Imago Dei Series: Renewed in Christ - The Image Restored

Familiar passage of scripture, which you may not immediately connect with the Imago Day series, the Image of God series, talking about the fact that we're all made in the image of God.

God, when he made humanity, said that we were going to be made in his image and in his likeness.

And we've traced the arc of that all the way to the person of Christ last week.

And now we're looking at a new part of that, the renewed image, and God's gracious activity to restore that image as it was designed to be within us.

In the book of Romans, in chapter 8, the Apostle Paul talks about the struggles of life in this life in light of the hope of eternity.

And he puts us into the our days into the context of all of that in a passage that we are very familiar with, many of us.

In Romans 8, verse 28.

Romans 8:28

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

For those he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

And those he predestined, he also called, and those he called, he also justified, and those he justified, he also glorified.

We find in God's eternal purposes this plan not only to save or to redeem, but to actually bring us into a family, brothers and sisters, of which Christ is the head, and that all of us are eventually to be in a place of glorification, bearing the image of Christ Himself.

Now, with that truth in mind, there's some questions we often ask ourselves, and every honest Christian does.

If I belong to Christ and this is my destined end, why do I feel and why do I so often not look like Him?

Why do the old patterns of my life still cling so tightly to me?

Why does my change and develop into Christ's likeness feel so slow, so uneven, and so fragile?

Why do I feel this tension between what I am today and who I'm going to be in the future?

As we go through this this evening, those questions I want to bring some light into, because they're not questions necessarily of spiritual immaturity or the lack of spirituality whatsoever.

They are signs that something deeper is at work within us.

Because these questions and the answers to those questions really do root in this idea of the image of God, that we were created as humanity to be those who would bear God's image, to reflect his character, to display his righteousness, to be a personification of his goodness, and to behold face to face his beauty.

We saw last week what that was like in Christ Himself.

We saw him, the perfect image of God, the last Adam, the true human.

And as we listen to that, as a believer in Christ, all of us said we recognize him.

But not only do we recognize him, there's something that moved us last week.

It was, I want to be like that.

That's really what I was made for.

And I know I won't be at rest until I'm like that.

And so after we lifted up our eyes to Christ, we now want to see ourselves with our longing, our desire, and yes, even our hope.

Lord, make me like Jesus.

But if you were like me, you woke up on Monday, and uh you woke up on Tuesday, and you felt the gap between what you heard Sunday evening and what you were doing on Monday morning.

And that gap is troubling, it's disturbing, but it's not a sign of God's absence at all.

It's a sign that the Spirit has actually awakened us, put within us a desire and a yearning that is different than what we would have had before we were Christ's.

And that brings us to Romans chapter 8 here, a passage that lifts our eyes beyond our weaknesses into the intention of God and his purposes for us, telling us that his saving work is not merely about forgiveness or rescue, that his design and his intent is more than just restoration.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

It is to make us bear the image of God Himself in Christ.

And so tonight we're going to look at how that happens and how these movements unfold.

We're going to look at six altogether, three tonight and three next week.

So this evening we're going to look at the people of God, a new man created.

We're going to look at the purpose of God, which we've introduced here in Romans 8, being conformed to the image of his son, and then the means by which that happens, beholding the glory of Christ Himself.

And then we'll stop there for tonight.

And next week, we'll look at the process that God uses, the power that's behind that process, and then what it looks like in completion.

It's just a foretaste of a future message that will unpack that in its totality.

So this evening, as we listen together, I don't want you to walk away and say this message was about me trying harder, but rather that this is a message about looking to Christ and feeling the movement and motions of the Spirit and moving into the intentions of the Father, and that Father, Son, and Spirit are work to make this happen.

So let's begin at the start.

The people of God, a new man created.

Now, when we talk about this renewed image of Christ-likeness, we need to begin where Scripture begins, with the moment that God makes us alive.

The scriptures tell us that in our natural state we're dead in trespasses and sins, that we live according to the prince of the power of the air, children of disobedience and wrath.

But the scriptures tell us that God in new birth is restoring his image in us.

And that process begins not with our effort and resolve.

It doesn't begin with our renewed desire to turn over a religious leaf and make a fresh commitment to live out a life of obedience.

It begins with a miracle that God performs within our heart.

Jesus, when he spoke to Nicodemus, a religious man in John chapter 3, did not tell him you need to try harder at what you're doing.

John 3 · chapter mention

You need to understand more, or you need to behave differently.

He looked this religious man in the eye and he said, You must be born again.

That is definitely not a metaphor for moral improvement, right?

It's an announcement that he needed to be brought into a new life and that he was a member of a kingdom that could not comprehend the new one.

In fact, he spoke precisely about that.

You can understand the wind, but you don't know where it comes from, and you don't know where it goes.

