40 DAYS OF PURPOSE
YOU WERE CREATED TO BECOME LIKE CHRIST
DR. JIM DIXON
ROMANS 8:28
OCTOBER 2, 2005
Dr. Henry Faulds was a 19th century Scottish medical missionary to Japan. Dr. Henry Faulds went to Japan to serve the people. He went to Japan to minister to their physical needs and to tell them about the love of Jesus Christ. While Dr. Henry Faulds was in Japan, he noticed something that no one had really noticed before. He noticed that the Japanese oftentimes, in his part of Japan, used fingerprints to sign documents and contracts. As he examined those fingerprints, he discovered what obviously the Japanese already knew: No two fingerprints were alike. It was Dr. Henry Faulds and Sir William Hershel who announced to the world that we all are unique. Every one of us have a unique fingerprint pattern different from other people. It may be looped. It may be arched. It may be spiral. It may be non-specific. But it’s different from anyone else. Of course, it was Sir Francis Galton, the British anthropologist, who developed the science of fingerprinting.
I think most of you know that you’re unique and you know that you have a fingerprint that no one else has. Even if you’re an identical twin, your fingerprint is different than your twin’s. We have thousands of people here gathered here in this worship center this morning. No one has your fingerprint but you. There are 300 million people in the United States of America. No one has your fingerprint. There are 6 billion people on the earth. No one has your fingerprint—no one who has ever lived before, no one who will ever live in the future. You are unique and God made you unique. He designed it that way. He planned it that way, that you would be unique, and yet there’s one sense in which God wants us all to be the same. There’s one sense in which God wants us all to be alike, and that is that we would be like His Son. God wants us all to be like His Son. We were created for Christlikeness. This has been the plan of God from the foundation of the world, that we would be like His Son.
This morning I have two teachings and the first teaching is this: We are damaged goods. We’re damaged goods. You may have noticed that as you look around at people at work. The thought may have occurred to you that people are kind of damaged goods. Maybe if you look at people in your own family or you should think this as you look in the mirror: We’re all damaged goods, every one of us. God created the world. God said, “It is good.” God created man. God said, “It is good,” but the Bible tells us we’re damaged goods. We were created in the image of God, but we are fallen into sin and we’re damaged. It kind of affects everything.
Sixteen years ago, in the year 1989, at a hotel just outside of Beverly Hills in South California, a man was in his hotel room with his wife and two children. It was evening time. This man was despondent. This man was depressed because he had just been fired. He and the family took a little trip. It was the third time he’d been fired from his job. He couldn’t keep a job, so that night in that hotel just outside of Beverly Hills, he went outside onto the balcony of his room and he turned back to his wife and his kids and he said, “I am nothing,” and he jumped. He took his own life. He died when he hit the ground. The authorities tell us that same night, that very night in that same hotel in one of the conference rooms, Shirley MacLaine of Hollywood fame was conducting a kind of New Age Seminar. They were all in the conference room and Shirley MacLaine was having all of the people say in unison, “I am God,” “I am God,” “I am God.”
So, you see, you had this evening in a hotel where as a man was saying, “I am nothing,” “I am nothing,” “I am nothing,” and at that same moment in other parts of the hotel people were saying, “I am God,” “I am God, “I am God.” Of course, nobody had it right! We’re more than nothing, much more than nothing, created in the image and the likeness of God. But of course, we are less than God. We want never to forget that. We were created in His image and likeness but fallen into sin. We’re damaged goods.
I think many of you have read Jonathan Swift’s famous book “Gulliver’s Travels.” Jonathan Swift was of course an English author famous for his writings. “Gulliver’s Travels” is considered a masterpiece of comic literature. It’s loved by children because of the adventures that Gulliver had, and it’s loved by adults because of the satire, much of which still works today. You remember the story of Gulliver as he set out on his journeys. He went to visit the Lilliputians—and they were small, diminutive, only 1/10th the size of normal people—and they lived in surroundings that were only 1/10th the size. Gulliver had many adventures there, but that was only the first of Gulliver’s Travels.
We know that Gulliver had four journeys and it’s the fourth journey that is of great interest to theologians because on this fourth journey Gulliver travels to the land of the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos. So, he went to the land of the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos. The Houyhnhnms were wise and they were kind and they were loving and they were wonderful. They looked a lot like horses. The Yahoos were not so kind, they were not so wise, they were not so loving. They were selfish and they were self-centered, and they looked a lot like human beings. They looked a lot like people.
Now, Gulliver sought to hang out with the Houyhnhnms because they were so kind and wise and he loved to be with them. But the Houyhnhnms were suspicious of Gulliver because he looked like a Yahoo. Of course, you know that eventually they accepted him and then you know how Gulliver returned back to England and then back in his own land he began to hang out with horses because people reminded him of Yahoos.
