The Lord Jesus was praying that his people
might be morally and spiritually like himself, that
his people might be godly, that his people
might be Christ-like.
That's what would shape the world, conformity to
the image of the Lord Jesus.
The highest description of Christian character is found
in the word Christ-like.
You cannot go higher than that.
When applied to a believer, it's the ideal
tribute, the ultimate honor.
There's no ambition higher than to be like
Jesus.
We talk about long-term goals, and we
talk about short-term goals.
The greatest goal of all is to achieve
Christ-likeness in life.
Henry Drummond said, to become like Christ is
the only thing in the world worth caring
for.
The thing before which every ambition of man
is vanity, and all lower achievement vain.
I'm sure it must be a very satisfying
experience to be greatly gifted, to be able
to teach or preach in such a way
that you'd have the audience, as it were,
in the palms of your hands.
It must be wonderful to be able to
preach, so the heart abounds beneath the influence
of the word.
But Christ-likeness is better than great gifts.
A man might be very gifted on the
platform, at a perfect crouch at home, and
the two don't go well together.
Gift is a sovereign favor of God bestowed
upon us, but grace is something in which
our responsibility is involved, in which we have
to develop by the power of the Holy
Spirit.
Many people today aspire to be great personal
soul winners.
They rush around breathlessly, witnessing for Jesus Christ,
and racking up souls at the end of
the day, cutting the notches on their guns.
But oftentimes their lives are an embarrassment.
Oftentimes their lives don't back up what they're
doing.
They forget those words of the Lord Jesus,
follow me and I will make you fishers
of men.
Sometimes I think we develop such familiarity with
a verse like that, that we don't stop
to think what it says.
What does that mean, follow me?
It means live as I live, get into
Christ's life.
Oftentimes their lives don't back up what they're
doing.
They forget those words of the Lord Jesus,
follow me and I will make you fishers
of men.
Sometimes I think we develop such familiarity with
a verse like that, that we don't stop
to think what it says.
What does that mean, follow me?
It means live as I live, get into
Christ's life, get into Christ's life, and I
will make you to be fishers of men.
That's the proper order, and our responsibility is
to talk and give, and give is to
make us fishers of men.
So is the natural outcome of Christ's life
according to those words of the Lord Jesus.
And God's great purpose for his people is
that we must become more and more like
the Lord Jesus, who heard, he felt pleased
with his Savior, that he wants to fill
heaven with others just like him.
Certainly when we see the Savior we're going
to be like him, aren't we?
We shall be like him, and we shall
be in heaven.
That will be an automatic transformation, but it's
more glory to God if we're becoming like
him down here.
That will be an act of power and
grace.
I think Carol Mayvall has given us a
good illustration of the process of becoming Christ's
life.
She tells about this lady who was concerned
about her weight, and she went to a
reduced-use salon, and the first thing the
supervisor did was go to a small mirror
and with crayons, she drew a syllabus of
what that woman wanted to become, and every
week the woman would go home, and she
would do away with chocolate milkshakes and strawberry
cream pie, and then she'd come back and
stand before the mirror, and maybe she was
still overflowing the syllabus, but she kept on
coming, and she kept on coming, and finally
she fit the pattern.
That's it.
God has a pattern for us.
We must work on it until we fit
the pattern.
Another lovely illustration to use is this of
the stilt-servant, and he took an ungainly
piece of granite, and he had a mallet,
and he had a chisel, and he started
chipping away with the granite, and before he
was through, a beautiful lion emerged, breathtaking, and
somebody came and said, I think it was
Michelangelo, something seen to Michelangelo, and he said,
how did you ever do that?
And he said, I just chipped away everything
that didn't look like a lion.
He got the point.
God is trying to chip away everything that
doesn't look like a lion in your life,
and in mine.
At the following moments, we want to describe
how God's goal is to chisel away on
our lives until the image of the man
appears, and as we do, may our prayer
be, let it be seen that with thee
I have sinned, Jesus my Lord and my
Savior, let it be known I am only
thine by all my speech and behavior.
Every one of us is expected to be
a role model of Jesus.
I find that very, very encouraging.
We're to show the world what Jesus is
like.
It's an awesome responsibility.
We are members of the body of Christ.
The body is the vehicle by which the
Lord Jesus expresses himself to the world today,
isn't it?
The body of Christ.
You and I are members of the body
of Christ.
We want to express himself to the world.
That raises a very certain question which I
wrote in front of my Bible years ago.