And so the spirit operates in ways that are beyond you.

And I'm telling you something that you can't comprehend right now, but you must be born from above.

Your old self can't see that kingdom, your old self doesn't desire that kingdom, and your old self will not move toward that kingdom.

Because the old self is dead, and dead things don't grow, and dead things don't change, and dead things do not reflect the image of Christ.

In order to talk about the renewed image, there has to be a new life born.

It's that radical.

Paul in Ephesians chapter 2 talks about that.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

God being rich in mercy has made us alive in Christ.

Not improved, not awakened, not inspired, made alive.

Made alive.

Regeneration is that moment when the Spirit breathes life when there was none.

When the heart of stone is transplanted with a heart of flesh, when the image is born to live again into the likeness it was designed.

Paul describes that in Titus 3, and we'll look at this later in the morning messages, that we are brought into the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.

Now listen to that language: the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit.

There are echoes out of Genesis there with the Spirit hovering over the waters and God bringing order out of chaos and life where there is nothing.

And here the Spirit is doing that.

The Spirit is bringing into us life itself.

Paul talks about this again in 2 Corinthians 4, 6.

Let light shine out of darkness.

And he quotes the Genesis passage.

And he says, This God who said that has shone in our hearts to give the light to the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Regeneration is what God did at the beginning, bringing life where there was death, bringing light where there was nothing but darkness, bringing substance where there was nothing but a void, a new humanity where death reigned.

And so the scriptures Paul uses when he talks about this new existence.

He speaks about the new man.

And there he says in Ephesians 4, to put on the new man, created after the likeness of God.

This is the new dimension in which we live and the new purpose for which we were reborn.

He's talking about a new creation event.

Colossians 3, a parallel passage, that we're being renewed in knowledge after the image of the Creator.

Do you hear that imagery language?

There it is, in new birth.

The image given in creation that was fractured by our sinful disobedience, displayed in his perfections in Christ, is now created in all who believe.

And we are moving that direction.

That's why Paul can say in 2 Corinthians 5, if any person be in Christ, he is a new creation.

Behold, the new is come, the old is gone.

It's a remarkable transformation.

Once dead in sins, but now made alive.

And this is where those questions intersect with us because now that he's made us alive, he is teaching us to live in that new life.

So imagine a young woman living far away from the life of royalty, doesn't know anything about the court.

She has no pedigree, she has no refinement, she has no training in royal customs, her dress is simple, her manners are unpolished, her background is unimpressive.

Nothing suggests anything about her that she belongs in a palace the way she is.

But then something astonishing happens.

A prince, a noble prince, loved by his people, sets his affection on her.

Something changes.

In an instant, by sheer fact of that union, she becomes what she was not.

She is now a princess.

Her status has been transformed, her identity is brand new, her standing is secure, and it's not because of any merit of her own, but because she's brought into this marriage of the prince.

Now she's truly a princess.

She's not yet a polished one.

She still carries the habits of her old life.

She still thinks like a commoner.

She still stumbles over the customs of the court.

She still feels out of place in all the halls and rooms of the palace.

So what happens?

The rest of her life is about the process of learning to live what she already is.

That she is a princess.

And she begins to grow into that new identity.

She begins to learn the ways of the kingdom.

She slowly begins to shed the patterns of the old life and to take on the new.

Not in order to become a princess.

She already is one.

But to become what she is.

And when God makes us anew, he brings us into a new life, into a new kingdom, into a new savior and Lord.

There, our status is secure.

The stamping of that image upon us is the process that we'll talk about more and more today and next week.

That lifelong process of learning to live within the palace that God has put us in.

He doesn't love us because we're lovely.

We become lovely because he's loved us.

He joins us to himself, he gives us his righteousness, and he patiently molds us and shapes us to walk and to talk in the ways of his kingdom.

And so when you understand that, that this process begins right at new birth, and that you're living in between that awakening of new creation and the completion of God's intentions, and you find yourself in the tension of all that, you begin to realize something about that, that you're learning to live that life that God has destined for you, that He is bringing you into.

And all of the desires in you that rise and fall, and all the habits that you'll slowly loosen, and the patterns that will break and reform, these are not signs that your new creation is uncertain.

They're actually signs that your new creation is real, that God is doing something in you, that he's reordering and reshaping and reforming you and bringing you into conformity with the image of Jesus Christ.

But before we talk about that in detail, we have to start in this one spot.

It begins with new birth, it begins with resurrection life, it begins with new creation.

And if you're here this evening and you don't know Christ as your Savior, this isn't about trying to make yourself better or joining a church in order to live a life of religiosity.

It's about finding a savior who will make you a completely different person.

You must be born again, just as Jesus said.

Your need is that radical, and the transformation is that radical to make you a new person.

