good evening let me ask god's blessing on our time our god and father we thank you and praise you that you've created us in your image thank you that you sent your son jesus to die for us and rise again we thank you for his spirit that you've poured out on our flesh so that we might be your sons and daughters i pray father that as we meditate on these things tonight that you would encourage our hearts in this particular moment that we might be faithful before you and we ask for this in jesus name amen some conferences have talks like how to be a successful person or how to be a persuasive person an influential person but since it's 2020 we went with just how to be a person it might seem like we lowered the bar a bit in fact my topic title which was given to me was so clear that i went back and asked pastor wilson several times what was it again people were created in the image of god and speaking of low bars we're still fighting to get that point down from conception to natural death male and female the image of god confers divine worth dignity and value to every living soul but this really is bible kindergarten you can read the first chapter of the bible and you should get this point down easily but what does that mean and most importantly what else does the bible say that means i want to suggest that it means at least two things first it means that people like god whose image they bear are immortals people are embodied souls that live forever that will live forever that means that the image of god is not only an immediate assignment of imitating god but it's also a promise of eternity god has set eternity in our hearts in more ways than one human immortality consists of having a beginning but no end eternity awaits all human beings everyone will live forever and so that leads to the second thing which is that not only are human beings stamped with god's glorious image definitively we are also and most likely because of that image becoming something forever eternity is not static eternity will have a story arc for those who love jesus we will go from glory to glory for those who hate jesus who want nothing to do with him they will go the other way eternity will either be more and more life and glory and joy growing gradually more and more into the likeness of christ and to our point here becoming more and more real persons or it will be an eternal decay and rot and gnawing bitterness becoming less and less like god and therefore less and less human and less and less of a person c. s lewis writes in the weight of glory it is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which if you saw it now you would be strongly tempted to worship or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare all day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations it is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all our dealings with one another all friendships all loves all play all politics there are no ordinary people you have never talked to a mere mortal nations cultures arts civilizations these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat but it is immortals whom we joke with work with marry snub and exploit immortal horrors or everlasting splendors there are no mere mortals nations cultures arts civilizations these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat but people are immortals either immortal horrors or everlasting splendors so because people are made in the image of god we know that there's something in the image itself like a like a set of blueprints that points to what we were supposed to become they're pointing to that everlasting splendor but since sin and death have defaced and fractured the image of god in all of us we can't see those blueprints very clearly anymore we see bits and pieces of the image but it's all jumbled and faded so we say things like the image of god has to do with creativity or language or intelligence but also our bodies in some way are connected to the image of god our faces our senses the fact that we see and smell and taste and hear and touch also worship all of these things in some way are glimpses of the image of god that original blueprint the idols all of the nations have eyes but they can't see ears but they can't hear mouths but can't speak but the living god sees and hears and speaks to know god is to know him in some mysterious way face to face but because we have served idols we have become like them we have become blind and deaf and dumb and our faces are covered in shame and therefore we're working with severely damaged drawings and therefore perhaps one of the most important things we can say about how to be a person is that we really need to confess that we barely know what a person even is we barely know what a person is because we barely know what a person is supposed to become a lot of you came just out of sheer curiosity what is he going to say how to be a person and the first thing we well we don't even know really what a person is we know it's it's the the individuals that god has stamped his image on in some way mimic him reflect him to that are that are destined to become like him we're called to become like him but we barely know what a person is if you came to this talk hoping for 10 steps on how to be a person i'm going to disappoint you i don't know what they are but i hope perhaps to gesture broadly sketch broadly for you some of what the bible says in first corinthians two verse nine paul says but is written i have not seen nor ear heard neither have entered into the heart of man the things which god hath prepared for them that love him paul's actually he says as it is written he's quoting from isaiah 64. and just a couple of verses down from that verse in isaiah 64 4 and in verse 6 isaiah says we all