If of Jesus Christ there only be, may
be what they see of him in you,
and Ronald, what do they see?
If of Jesus Christ there only be, may
be what they see of him in you,
and Ronald, what do they see?
Like it or not, Charles Swindoll says, the
world watches us with the scrutiny of an
eagle watching a shrimp in shallow water.
For believers under constant surveillance, that's our number
one occupational hazard.
When we speak of our Savior and the
life he offers, everything we say is filtered
through that which has been observed.
The sad fact is that the Lord Jesus
has suffered greatly from the hands of some
people.
He's been wounded in the house of his
friends.
James thinks that more evil is done to
the cause of Christianity by its adherents than
by its opponents.
Do you believe that?
More evil is done to the cause of
Christianity by its adherents than by the world's
often-confined obsessions with his Christ.
They argue rightly that if Christianity is what
we claim it is, it ought to make
a difference in the life of the world.
Now, just pay attention when we talk to
you and your non-Christian friends.
The greatest argument that they use is simply
the product of the inconsistent life of their
believers.
How do you answer that?
Well, the world brings it up.
Let me read you what he said.
Many of us have said that we are
predestined to live our lives while pretending to
believe they are viable.
The fact is that there were no such
people.
That has been one of the strongest arguments
of my skeptical opinion.
Let me give you some examples of four
role models of people that will be part
of your cultural shock coming back to the
United States soon.
I was over in Alabama a year or
two ago, and I had a Christian friend
who I part-timed, so I didn't want
to be a part of his cultural shock,
but at the time he did have a
problem, and it had some problems.
On the left side of the bumper, there's
a person who just said, I.
There's also a person who just said, I.
On the right-hand side of the bumper,
there's a person who said, you put an
icon on a national building.
Now, here in Alabama, here's an interesting scene.
What an inconsistent text on this right-hand
side of the
world.
Who?
So, on Sunday night, on a religious broadcast,
Monday morning, he's back in the office, and
things are not going well at all, and
he took it out on his secretary.
They really let her have it, and as
she was going out the office, the week,
to the ladies room, he passed another girl,
and she said, yep, come to Jiva from
Sunday night, and go to hell on Monday.
Breaks your heart, doesn't it?
Breaks your heart that if the church weren't
a divine institution, it never would have survived.
Would never have survived blows like that.
The inconsistency in the life of Christian people.
All the time we hear of famous actors
and actresses, and they have recently been born
again, and the news is blazing from coast
to coast.
The Christian community suffers from an intense inferiority
complex, and gloats over anyone who professes to
be born again.
The trouble is that they don't make a
plea right with the world.
They go on living the same lifestyle that
they have always lived, and sometimes you hear
of them starring in a low-rated movie,
and it's very evident that Christ has not
made a change in their life, and all
of this in the name of the lovely
Lord Jiva.
That's the sad part about it, that it's
associated with Christ.
Or, it could be Christian musicians with their
theatrical performances.
The body language, the imitation of the world,
and all of its styles, and oftentimes the
questionable lyrics.
A young woman within the last two years,
heralded as a great gospel singer.
Next thing she's coming out with statements that
are slightly less than pornographic in the paper.
She says, that's Christianity?
Thanks very much, I don't know.
You remember a gangster who professed to be
saved in one of the great crusades in
this country, but his life didn't change at
all.
The news spread like wildfire that he was
now a believer, but he continued to carry
on his underworld activities, and when somebody confronted
him with this caricature of Christianity, he said,
nobody ever told me that in coming to
Christ I hadn't changed my life.
He said, you have Christian cowboys.
He said, you have Christian politicians.
He said, you have Christian football players.
Why can't you have a Christian gangster?
And he went back into the world.
You never heard from him again.
Nothing all may be one, but the world
may believe that thou hast sinned.
Then there are the Christian TV personalities, sporting
costly costumes, makeup put on their fingers, dripping
with jewelry made up like Jezebel.
And this is the way Jesus is presented
in the 20th century by tenuous friends from
Nazareth.
And don't forget those radio and TV creatures
who carry on a begging, money-making raps.
And it goes on until some clever reporter
gets a hold of the story, and the
whole thing comes out in the headlines, another
blot on the of Jesus.
In the past year, our fellows were studying
cults, and one of the fellows did a
report on faith healers, and he brought a
video cassette to the class.
It seems that there's a show on television,
Johnny Carton, and one night he had a
fellow on called the Incredible Randy.
Randy's no friend of Christianity, apparently, but he
likes to expose anything that professes to be
supernatural.