Now let's go back to Romans 8 for a second and just think about this a little more deeply than we did in the introduction.

If you look at that in Romans chapter 8, in verse 28 and 29, you'll notice that Paul here is describing the entire trajectory of the Christian life.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And he doesn't begin with us.

He doesn't begin with our desire to grow or our attempt to change or us taking on a new religion.

He begins with the eternal purposes of God.

For those he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

And that single sentence carries the whole weight of that trajectory, the whole journey that we're on.

Think about it for a second.

Before you ever felt the ache or longing of change, before you ever felt the sting of conviction of your sin, before you ever prayed your very first prayer or opened your Bible to read it sincerely, God had already set his purposes in place.

And his purpose wasn't just to rescue you or to free you from judgment, but to restore the very image of Christ in you as we were designed in the beginning.

Many believers, however, don't live their lives like that.

They think that somehow their spiritual growth is dependent on their consistency, dependent on their discipline, dependent on their emotional steadiness, dependent on their ability to maintain spiritual momentum.

I must do this.

What is Paul telling us here?

He is telling us that the foundation of our transformation is not how strongly we grip Christ, but how strongly God grips us in Christ.

It begins with God's desire to make us like his son.

Now that's going to transform our desires and our interests and our disciplines.

But it doesn't start there.

It begins with God.

It begins with his desire to make us like Christ.

And that is not something that's tentative, fragile, or experimental.

It's secure because it starts here and it ends in glory.

And I didn't see any detours along the way.

Not one.

What are you sure about, Paul?

That he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

So there, let that truth settle into your heart.

The seasons when you feel slow, they're not wasted seasons.

The moments when your spiritual life feels stagnant are not moments when you're abandoned.

The places when you feel the tension in your life, the impatience you wish you didn't have any longer, that you're impatient with your own impatience, the fears that rise up within you and the anxieties that grip you sometimes, the habits that cling to you stubbornly, those are not signs that God has stepped away from you or stepped back from you.

They're the very places he is going to work.

Because he is going to conform us into the image of Christ, which means he doesn't work around our weaknesses.

He actually is going to move toward our weaknesses.

And the reason why they're at the forefront of your mind is because he is operating in those places.

He's making you aware of where you are not yet like Christ.

He's not going to avoid those fractured places.

He's going to enter into them, and he's going to do so with steady intention, and he's going to shape you into the likeness of Christ.

Because God is not concerned with how comfortable you are.

However, the more you are holy, the more truly happy you will be.

Image is not an abstract concept, it is a person, Jesus Christ.

So whoever we might be, if we are born again in Christ, we are being brought to that place.

So Peter, in the midst of his impulsiveness, was not defaulted because he was an impulsive person.

God began to move within him and to make him a steady presence in the midst of God's people.

John's early ambition to rise with his brother to places of prominence turned into the place of love.

And the more we know about John, the more that word comes out.

Sacrificial care for the benefit of others, rather than stepping on others to benefit yourself.

Paul's zeal in order to persecute the church becomes in Paul a place of gentleness and patience, as he even speaks to his son Timothy in the faith and says, Be patient with all, even those who oppose you.

You see, we're being shaped with the precision of a master craftsman.

And he uses every joy, he uses every sorrow, he uses every success and every failure, he uses every season of clarity and all those moments of confusion to bring us into the image of his own son.

None of it's wasted.

And this is the foundation that we stand on.

Because God is not going to leave us unchanged.

He is not going to abandon this work.

He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.

That's his determination.

The God who set his purpose on you is not going to step back and say, I think I've changed my mind about you.

I'll just leave you as you are.

And that brings us to the next moment because if the purpose of God is to conform us to the image of his son, that leads us naturally to this question.

How does that happen?

How do we become conformed to the image of Christ?

How does the Spirit shape us into that?

Where does that transformation show up?

Well, let's go to 2 Corinthians 3.

2 Corinthians 3.

Take a look at verse 18 with me.

We all with unveiled faces are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

And this is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Romans 8 talks about the purposes that God has to conform us to the image of his Son.

And Paul is now here showing us the means that he uses to accomplish that purpose.

And this single sentence is one of the clearest windows into the Christian life that we can have.

And it tells us that our transformation isn't because we're looking inward, it's because we're looking at Christ.

Our transformation happens because we are gazing on Christ himself.

And Paul uses this display of a contrast between Moses and Christ in the old covenant and the new covenant.

And he talks about the glory that Moses had when he came off of Mount Sinai.

And he talks about it in this way.

And just read this chapter on your own afterwards.

He talks about that glory fading.

He talks about it being temporary.

He talks about it being just a reflection for a moment and thus incomplete.

But then he says that the glory we behold in Christ is different.

It doesn't fade, it doesn't diminish, it doesn't leave us unchanged.