fade as a leaf so isaiah in isaiah 64 he's saying there's this glory that god has for us but as it is we all fade like a leaf imagine a world like the moon cold barren silent desert without any organic life on it no trees no shrubs no plants but one in which somehow you could breathe work with me here you're walking through this barren cold desert and imagine one day as you're walking through those cold barren sands you come across a deteriorating curled brown leaf there in front of you what do you make of it is this some kind of unusual rock formation is it a strange and rare mineral you've never seen anything like it before what does it go to where did it come from now imagine you're trudging along a little bit further and you come across a whole pile of them just dead dry leaves a big pile of them few acres of them maybe dry rotting leaves just leaves not a tree in sight not a tree on the planet you've never even heard the word tree and you have just piles of dead rotting leaves that's the human race we all fade like a leaf so when we want to know what it means to be a person a real human being a real man a real woman it's like trying to extrapolate from piles of dead leaves to whatever they came from what are they even what are they for what do they do what do they mean what is their true form how do you extrapolate from faded dried leaves to a forest of oaks and maples and redwoods if you've never seen trees before i mean you think about it you've got this little rolled up piece of dry leaf on the ground would you even think to yourself i bet this came from really hot there's nothing about a leaf that even implies height i say trees and you think tall or maybe big enormous or fruit but can you get that from the leaf a dry dead leaf that's just laying on the side of the road how do you extrapolate from brown and cracked to green and lush how do you extrapolate from small and withered to towering and majestic i mean would every tree just i mean even if you got to the point of you know maybe i think these things were on large sticks large piece you know there's this thing we imagine it's a thesis it's the hypothesis we're going with it's a large thing we're going to call it wood and we think that every one of them had one special leaf i mean you know you just imagine the ways you can get this wrong imagine all the ways in which you couldn't you wouldn't be extrapolating rightly you wouldn't even have the categories to work with how do you extrapolate from what we are now to what we are supposed to be we don't even know what we're talking about how to be a person what is a person a real person a true human being have we ever even met one or seen one and here the gospel comes in all its glory proclaiming that there was one and only one and his name is jesus there was a true man a real man a real person and he was the blessed man who was like a tree planted by rivers of water bearing its fruit in every season and his leaf never withers his leaf has never faded and so this is why jesus said i am the vine and you are the branches he who abides in me and i in him he will bring forth much fruit for without me you can do nothing john 15.
salvation is like the great tree grafting project this is what it means to be born again you're taking notes how to be a person get grafted let's write that down get born again without jesus you can do nothing without jesus you can do nothing without jesus you can't be a person you can't be a real person a full person it's impossible jesus says so theologians described the entirety of this salvation with three big words three big categories justification sanctification and glorification think of these three categories as broad brush descriptions of how to be a person justification is god declaring sinners not guilty completely righteous for the sake of christ death and resurrection in our place justification is god's sovereign declaration that defaced image bearers are now perfect image bearers god calls those things that are not as though they are so that they will surely be and in justification god's sovereign declaration is made christ takes our sin and death and all our deformities and damages and god counts the death of jesus for us and his obedience and perfection is credited to us by faith alone the old hymn nothing in my hand i bring simply to thy cross i cling naked look to thee for dress helpless come to thee for grace fowl i to the fountain fly wash me savior or i die faith plus nothing the only thing sinners deserve is death the wages of sin is death therefore the only thing forgiveness and salvation can possibly be are gifts grace completely undeserved faith receives and even that faith was a gift from god you wouldn't know what that your hands were even empty unless god opened your eyes to see you wouldn't know you were naked unless god opened your eyes to see that you wouldn't know you were foul or have the the slightest interest or energy to cling to the cross or run to his fountain unless god gave it to you sanctification is the gift of the holy spirit that begins at the very same time as justification it's the gift of god beginning to actually make you holy to actually make you like jesus it's the process in this life of god making you what he has already declared you to be making you into a true human being a real person that's what sanctification is becoming holy is becoming a real person and finally glorification is our resurrection in glory it will be definitive when we are raised from the dead at the resurrection but there's also a sense as we've seen in which even sanctification and glorification are processes that continue into eternity from glory to glory when we when we arrive at the glory when we arrive at that glory we'll have just begun when will