Some philosophers and some theologians may have said, “Well, maybe Jonathan Swift was a misanthrope. Maybe he was a hater of man. Maybe he hated people and so he just had this horrible view of people.” But that’s not true. Jonathan Swift loved people and he loved God. Jonathan Swift believed the Bible. He knew we’re all damaged goods and there’s a little bit of the Yahoo in all of us and that’s the satire that Jonathan Swift was trying to communicate there’s a little bit of the Yahoo in all of us.
I don’t know about you, but I know many times I have felt like a Yahoo. I know many years ago Barb and I were living in a little apartment in Pasadena, California. My dad owned the apartment building, and we were living there rent-free, taking care of some of the upkeep. We were right near the Cal-Tech campus. I remember one morning I went out to the garage and I couldn’t start the car because I didn’t have the keys. My keys were embedded in the ceiling of the garage. You might wonder, “How did that happen?” Well, you see, the night before I had come home from seminary, from theology school, and I was kind of tired and exhausted. I had been studying something, I don’t know what. Probably the fruit of the Spirit—you know, love, joy, peace, patience, and all that kind of stuff. But in any event, I got home and I was just tired and I just wanted to kick back and lay around the house. Barb told me her parents were coming over. Her parents are wonderful, but I just lost it and I just my keys and I just threw them and they just embedded in the ceiling of the garage. I was kind of embarrassed but also impressed as I looked up at the keys just stuck there. The next morning, I needed the keys to drive. I remember taking Barb’s keys and trying to throw them to knock down my keys.
What’s that all about? Well, that’s about me being a Yahoo. I can look back on my life and there are many times that I have been a Yahoo. We’re damaged goods. We see this relationally and we see this emotionally. We see this even physically in so many ways. In every way, we’re damaged goods.
The human race is fallen, but there is good news and a second teaching this morning. The second teaching is this: Jesus Christ offers to make us like Himself. God offers to make us like His Son. This is the beauty of the gospel itself, that God has created us for Christlikeness and He offers to make us like His Son. We can be remade from the inside out. We can be transformed.
To really understand this, I want us to go back for a second and look at the 1st century in Israel in the time of Christ and understand that the center of everything in the Jewish culture was Torah. Torah of course was the Hebrew word for the scriptures. Torah means, “instruction.” Torah means, “teaching.” Torah means, “law.” Torah means, “the way.” The Hebrews used Torah to refer to divine instruction, and specifically they used Torah to refer to what we would call the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. That is Torah. Hebrew children growing up in Israel (and specifically male children, young boys at the age of six) were required to go to Bet Sefer. Bet Sefer was the education in the synagogue required of all young Jewish boys. They had to go to the Jewish synagogue from age six to age ten and they were taught by the rabbi and they were taught Torah. They had to memorize the Torah. From age six to age ten, this was expected of every single young man in Israel. So, by the age of ten they had to memorize Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Incredible.
Then at the age of ten, most Jewish boys began to be trained in the family trade or in the family business. But a few of those Jewish boys were exceptional. They were the best of the best and they went on from Bet Sefer to Bet Talmud, which was the next synagogue school. In Bet Talmud, they had to memorize the whole of the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures from Genesis to Malachi. By the age of 14, in Bet Talmud, from age 10 to 14, they had to memorize the whole of what we would call the Old Testament. Isn’t that incredible? But they were the best of the best.
Then, at that point in time at age 14 or 15, they would enter into the family trade or the family business. But there were a few who were the best of the best of the best. These few entered into the final opportunity, which was called Bet Midrash. What these young men around age 15 di was go and find a rabbi and ask if they could be that rabbi’s disciple. Now understand this: This was an incredible commitment and a high honor. No individuals were more respected in Israel than the rabbis. To become a disciple of a rabbi was an amazing honor. It was only for the best of the best of the best. You would go to the rabbi, having memorized the entire scriptures, and you would ask if you could be his disciple.
The rabbis had, as we have seen before, authority. They had “semikhah.” They had authority. They had authority to interpret Torah. They had the authority to recruit disciples and they had authority to bind their disciples to their yoke, which was their interpretation of Torah. Every rabbi interpreted the Torah a little bit differently. Some would say, “Well, this verse means this.” Others would say, “Well, it means something a little bit different. Here’s what it means.” The question was, “Can you accept my yoke, my interpretation of Torah and can you live by it?” When a young man would come to a rabbi and say, “I want to be your disciple,” what the young man was really saying is, “I’ll never enter into the family trade, I’ll never enter into the family business. I will give the rest of my life to be trained by you—not simply to know what you know but to do what you do and to be like you.” It was all about becoming “like” the rabbi.
The rabbi would look at the young man and say, “Is this the best of the best of the best?” In fact, the rabbi might have sought the young man out because he thought this young man was the best. The rabbi would say, “Can this young man do what I do? Can this young man accept my yoke? Can this young man take my message to the world? Can this young man be like me?” Many of those who were accepted as disciples would themselves become rabbis. If the rabbi accepted the student, the rabbi would say, “Follow me.”
