to be conformed to that law. So when we ask, what does it mean to love God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength? What does it mean to love our neighbor as ourself? Well, we see in Christ the fulfillment of that law in the complexity of our situation.

31:45 in the midst of unreasonable men who need to be exposed for their unreasonableness, while at the same time never rejected as though they were junk and unsalvable. We see him in the midst of friends who disappoint him and fail him in the hour of his need, and yet he loves them and manifests the responsibilities of love.

32:09 We see Him amidst the manifold duties of not only being the Redeemer of sinners, but having to be a responsible son who even in the agony of the cross does not forget His obligations to His mother, but cares for her well-being as He commends her to the care of John. This is what I mean about Christ fulfilling the law in the complexity of our situation. He knew what it was like to have unbelievers in His own household. It says even his brethren did not believe on him. He knows what it is to love God and to love his fellow man in the complexity of our situation. Now, having demonstrated that Christ is our pattern from his own self-consciousness from the teaching of the apostles, having, I trust, shown something of why this is so vital,

Specific Examples: Christ's Holiness, Love, and Obedience

33:05 Now follow with me as I give some specific examples of Christ as our pattern. Christ as our pattern is the perfect image of God. We read in the Scriptures that God is holy. That in His holiness He is a consuming fire. Now what does that mean when it touches us? I am to be holy as God is holy. How can I put that into concrete terms?

33:30 Well, when I open my Bible to those passages where I see the Lord Jesus going into the temple and there taking a scourge of cords and holding it in a hand attached to an arm that was snarled with the years of labor in Joseph's carpenter shop. And I see him with burning eye going through that temple and literally throwing over the tables of the money changers and driving out the oxen and those that traded and had turned that place into a commercial prostitution of worship. I understand what it means. Our God is a consuming fire. And I'm called upon to be like him.

34:18 To pray that God would give me a burning hatred for everything in this that is now His temple. That is a profanation of that temple. That keeps it from being the dwelling place where God can be delighted in the incense of continual prayer and communion with Him. What does it mean to be holy as God is holy? I see in the Lord Jesus an expression of that holiness.

34:47 in its antipathy, in its settled hatred to all that is offensive to God. And I say, O Lord Jesus, make me like Yourself. Give me that holy burning hatred, first of all, for everything in the temple of my own heart that ought not to be there, and then for everything in the temple of Your own world that ought not to be there. You see, the Apostle Paul knew something of that when it says that when he was at Athens and beheld the city given over to idolatry, his spirit was stirred within him. There was something of that conformity to the image of Christ. When we read God is love, what does that mean? Well, it means to be like Christ. For in Christ we see the love of God coming to tangible expression and

35:41 When he comes to the brow of Jerusalem, that city upon which he has pronounced the curse and the anathema of God. And yet it says, when he beheld the city, he wept over it. And as we behold a sobbing Christ looking over the brow of a city which is under the judgment of God. we understand something of what it means that God is love. When we hear him say, as the good shepherd, I lay down my life for the sheep, no one takes it from me. When we see him in his patience with his disciples, when all the while during the earthly pilgrimage with them, they were so stupid and so blundering and so blind, and yet he is so patient.

36:25 You want an exposition of 1 Corinthians 13? Just study how our Lord dealt with His disciples. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not provoked. Doth not behave itself unseemly. That's why Christ has constituted our example. And these are some of the ways in which we as the people of God must learn how to set Him before our eyes as our pattern. But He is not only to be used, if I may use the word, reverently in that way as the perfect image of God, but as the perfect embodiment of the law of God. What does it mean to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength? Will you go to such passages as Matthew 4 and you read the temptation of Christ? When everything in his physical frame is crying out for satisfaction with food, for the scripture says, after forty days he wasn't hungered. Satan tempts him

37:23 Turned the stones into bread. But the Father had somehow intimated to our Lord that it was not yet time to break his fast. And so he says to the tempter, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. What's he saying? He's saying, I so love my Father that even though every cell in my body cries out for physical gratification of an appetite which my own Father has given me, I refuse to fulfill it.