we arrive at the glory that matches god's glory never we have forever to climb that eternal waterfall but if we're being completely honest these theological categories are like the scrawling of a particularly pert five-year-old boy he's got up with a crayon and he's he's sketched justification sanctification and glorification now don't misunderstand me these doctrines are describing and protecting truths that are undeniable and glorious and dear don't get me wrong but we're still standing on our tiptoes there's peanut butter on our cheeks and the hair is sticking up on the back of our heads when we describe these glories that's where you know we're we're really really sharp five-year-old in sunday school that's what we're talking about perhaps we know the most about justification since that's what has happened to us but the bible also clearly teaches that we barely know what that glory is we barely know what has begun in us we barely know what awaits us and therefore we barely know the glory that has even been declared over us so how can we strive to be persons if we barely know what we're striving for on the one hand we distinguish these aspects of salvation in order to honor the word of god in order to honor the sovereignty of god and his grace and at the same time we're doing it in order to keep theologians and philosophers from getting too big for the britches these categories really shouldn't be separated understood rightly they're all talking about the same organic thing from different perspectives like a seed a sapling and a mature oak are really the same thing at different points along a timeline but all the ingredients the dna the blueprints for the mature oak are present in the seed under the ground that's like justification the incorruptible seed of the word implanted in our hearts but what is happening for some time under the soil and then while the sapling appears out of the ground is entirely related to what it will become you can't see the true form of the seed yet but the true form is there waiting to take shape slowly over time when we ask what it means to be a person how to be a person we're asking what are you becoming and are you becoming a real person are you growing into that immortal horror or that everlasting splendor so salvation is god making us into people salvation is taking this burned-out ruined deformed zombie of a person and god taking and making them into people salvation is god's gracious act of taking a race of dead leaves and turning them into glorious trees a forest of splendor at the moment of regeneration the spirit plants the seed of a new creation inside our molding souls and at that moment we're given the gift of faith which sees our sin infested lives for what they actually are and god for the perfect holy and just god that he is and then with our new faith eyes there's jesus and just jesus our only hope our mediator our friend sanctification is the process of growing in holiness becoming like jesus working this seed out that god has planted in us but here's what i'm driving at there's a sense in which all that we do here in this life is actually our seed form there's a sense in which everything going on in this life is our seed form healthy sanctification is really good germination healthy sanctification is really good germination if all is going well in this christian life we are a tiny bundle of sprouts underground and one of those sprouts is love and one of those sprouts is joy and one of those sprouts is peace and kindness the fruit of the spirit they're sprouting wonderfully in our little seed lives under some moist soil this is what jesus says actually he says except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it remains alone but if it die it brings forth much fruit that's the only way to actually bear fruit is that we die this life is lived underground in the dark in the shadows it's real and it most certainly matters but compared to eternity compared to forever we've barely begun to even live compared to eternity 70 years is a blink compared to eternity a thousand years is a breath rc sprole used to say right now counts forever and he's absolutely right but it counts forever like keeping a seed warm and moist during the winter months counts for the spring planting and then the growing season and then the blooming and then the harvest this is what paul says too and he sort of scolds us for not getting it this is in first corinthians 15 he says you fool that which you sow is not quickened except it die and that which you sow thou sow not the body that shall be but bear grain that's what we are bear grain it may chance be wheat or some other grain but god gives it a body as it has pleased him and to every seed his own body so also is the resurrection of the dead it is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonor it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it has sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body this whole life is the winter before planting season we are germinating in little dixie cups on a windowsill looking out the back porch of god's universe we haven't even been outside yet at death we go into the ground at death we get planted outside and then having been planted we finally come up alive we haven't even come up yet we haven't even been planted yet we're people in the seed form we are the seeds of real people in christ we are real people seeds you can buy them at target unless you live in wisconsin or michigan i guess it is we're we're seeds we're real people seeds how are we to be people what do we do all right we want to we want to germinate good all right i'm following the analogy i'm in my dixie cup what do i do well there's more one of the ways we know all this is is true is right is based