Now you understand, Jesus chose His disciples, but these were men who had already entered into their trade. They’d already entered into the family business. They were not the best of the best of the best. They were already entering into the family fishing business or whatever, but Jesus wanted them. Jesus chose them. Jesus believed in them as He asked them to believe in Him. He believed that they could become like Him. It wasn’t just men that Jesus chose. Don’t think Jesus just had male disciples. There were disciples way beyond the twelve, and they traveled with Jesus. They were part of His company and many of them were women.
You remember after Jesus died on Calvary and when He rose from the dead in power and great glory, Mary Magdalene came to Him outside of the Garden Tomb, as she was there outside the Garden Tomb weeping. Jesus then appeared to her. I should say, do you remember what Mary called Jesus? Mary called Jesus, “Rabboni.” Do you know how significant that is? Rabboni was an Aramaic word which was a title given to the leader of the Sanhedrin. Bible scholars debate its full meaning, but nobody denies this: In calling Jesus Rabboni, Mary Magdalene was saying, “You are my rabbi and You have taken me as one of Your disciples.” There’s no doubt about that. When Mary Magdalene called Jesus Rabboni, she was saying, “You are my rabbi and You have accepted me as one of Your disciples.”
And that’s how it is. Jesus offers to make you one of His disciples. Jesus says, “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you. Learn of Me. I am gentle and lowly of heart and you will find rest for your souls.”
Jesus believes that all of you, if you would take Him as rabbi and if you would commit to being His disciple, He can make you like Himself. He can transform you and He can change you. It’s an incredible offer. Do you understand that this is an amazing offer? Unbelievable.
As we close, I want to tell you a little story about Leo Tolstoy. You’ve all heard of Leo Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy was one of the most famous writers in the history of the world. Of course, he wrote “War and Peace,” which is considered the greatest Russian work of realistic fiction. He wrote “Anna Karenina,” which is a great love story (of course, a tragic one). Tolstoy had everything. He lived predominantly in the 19th century, and he had everything. He was Count Tolstoy. He was of the nobility. He was wealthy beyond imagining. He had power and he had position and he had potential, but he was miserable. He was miserable because he thought life had no meaning, no purpose. He wondered what life was about and thought it was empty and had no meaning or purpose.
At the age of 51, in the year 1879, Tolstoy decided to take his life. He decided to commit suicide, but he didn’t do it because he made a decision. Having made a discovery, he made a decision, and his decision was he would become like Christ. He thought, “If I could just become like Christ, everything will be okay. If I can just become like Jesus Christ, my life will have purpose and my life will have meaning and I will have joy and I will have fulfillment.”
So, he set forth to become like Christ. He renounced his wealth and he gave it away. He gave it to his wife. He gave it to his children. He gave it to others. He gave it all away and he began to adopt a lifestyle of poverty and he began to live as a peasant. He thought, “If I can practice self-denial and self-sacrifice, that surely is the essence of Christlikeness and will make me happy and fulfilled and life will have purpose.” Thirty-one years later, he was dying and he was miserable. He was 82 years old when he left his home and walked into a lonely train station. And there he died.
Something had gone wrong. What had gone wrong? I’ll tell you what had gone wrong. Leo Tolstoy never accepted Jesus Christ as His rabbi. He didn’t believe in Jesus Christ. He didn’t believe Jesus Christ was the Son of God. He didn’t believe in the deity of Christ. He didn’t believe in the atoning work of Christ on the cross. He didn’t believe that Christ was even alive. He just though that Christ had set a great example and he just thought that maybe Christ had figured something out and that therefore he should try to be like Christ and it didn’t work. In his flesh, in his own effort, he tried to make himself like Christ and he made the mistake of thinking that Christlikeness is summed up in self-denial, when what Christ really calls us to is just giving our whole self to Him, just giving our whole self to Him. Then He begins to remake us from the inside out.
When you take Him as your rabbi, when you accept Him as your Savior, your Lord, He does an amazing thing. He sends His Spirit within you; a new nature comes within you. You still have the old nature. You still have the sin nature and there’s going to be a war from that point on. When you take Jesus as your rabbi, that’s kind of the beginning of an inward war with the old nature and the new nature, but you have this new nature. As you apply yourself to the Word and you come together and spend some hang time with some brothers and sisters in Christ and you are taught and instructed in the Word and you enter into Christian ministry and you have this devotional life where you seek intimacy with Jesus, Jesus changes you from the inside out.
I’m not perfect but I don’t throw my keys into the ceiling anymore. Christ really does change us. We’re created to be like Christ. So, this morning as we wrap this Sunday up, if you’ve never taken Jesus as your rabbi, this is the time to do it. I’m sure you don’t feel like you’re the best of the best of the best but Jesus said, “You have not chosen Me. I have chosen you.” He’s chosen you and if you would come to Him and say, “I want to be Your disciple,” He will take you. He will embrace you. He will bring you into His family, as Mark talked about last week, and He will begin to change you from the inside out. So let’s pray together as we close this service.