37:53 At the expense of the will of my Father. That's what it means to love God with all your heart. To say no to appetites and passions and desires that are even God-given. If the price you must pay is displeasing God. What does it mean to love God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength? Go to Gethsemane. Behold the Lord Jesus, recoiling at the thought that He must drink that cup that is full of the wrath and anger of God, unmixed with mercy.

38:24 He must drink that cup which is full of the wrath of God against our sins. And the thought of the abandonment, the hiding of the Father's face, is so abhorrent to Him that in this agony of soul He cries out, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass. Nevertheless, and there is no indication that the nevertheless came

38:51 after there was some lifting of the sense of the agony and the awful specter of what was before Him. No, no. It was in the midst of all of the felt recoil of the cross that He says, Nevertheless, there is something more important than even my aversion to the pangs of abandonment. Not my will, but thine be done. That's what loving God with all your heart means.

39:21 That when everything in you consciously recoils from that which is clearly the will of God, you embrace it in spite of what you feel. That's what it means to love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength. It means that you're willing to take reproach, scorn,

39:50 ridiculed, all because you say with the Lord Jesus, I seek not mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. You see, it takes the whole matter of loving God out of the realm of some kind of thing you feel here. And it puts it into the realm of the concreteness of a set of circumstances in which there is a hostile world and there is a subtle devil. constantly seeking to undermine and to draw us away from the path of obedience. What's it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? Well, look at the Lord Jesus. Hotshot disciples all caught up in kingdom work. They've got no time for little kids. Shoo them away. Jesus said, suffer the little ones to come unto me. A lover of children, never too busy,

40:47 to be concerned to show his concern. See him with his mother at the cross, as I already alluded. See him gently reproving his own where necessary, and then graciously succoring them as he does with Peter. Trace our Lord's relationship to those about him through the Gospels, and then we see what it means to love one's neighbor as oneself.

41:13 And it's interesting that in almost every text, with perhaps but one exception, all of the texts which enjoin upon us likeness to Christ do so in a concrete exhortation with reference to some specific element of Christian duty and responsibility.

41:34 Philippians 2, let this mind be in you, is not an abstraction or a general principle. It has to do with the mind necessary to maintain unity and corporate oneness. When Peter says he's left us a pattern to follow his steps, he's talking specifically about patience in the face of unjust treatment at the hands of others.

42:01 When Paul talks about, you know, the grace of the Lord Jesus, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, he's talking about how Christians are to respond to the needs of others with their tangible substance. Now, you see what that tells us? It tells us that being like Christ is not something for monks and for nuns in some detached, unrealistic other world, but it's conforming to the revealed will of God in Jesus Christ in the realities of this world. Now then, in the light of this teaching, there are two concluding words of exhortation that I would bring this morning, and I trust God will bring them home to our hearts with power. First of all, behold the utter impossibility of becoming like Christ until you are truly in Christ.

Application: Idolatry of a False Christ

42:59 Behold the utter impossibility of becoming like Christ until you are truly in Christ. How can the mind that was in Christ be in us when by nature the mind of the flesh is enmity against God and is not subject to the law of God? Christ's mind was what it was because it was a mind in loving submission to the law of God.

43:28 By nature, our disposition is one of enmity against God and against His law. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3.18 that it's by the Spirit that we are transformed into the likeness of Christ. And if we do not have the Spirit, the transforming agent is absent, and therefore the process cannot be effected in us.

43:50 And if I'm speaking to someone who perhaps sitting here this morning has found something in the presentation of Christ as example that is at least noble and uplifting, and you say, surely this world would be a better place if more people took that as their standard. I ought to have a little more of that. My friend, no, no, no, no, no, no. You've got the cart before the horse until you've come to see the wretchedness of your state as a sinner and come to see that in Jesus Christ,

44:20 who came from the presence of the Father by way of a virgin's womb, to go to a cross to satisfy the demands of God's holy law, and there died under the judgment of Almighty God, until you've come to see in that person and in His work upon the cross, your only refuge is a sinner. It is foolish for you to talk and to think about being like Christ. There is an utter impossibility of becoming like Him until you are in Him, and you cannot be in Him except by faith as He is offered in the Gospel. But dear child of God, and this is where I hope all of you have already gone in your own thinking, consider the absolute necessity of continually beholding Christ in the Scriptures if we are to be like Him.