on the fact that none of us have seen god face to face yet beloved we are god's children now and what we will be has not yet appeared but we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is first john 3 2. the only way to be a true person a real person the only way to be truly human is to see the only real person jesus to see him as he is face to face that's what john says we are god's children now we are god's children now but what we will be has not yet appeared but we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is you cannot be a real person until you have seen jesus you cannot be a fully human fully realized person until you've seen jesus hebrews 12 is getting at the same thing he says follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the lord follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the lord i don't know about you but i think i've for a long time read that verse thinking of this as holiness as a test that must be passed in order to get into heaven there's a holiness card and you know they're gonna the angels of the gates are going to check do you have holiness and you check your pocket and you say yeah i've got holiness and okay you're in and if you're reformed and you're calvinistic you think that god graciously enables you to pass the test god puts it in your back pocket and you walk in through the gates and you're like oh no hey yeah got my holiness and the angels say oh another calvinist all right come on in okay i i've thought of it being more like the test did you do are you you know holiness as this test but based on what john just said in first john 3 2 that we will not see him as he is until we are like him i submit to you that hebrews is actually simply stating a fact of nature holiness is not detached from the act of seeing holiness is necessary for seeing god the same way that eyes are necessary for seeing a sunset you just can't see god unless you're holy the call to be holy is just another way of saying you must become a person you can't see a sunset if you don't have eyes you can't hear the symphony playing if you don't have ears you can't taste the delicious meal if you don't have a mouth and taste buds that work you must have ears to hear you must have mouths in order to taste you must have hands in order to touch you must have eyes in order to see you must be a person in order to see god to paraphrase louis how can we see god face to face till we have faces so this is the problem we cannot become people until we see god and we cannot see god unless we are people this is a great talk i think you're getting somewhere we're gaining on it we are in mere christianity lewis retells a parable borrowed from george mcdonald he says imagine yourself as a living house and god comes to rebuild that house at first perhaps you can understand what he's doing he's getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you're not surprised but presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense what on earth is he up to the explanation is the is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of throwing out a new wing here putting on an extra floor there running up towers making courtyards you thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage but he is building a palace he intends to come and live in it himself and louis continues he says the command be ye perfect or he might say be holy is not idealistic gas nor is it a command to do the impossible he is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command he will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess dazzling radiant immortal creature pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to god perfectly though of course on a smaller scale and so this is the answer to our problem god must do it he must make us into the kind of creatures who can see him he must make us into the kind of creatures that can hear him he must make us into the kind of creatures that can taste and see that he is good he must make us into persons and so he is he is and so what do we do you say but but how do i be a person what am i to do we must come along willingly and cheerfully we must let him we must let him that's what he's doing he's the one that's doing it we are not the ones doing it you didn't get yourselves here you didn't make yourselves you did not decide to be born i mean would you have really signed up for 2020 just bump it back a few decades or a few more forward we we did not make ourselves he made us he's the one who made us and he's the one who was remaking us he is the one in charge maybe you've seen the the meme i've there's probably been a number of them around but you know this it's somebody getting dragged up backwards up the staircase you know but they're hitting their head on every step as they go up and saying this is god saving me okay this is my sanctification right since when since when did you have anything to do with it i mean at every step i mean if you've been a christian for for five minutes or five years or 50 years you know this you know this you look and every time you think i think i'm i think i'm getting something here you know smack right you you know it's it's always in the rear view mirror i think i think sanctification is always you're like you did what you did what you saved me from that you gave me that you gave me that you set that in front you get that's all it is it's all grace it's all god doing what he does he makes people because he saves people it's all him our job is to go along with it our job is to go along willingly and cheerfully we must let him we need to get out of the way he has a building project he's turning us into palaces that he intends to live in and we need to stop complaining we need to stop fussing we need to submit