And so he picked one of the healers,
the healer's name was Peter Popoff.
No harm in mentioning him, because it's been
in the papers and TV.
And he went to the Peter Popoff show,
and first of all you see Peter Popoff
there, and he's saying, man in the meeting
tonight named Harry.
Harry, would you raise your hand?
Harry raises his hand.
Wife is good.
Harry, let's see, you live at 30, for
the Lord has revealed to me you live
at 3844 foothills.
Harry says, yes, that's right.
How did he know?
The Lord reveals to him.
Wife is crying by now, this wonderful revelation
from the Lord.
He says, you have eye trouble, don't you?
And your wife has eye trouble, too.
Come over here, and let me put your
hands on your eyes.
Puts his hand on their eyes, and pushes
them down into the chair.
I don't know whether that was flame in
the spirit, but I want to tell you
it was a hefty push down into the
chair.
And then came the expose.
Incredible Randy had gone there, not only with
cameras, but with sound equipment as well.
They found that Mrs. Popoff went out to
the audience before the meeting, and she interviewed
people who came to be healed.
And if they wanted to be healed, she
gave them a card to fill out.
Harry, 3844 foothills.
Eye trouble.
Wife has eye trouble, too.
And then the meeting would start, Mrs. Popoff
was behind the scenes.
I forgot to tell you that when Randy
first interviewed Peter Popoff, he noticed he had
an ear bone.
He had something in his ear, and he
thought, that's funny.
That's funny for a healer to be deaf.
But before the meeting starts, Mrs. Popoff goes
out in the back, and she's broadcasting on
38 megahertz, and Peter is picking it up
in the earpiece.
And she says, the next man is Harry.
He said, I have a revelation from the
Lord that the man named Harry is coming.
She said, 3844 foothills.
He said, you live at 3844 foothills.
And this was, you could hear this.
You could hear this on the videocassette.
You could hear the broadcast.
You could hear her broadcast.
You could hear him and then presenting it
as a revelation from the Lord.
And this is why the world gobs today.
This is why it's getting harder and harder
in the United States to reach people with
the gospel of the grace of God.
One of America's favorite TV preachers was reported
to live in a 12-room mansion modeled
after the palace of Versailles.
He had fabulous formal gardens, stables, and pools.
Another bought a half-million-dollar mansion in
Los Angeles, which his wife called a little
place to get away to, and he added
a Rolls-Royce to his fleet of Jaguars
and Mercedes-Benz.
And assembly people are sending money to these
radio and TV deliveries.
Instead of supporting the missionaries, those who've been
commended from the assembly, they become part of
a TV church and are sending money.
Heartbreaking to read the newspapers and of Christian
leaders who've left their wives and gone off
with their secretaries, or celebrated Christian women who've
turned away from husband and foes to go
off with another man.
Dear friends, the evangelical world really needs a
house cleaning.
All is not gold that glitters.
I think of how Christ is sometimes libeled
by so-called Christian politicians, men who profess
to be born again in order to get
the votes, because they know that the despisable
evangelical community with voting power.
And then you hear their earthy language, and
you read about their questionable compromises and their
shadowy association that it all links with the
name of Jesus.
That's the dishonor done to the Lord Jesus
Christ is incalculable.
And maybe we should even mention Christian prisoners.
And we've seen so much of this out
our way.
Men who claim to have been saved, and
through strong representation from believers, the judge shows
leniency to them.
He says, I know you're a con man,
but under the circumstances, I'm going to release
you.
And they released him, and some Christian organization
gets ahold of him, and they put him
on parade throughout the country, forgetting the scripture.
He says, not a novice, but being lifted
up with pride, he's fallen to the condemnation
of the devil.
And that's just what happened.
I visited up at San Quentin once with
a man there.
I'm very fond of him.
Do you know why?
He went around town, San Quentin, with a
t-shirt, and it said, Powered by Christ.
And he would lead a man to Christ
out in the yard of San Quentin.
I thought to myself, McDonald, if you were
here, would you do that?
No way, you know.
Powered by Christ.
That was his testimony at San Quentin.
He came out of the Christian organization, got
ahold of him, made a movie about him,
got him traveling throughout the country.
Last I heard, he was acting inside again.
And he had a wonderful testimony for the
Savior, that dear fellow.
What shall we say about Christian students who
cheat on exams, and housewives who quarrel with
their neighbors, and common folk who are rude
and short-tempered?
And these are all libels instead of bibles.
Every instance of behavior that is un-Christlike
causes the enemies of Christ to blaspheme.
