God’s will is to become like Christ in this life

Romans 8:28-30

The Bible declares, that God made man in his image and likeness

God breathe into Adam and he became a living soul

God’s eternal desire is to experience intimate fellowship with humanity

But the image of God in man has been marred by the original sin of Adam; marred but not destroyed.

God made a perfect man and woman to fellowship with a perfect God.

Since we have been marred and damaged images wise, God’s eternal plan to make us like His Son, through sending his Son, Jesus, to show us the way.

From Genesis to Revelation God’s plan is to make us like Jesus.

The challenge for God is not to just save us and get us to heaven but to put heaven in us, through changing us to be like his Son, Jesus.

And God is so good, he tells us his plan with the desire that we would cooperate with the plan.

It is the device of this world, the flesh, and Satan to instill in us to be who you are and do what you want to do, when you feel like it.

Humanism is a doctrine that teaches the value and goodness of human beings who need not God, because you are like God yourself.

This 8th chapter of the Book of Romans is rich with the blessings of all that salvation brings. However, Paul drops an atomic bomb on us, which is contrary to human logic. That God’s will is to make us more like Jesus.

 
  1. God orchestrates life to work his will for our life- vs.28
  2.  Our destiny is set by God not our ambitions- vs.29
  3. God saved us to change us into the likeness of Christ- vs. 30

There are a lot of things that happen in this world, some we deem good and some bad, but God works in both.

Our will is not God’s will, our thoughts are not God’s thoughts, they are as far apart as the heavens are from the earth.

God’s purpose for our life is bigger than our physical life.

 
  1. God orchestrates life to work his will for our life- vs. 28. 

“And we know all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to his purpose.”

  1. God gives us knowledge to know the things we need to know to grow.
  • Knowledge that God is sovereign
  • God makes things happen or God allows things to happen.
  1. God determines what is good, not us.
  • Good don’t have to look good to be good.
  • Good don’t have feel good to be good.
  • God uses everything and anything and make it work for our good and His glory
  1. God works over time in the life of them that love him, who are the called.
  • To love Him is to obey Him.
  • The called are saved by the blood of Jesus.
 
  1. Our destiny is set by God, not our ambitions- vs. 29.

“For whom he foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” 

  1. God’s will for every human being is the same, to become like Christ.
  • God created every human being in his image and desires to have intimate fellowship with him or her
  • Eph. 1:4, “For he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in his presence."
  • To walk in your destiny is to be growing to be more like Christ.
  1. The plan for our destiny is to conform to the image of Christ
  • "But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Cor. 3:18)
  • Beholding as in a glass is saying we should reflect the image of Christ; we are to be like him.
  • The word of God and the Spirit of God works on us and in us to change us
  1. Jesus being the first-born among many brothers and sisters is an intimate relationship, where the saints are like the Savior
 
  1. God saved us to change us into the likeness of Christ- vs. 30.

“Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”

  1. Moreover, is to say, above all, putting emphasis on predestination.
  2. The called are the saved by grace, and destined to become like Christ
  3. The called, he also justified, which is declared righteous
  4. Whom he justified he also glorified, to have a body like Jesus’ resurrected body
Three major doctrines of the Christian faith:
  1. Salvation is to be saved from the penalty of sin and being saved from the power of sin.
  2. Justification is being declared righteous by God.
  • Rom. 3:24, “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
  1. Glorification is solely God’s doing, where God takes off this corruptible flesh and puts on our incorruptible body. 

While God’s foreknowledge and predestination takes place in eternity, and God’s calling and justification is realized in this life, God’s complete glorification is yet future, but certain.

Glorified in the text is past tense, which in the mind of God, it is a done deal.

God had his mind on us before we were born.

God planned our destiny to be like Christ and to spend eternity with the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost.

But God wants us to be like Jesus NOW! In these bodies.