And as we behold Christ, the Spirit uses that to shape us into the very likeness of Christ himself.

And so we focus on him.

That's the means by which it happens.

The more clearly we see Christ, the more we love him.

And the more we love him, the more we're willing to follow him.

And the more we follow him, the more we take on the likeness of him.

And this is why seeing Christ in Scripture is so very important.

You've heard me say this a lot of times.

There are a number of churches, even good churches, who talk about the gospel as the front door.

And when you get in, it's all about service and sacrifice and Christianity and disciplines and all of that stuff.

And you think, how does the gospel connect to all of that?

How does Christ connect to all of that?

And I'm here to say the gospel in Christ is not the front door, it's the house.

It's literally the house.

Seeing Christ in Scripture is imperative for our growth into that image.

The Bible is not just a source of information, it is the place where the glory of Christ is revealed.

On the Emmaus Road, the disciples who walked with Jesus talked about their hearts burning within them.

And it wasn't because they had a new insight about themselves, it was because they had a new insight about Christ.

Mary sat at Jesus' feet because she knew being in his presence was the better thing, even than the service that her sister was performing.

Paul, who recognized that he was willing to let go of all of his heritage and all of his actions and all the things that he did to build a credit in God's account book, says that he's counting everything but loss for the surpassing knowledge of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, in Philippians 3.

And so when we look at Scripture, we have to realize that it's the Spirit is at work, not just to illumine the text for our information, but to illumine Christ within the text for our transformation.

That he's bringing conviction into our hearts so that we might find that Christ is the one who's borne our guilt and rest our hearts in the gospel again.

That he's moving us not simply for correction, but so that we might be brought into the image of Christ Himself, who said, I am the way and the truth and the life.

That he's not merely strengthening us in the word, but he's anchoring us in the one who is our anchor.

And so when you understand that, everything about your Christian life transforms.

Scripture becomes a place of encounter, not just a place of information.

Prayer becomes a place of reorientation, not just a place where the eloquent can perform.

Worship becomes a place of realignment, not just a place where we feel better.

Community becomes a place of shaping and not a place of comparison.

These are not tasks to complete, they are gifts of God who had operating through scripture, through prayer, through worship, through community, as the Spirit activates those things in our heart to bring us into a deeper display of Christ Himself.

And even our troubles, as the Apostle Paul discovered, when he went through grave difficulty and speaks about in 2 Corinthians, and he realized that in his weaknesses Christ's strength was made perfect.

And even in the troubles that he was bearing, God was operative to show him something about Christ.

So Paul says here, we're being transformed, but listen to how he says it.

We're being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, from glory to glory.

What is he describing there?

Some people think the Christian life is some sort of springboard up into the real Christian life, and that there's some higher plane and some higher level in which you just all of a sudden feel and experience and come into.

He said we're being transformed into the image of Christ from glory to glory, from one degree of glory to another, which tells us that the spirit operates in a steady-driven movement.

A movement that begins with beholding Christ and continues with beholding Christ.

And as we behold Christ, we are restored as that image becomes clearer and clearer to us, and clearer and clearer to our motives and desires, and clearer and clearer in the way we act our lives.

That is how He works.

So this evening we'll close with that, to see how these larger pieces sort of move in the foundation, beginning with the people of God that God creates through new birth.

That the restored image doesn't rise out of our effort, but it rises out of God's intentions in new birth, to make us alive and to create the new man, to plant resurrection life where there was once death.

And then to see that his purposes aren't there simply to save, but to conform us to the image of Christ Himself.

And if that's God's intent, then our growth is not fragile and our transformation is not left in uncertainty.

We are resting on God's steady purposes and intents.

And then the means that we're transformed by beholding the glory of Christ.

Because the Spirit is going to shape us to be like the Son.

And those three movements are the foundation for this restored image, but they're not the whole story.

And so next week we will look at the process that God uses, the power of God to bring that about, and what God's final purposes and intents are as we wake up into the presence of God like our Savior.

So let's pray.

Father, what a wonder it is that you would take death, our death, our spiritual insensitivity and deadness, and transform us by giving us new life in Christ, so that we might be able to say, The new is come, the old is gone, though we are a part of a new creation.

Father, not only to bring us into that kingdom, but to make us like the king, and to give us such riches that we will call ourselves co-heirs with Christ, to receive all the things that Christ has gained for us, to be recognized as a kingdom of priests to our God, and that the image of Christ will be stamped upon us.

Father, how we long for that day.

And so, as we do long for it, we pray that you would bring us more and more into the likeness of Christ Himself.

May we not rest where we are today.

May we not be proud of what we know.

May we press forward, as Paul said, that we might apprehend that for which we've been apprehended, that we may know Him and the power of His resurrection.

And so, Lord, accomplish this and help us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.

Amen.