Every poor role model causes people to say,
What you are speaks so loud, I can't
hear what you say.
I think it was this that caused John
MacArthur to say one time, I think that
Jesus had a lot more class than many
of his agents.
A soldier was brought before Alexander the Great
with some discipline problem, and Alexander said, And
what's your name?
And he said, Alexander, sir.
He said, Well, either change your name or
change your behavior.
What's your name?
Christian Lord.
That's it.
He came across a little thing in one
of the books by E.
Stanley Jones.
He was talking to Mahatma Gandhi one day,
and he said to him, and he said,
I would like to see Christianity in India
not as a foreign religion, not as a
religion from some imperial power, but as a
native religion of India, a part of the
national life of India, and contributing its power
to India's uplift and redemption.
What would you suggest that we do to
make this possible?
And you know what Gandhi said?
He said, I would suggest that all of
you Christians must begin to live more like
Jesus Christ.
Second, I would suggest that you practice your
religion without adulterating it or toning it down.
And third, he said, I would suggest that
you must put your emphasis on love, for
love is the center and soul of Christianity.
I'll tell you, that's something coming from an
unconverted man, isn't it?
I think I'll read that again so that
it'll stick in my mind and in your
mind as well.
I would suggest that all of you Christians
must begin to live more like Jesus Christ.
Second, I would suggest that you must practice
your religion without adulterating it or toning it
down.
And third, I would suggest that you must
put your emphasis on love, for love is
the center and soul of Christianity.
Well, that's kind of a bleak picture.
We're not in a meeting on a picture
like that by any means.
We've shown how Christians have often grossly misrepresented
the Lord Jesus to the world.
Rather depressing.
Praise God, that's another side of the picture.
There have been an army who are giving
a faithful witness to Jesus Christ.
I think of one of the fellows in
our intern program a few years ago.
He was a classmate of George Frisco here.
How many years ago was that, George?
Three?
Three years ago.
This fellow's name was Rob Luce.
He was stricken with cancer, and he was
dying.
District nurse came out to visit in the
home, and she said to Donna, an unconverted
woman, she said, Rob makes me think of
Jesus.
He made all of us think of Jesus.
He was a Christ-like fellow.
I'm not saying it because he died, I'm
saying it because it's true.
He was only saved a few years.
He had memorized 1,200 verses of scripture,
and when we would go over to visit
with him, we would sing with him, the
whole group of interns would sing with him,
we'd pray with him, and the scriptures that
he would quote to us were obviously given
to him by the Lord for this particular
time in his life.
I said to him one day, Rob, you
know a lot of scripture.
What's your favorite verse of scripture?
He said, but none of these things move
me, neither count I my life dear unto
myself, that I might finish my course with
joy, and the ministry I've received of the
Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the
grace of God.
When the Lord took him home, one of
the men in Fair Haven said, Rob taught
us how to live, and he taught us
how to die.
That was one of the greatest experiences, I
think, of our discipleship intern training program, to
be there that year with Rob Luce during
his last days on earth.
It made me think of what Spurgeon said.
Spurgeon said, spend much time with the dying.
He used to tell his students that, spend
much time with the dying.
I know now why he said it.
It was a tremendous experience in all of
our lives.
I won't say we of course we wept,
but Rob taught us how to live, and
he taught us how to die.
Robert Chapman, Christ-like man, he set before
himself the great goal.
He said, since so many preach Christ, and
so few live Christ, I will aim to
live Christ.
Darby said of him, he lives, but I
preach.
What a testimony!
I've read so often that story that somebody
addressed a letter to him, Robert Chapman, University
of Love, England, and it was delivered.
You read that?
Robert Chapman, University of Love, and it was
delivered.
Somebody said of William Arnett, his preaching was
good, his writing was better, but his life
was best of all.
You could hardly say anything better to a
man than that.
Some of you have read the story of
Sadhu Sundar Singh.
A Sikh converted.
I think he was about 15 when he
was converted.
He had really, as a young man, been
a real enemy of the gospel.
He'd gone to the mission school, and taken
New Testaments, and destroyed them.
But the Lord shook him when his mother
died, and in a marvelous way he was
converted to the Savior, and went out to
live a life of discipleship.
And one day, as a Christian preacher, he
went to a home, and he knocked on
the door, and the maid opened the door,
and she rushed breathlessly to her mistress to
say, I think Christ has come.