45:16 You see, there is a dangerous form of idolatry of which Christians are often guilty. And it's this. They conjure up in their own minds how they think Christ would act and react in a given situation. They say, well, I can't imagine the Lord doing that, therefore I'll not do that. Or I can't imagine the Lord doing this or not doing that. And how often have I heard people say, well, I just can't believe Christ would do that.

45:41 And then when I've quoted some scripture passages, they said, oh, well, I never thought of that. Well, you see what they were doing? They were making an idol and they were conforming themselves to that idol. And that's inevitable. You become like that which you worship. That's why when God cast, people cast off the worship of the true God, as we'll see in Romans 1 next week, and worship beasts, they become like that which they worship. And so is it.

46:10 Child of God, it is incumbent upon me to have as part of my devotional exercises some plan by which to have impinging upon my mind continually the image of God in the Christ who is actually there in the Bible. Not the Christ who is projected by the cheap and blasphemous productions of Hollywood.

46:42 but the Christ of the Bible. The Christ who does turn over tables and does consign hypocrites to hell, as well as the Christ who takes adulterers and publicans and welcomes them into the fellowship of His saving mercy. That's the Christ of the Bible. And so I plead with you, child of God, if you do not have any power, of reading with some degree of regularity the gospel records, may I urge you this day to have solemn dealings with God and to read on some kind of regular basis the gospel records, not only to have more firmly established in your mind the facts pertaining to the Lord Jesus,

47:32 and above all the great facts pertaining to His death on your behalf, and to have your mind open to the instruction of His Word, but to behold Him in the glory of what He is, as the very embodiment of the image of God. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, bearing that image in the concreteness of our situation,

47:59 And then as the perfect law keeper, rendering that obedience in the complexity of our situation and constantly praying that the truth of 2 Corinthians 3.18 will be wrought in you, but we all with open face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into that same image from one stage of glory to another. And it's amazing then how God will begin to condition your conscience. And in certain situations you'll react a certain way. And afterwards you'll sit back and say, well, why did I do that? And then you'll remember, oh yes, there was a dimension of likeness to Christ that I had prayed into my own heart and mind from such and such a portion of the Word of God.

Closing Hymn and Pastoral Plea

48:52 And as the Spirit of God writes that upon your heart and works it into the very fiber of your inner life, that work of confirmation to Christ is wrought in the hidden springs of our redeemed humanity in ways that we can never trace out as to the psychology of it. But thank God, there is a wonderful reality that goes beyond the ability of psychoanalysis, even a good Christian psychology. So may God help us as his people to embrace from the heart this fourfold pattern of sanctification and so live in relationship to the God who has given it to us that more and more we shall be like him. Let us sing as our response to the word of God in closing this morning, hymn number 171.

49:46 I trust we will sing it with renewed understanding this morning. My dear Redeemer and my Lord, I read my duty in Thy Word, but in Thy light the law appears drawn out in living characters. Such was Thy truth and Thy zeal, such deference to Thy Father's will, such love and meekness so divine, I would transcribe

50:15 And make them mine. The whole essence of the message this morning, however poorly it's been set before you, is certainly embodied in these wonderful words of Isaac Watts, hymn number 171. Surely our Father, the prayer of the heart of every Christian has been expressed in the language of Isaac Watts that we have just sung in your presence. O Lord, have mercy upon us for all the ways in which we so poorly reflect our Master. Forgive us for the many ways in which we are so unlike your Son. By the power and grace of the Spirit, create within each one of us a new and a deep longing

51:15 To be like our Savior. And then to use every means given to us. To attain that holy ideal. Have mercy upon those who cannot be like him. Because everything in them is opposed to all that he was. He being the obedient servant of the Father. They being rebels in their own self-will.

Closing Prayer

51:42 O God, have mercy upon impenitent sinners, that they may see their desperate need of Christ, and in repentance and faith lay hold of Him. Seal then your word to our hearts. May it bear holy fruit in each one of us. To the praise of your name. Hear us. Be with us.

52:08 Enable us further to sanctify the day that you have sanctified and blessed, that in it we may be further conformed to the likeness of your Son and may give to you the glory that is your due. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.