to his way of making us into people and that means obeying him cheerfully in the particular circumstances that he has assigned to us to obey him in he is building you into a palace dwell in and make it practical i mean let it land right he's making you into a person at your work in your marital status with your number of kids with your health problems with the absence of your mom or your dad the difficult church situation the community the politics the finances whatever it is god is at work in that he's making you into people the last thing we need to make sure we unpack is the fact that while we know very little about what we will be we know two things for certain and with those two comes a necessary third the first thing we know is that we will be like christ christ is the true person the true human the fully human person he is what we're growing into he is what we're aiming for not any other human being the standard is not even another human being who's very godly the standard is jesus the standard is christ that's who we're growing up into christ is the only true person the only fully human being there has ever been the fullness of god dwells in him bodily do you live like that do you think like that you know all i mean friendship and community wonderful family wonderful glorious gifts from god but do they pale in your heart compared to your love for christ do you think i i need christ more than anything that's what i'm growing into he's the one i'm i'm becoming like he's the one i want to imitate he's the one i want to know the second thing we need to know the second thing we know is that in becoming like christ we really will become who we really are as we become truly human we're actually becoming more fully ourselves jesus says he that finds his life shall lose it and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it matthew 10 39 losing your life in christ does not mean finding some other generic life force no it means finding your life it means finding you in christ that's the promise if you lose your life you will find your life you losing your life in christ does not mean finding some other generic life losing your life for christ's sake means finding your life the unique life that god created you to be and we will finally be who we truly are when we know christ as he truly is if we lose ourselves in christ what we have begun to be here in this life is what we will become more and more fully in eternity we see this in jesus own words he's answering the sadducees who doubt the resurrection and he says that the dead are raised even moses showed in the passage about the bush where he calls the lord the god of abraham the god of isaac and the god of jacob for he is not the god of the dead but of the living for all live to him luke 20. charles spurgeon once commented on this text he said abraham is abraham isaac is isaac jacob is jacob the three patriarchs were not all melted into one common abraham nor isaac into one imaginary isaac neither was any altered so as to cease to be himself abraham isaac and jacob are all literally living as actual men and the same men as they used to be and then spurgeon goes on he says neither have they lost anything for they are what they were and more these good men have lost nothing that really pertained to their individuality nothing that made them precious in the sight of the lord they have gained infinitely they are abraham and isaac and jacob now at their best or rather they are waiting till the trumpet of the resurrection shall sound when their bodies also shall be united to their spirits and then abraham and isaac and jacob will be completely abraham and isaac and jacob world without end commenting on spurgeon's point randy alcorn writes the right he rightly points out that isaac and jacob haven't been melted into abraham rather abraham is with his son isaac and his grandson jacob and so we will forever be with our parents and children and siblings and friends who love jesus you will be yourself in heaven not someone who never before existed but someone who has been transformed into a better person than you've ever been he goes on the bible says that our names are written in the lamb's book of life and given how god identifies himself with the names of abraham isaac and jacob we have no reason to believe that the names written in that book are not the names our parents gave us at birth the names we have had in this life the bible also teaches that we will be given new names in the resurrection but those names will not be something random drawn out of a hat they will be our true names the names we bore all along our true and unique reflection of god healed and glorified it will be a name that perfectly describes who we are and who we will become for all eternity and so the third thing the necessary corollary that comes with that is the fact that we will be men and women male and female for all eternity abraham is abraham and that means abraham is a man and he is a brother and a father and a grandfather and a husband sarah is sarah and that means she is a woman she is a sister a mother daughter jesus is a man mary is a woman holiness is not gender-neutral heaven will not be sexless eternity will be filled with people real people male and female people fathers and mothers sons and daughters brothers and sisters aunts and uncles grandfathers and grandmothers grandsons and granddaughters nieces and nephews and so on the family of god in all its gendered glory yes jesus says that we will not marry or be given in marriage in heaven in that sense we will be like the angels but the bible also clearly indicates that sexuality and the glory of the sexes the dance of the sexes will not be lost or obliterated it will be glorified and paul says this in ephesians 5.