In another home, one night, Sadhu Sundar Singh
was playing on the hearth rug with the
children, and when they went to bed that
night, they said to their mother, Mother, could
Jesus put us to sleep?
They were so moved by the life of
this man of God.
His Christian appearance was matched by his gentleness
of the authority of his bearing in spirit.
Another man was Robert Murray McShane, who moved
Scotland, died at the age of 29.
And James Stewart says of him, his holiness
was noticeable even before he spoke a word.
His appearance spoke for him.
He was in the north of Scotland, spent
a night with a minister there, and when
he left in the morning, when he left
the house in the morning, the minister broke
down and wept.
He said, I have never met a more
Jesus-like man.
McShane spent hours in holy communion inside the
veil, in rapturous praise and adoration, being bathed
in Calvary's love.
He would come forth from God's presence to
leave the fragrance of Christ as he went
from house to house in visitation.
As he walked the streets of his parish,
and even anywhere in Britain, the people were
startled to see the look of Jesus on
his face.
Richard Hillary was an unconverted pilot.
He wrote a book called The Last Enemy,
and in the book he confesses that he
was really annoyed by one of his fellow
pilots called Peter Pease.
Peter Pease was a consistent Christian, and he
said the best man he had ever met.
And his one ambition was to get Peter
alone, and to open up his big guns
on him, and just devastate the fabric of
his faith.
And his chance came as they were traveling
together one day on the way to Edinburgh.
He glared at poor Peter Pease, and he
said, your religion is a fake, a hereditary
hangover, a useful social adjunct, and nothing more.
And poor Peter opened his mouth and tried
to say something, and he stammered out a
few feeble protestants, and he just lapsed into
silence.
He was crushed by his opponent's flood of
dialectics.
But Hillary says in the book that he
knew that he had lost the argument, for
there was one fact he could not explain
Peter's character.
It and his religion were inextricably bound up
together, and it played havoc with logic.
Hmm?
A Christ-like life is worth more than
a thousand arguments.
That's why J.P. Jowett said in one
of his books, men may more than match
you in subtlety of arguments, in intellectual arguments
you may suffer an easy defeat, but the
argument of a redeemed life is unassailable.
Seeing the man that was healed, they could
say nothing against it.
Isn't that good?
Seeing the man that was healed, they could
say nothing against it.
It can't argue against the transformed life.
Shortly arriving on the mission field with a
missionary, he was speaking for the first time
to a group of villagers, and he was
trying to present the gospel to them, and
in presenting the gospel he was introducing the
Lord Jesus as one who was compassionate, kind,
loving, caring, one who went about doing good,
and he noticed that the people had kind
of a knowing look on their face, and
they were nodding in agreement.
And he interrupted the message, and he said,
why are you all nodding in agreement?
Do you know who I'm talking about?
And they said, oh yes, they said, we
know who you're talking about.
You've been talking about a man who used
to come here, and he described a missionary
doctor who had come to their remote village
to minister to their physical needs.
His life had been so Christlike in caring
for the people that they saw the Lord
Jesus in him.
He was truly an example of conformity to
Christ.
If you read the little Daily Devotion, R.
Daley read a story recently of how Billy
Graham was playing golf with President Ford one
time, and let's see, Jack Nicklaus, the golfer,
and another golfer had been invited along, and
after the round was over, one of the
other pros said, hey, what was it like
playing with the President and Billy Graham?
And the man said with disgust, I don't
need Billy Graham stuffing religion down my throat.
With that, he headed for another parlor and
began taking out his aggression on a bucket
full of golf balls.
And so the other golfer said, what's the
matter with Billy Graham, a little rough on
you out there?
And the pro sighed and said with embarrassment,
no, he didn't even mention religion.
It was his life.
It was his life that made that golfer
uncomfortable.
He didn't even mention religion.
That they all may be one, that the
world may be that thou hast sent me.
That's the message, isn't it?
To be more like Jesus, day by day,
that others may see him in us, and
want to know him as well.
Shall we pray?
Father, you really speak to us through your
word, and we feel ashamed, and so often
the things we do and say are libels
instead of Bibles, and so often by our
characters we misrepresent the Lord Jesus.
We give the world a caricature instead of
a true picture.
We think of conditions in the evangelical world
today, Lord, and we're part of it, and
we would just eat the sin offering.
Pray, Lord, that you'll come in, in convicting
power, clean away all the blocks, break up
the fallow ground, that the church may begin
to give a truer representation of the Lord
Jesus to the world.
Make us willing, Lord.
We ask it in the name of Jesus.
Amen.