God doesn't want our search for a fulfilling life with Him to be complicated. The road toward greater spiritual maturity is a simple road to follow (though it’s not always easy to travel!). In this series of messages we're identifying the five layers of the road we're supposed to be traveling on. As followers of Jesus we should be stepping up to the next level of the road until we're moving forward and following Him, solidly walking on the foundation of these five levels.

First, we experience ACCEPTANCE when MEETING CHRIST. He’s willing to find us where we are and to forgive us if we want His forgiveness. This is where we accept His acceptance of us by accepting Him as our Savior!

Second, we experience a sense of our CALLING as we become committed to FOLLOWING CHRIST. He bids us to follow Him. We must give up going our own way and doing things our own way, and instead be committed to living for Him. Our calling is to be His people. We’re supposed to accept Him as Lord.

Third, there’s DISCOVERY. We’re to discover who Christ is, how He works in this world, and how He wants to work with us. We’re meant to be LEARNING FROM CHRIST. We do this primarily though the study of His Word: the Bible.

Fourth (our subject for today) we’re to experience TRANSFORMATION by BECOMING LIKE CHRIST. We’re meant to become Christ-like.

Fifth (and finally) we can experience INFLUENCE — feeling significant — by SERVING WITH CHRIST. He wants us to carry out His purposes in this world, and He’ll help us do that.

Let's focus on the fourth level on the road toward spiritual maturity: BECOMING LIKE CHRIST. How can we move along the pathway of faith to become more like Jesus?

FROM THE PARKING LOT TO THE ROAD
I recall an episode of the old Gunsmoke TV series. The story involved a preacher who dressed in black and was always preaching about righteousness. He also consistently wore a stern look on his face, as if he regularly used prune juice in his Communion services. He was a husband (and maybe a father, too; I don't remember). He treated his wife harshly, and it was quite a contrast. He was supposed to be a man of God — a preacher — yet he was making life miserable for his wife. What’s wrong with that picture? What’s wrong is that the preacher wasn’t very Christ-like. (Of course being Christ-like isn’t limited to preachers. We’re all meant to become more and more like Him!)

We start our spiritual journey rejoicing that we’re accepted as we are by Christ and forgiven by Him, if that's what we want. However, Christ doesn't want to leave us as He finds us!

Parking lots are meant for cars, but cars aren’t really meant for parking lots. Cars are meant for roads! People don't buy a car to leave it permanently parked; a car is meant to take you places. Our faith isn’t supposed to be a parking-lot faith; we’re supposed to take it on the road!

In the previous step we focused on how we’re to LEARN FROM CHRIST. However, we're not supposed to stop there: we’re to apply what we know. One day when Jesus was surrounded by people who were listening to Him, someone told Him that His mother and brothers wanted to see Him. Jesus used that as a teachable moment: He said, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice.” (Luke 8:21) In other words, the people Jesus is close to are those who are not only willing to hear what He says, they apply it to their lives.

The writer James in the New Testament used the analogy of looking in a mirror. Who looks in a mirror but then doesn't do anything to correct whatever doesn't look very good? James wrote, “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22)

When we take God's instruction book — the Bible — seriously, we’ll find that it changes us to be more like the One whose book it is. The apostle Paul wrote about the Heavenly Father that we’re supposed “to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, . . .” (Romans 8:29) Ravi Zacharias, a best-selling Christian author and a defender of the Christian faith, wrote, “The ultimate calling upon the follower of Christ is to live a life reflecting who he is . . .” (Beyond Opinion, p. xii)

NINE CHARACTERISTICS OF BEING CHRIST-LIKE
One Sunday I was greeting people after our traditional-style worship service. I was still in my robe when a little boy came up to me and asked, “Are you Jesus?” (I wish that it would only take a robe for me to be like Jesus; I'd wear one all the time!)
What does it mean for us to be like Jesus — to be Christ-like? I suspect that the question could be answered a variety of ways, but there’s probably no better list of the characteristics Christ possessed — and that we should possess — than the fruit of the Spirit listed in Paul's letter to the Galatians: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) Fruit is a good image to use to illustrate the transformation that should happen in our lives in BECOMING LIKE CHRIST.

Consider the nine expressions of the fruitfulness of His presence. Look at each one separately and think about how it makes us like Christ and how we should be exhibiting them in our lives as His followers.

LOVE: the person of love has the capacity to express unconditional concern for the best interests of others.

JOY: the person of joy has optimistic confidence that in every situation God has an agenda of ultimate good.

PEACE: the person of peace has the capacity to return good for evil and gives up the right to hold a grudge.

PATIENCE: the person of patience is willing to leave the timetable of change in the hands of God.

KINDNESS: the person of kindness treats others as if every day were their birthday.

GOODNESS: the person of goodness says and does that which brings a little bit of heaven into the lives of others.

FAITHFULNESS: the person of faithfulness remains unswervingly loyal to another person even when doing so results in personal cost.

GENTLENESS: the person of gentleness treats people with tenderness, knowing that personhood is fragile.

SELF-CONTROL: the person who possesses self-control looks within for the discipline and motivation to do what's right.

A story has often been told about a man who was rushing to catch a train. He inadvertently bumped into a fruit stand, spilling a neat pile of apples onto the ground. The young boy who operated the stand began to pick up the apples. The hurrying man stopped, returned to the mess he had created, and helped the boy pick up the apples, wiping each one off as he placed them back onto the table. When the apples had all been picked up, cleaned, and returned to their place, the boy asked, “Are you Jesus?” The man is reported to have replied, “No, but I'm trying to be like Him.”

SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES THAT HELP
“I’m trying to be like Him.” Not much gets done without some measure of discipline. You don't usually get a job done without being disciplined about doing some things that aren’t easy, fun, or immediately rewarding. You don't usually complete a long journey without the discipline of sticking to the right road and keeping on.

Being Jesus’ disciple requires discipline (note the similarity of the words). Throughout the history of people’s attempts to follow Jesus, there have been various disciplines identified which help that process: they're called spiritual disciplines. In Celebration of Discipline, his classic book on the spiritual disciplines, Richard Foster gives a suggested list: meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration.

We can’t simply “will” ourselves to be more like Jesus; we need God's help to be who God wants us to be! However, we can position ourselves to allow God to do His work of transformation in us. Foster wrote, “God has given us the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving His grace.” (Spiritual Disciplines, p.7)

You and I can’t make a garden grow; only God can do that. A gardener, however, has a crucial role to play. He digs up the soil, fertilizes it, plants the seeds, waters the garden regularly, and weeds it. God makes the garden grow, but a gardener has a part in it, too! Similarly, God's Holy Spirit brings to us the characteristics of Jesus that are to bear fruit in our lives, and we can help or hinder that process. We help the process along when we discipline ourselves to meditate, pray, fast, study, live simply, spend time alone with God, submit to Him and others, serve others, confess regularly, worship the Lord, seek guidance, and celebrate the blessings from God.

Becoming more like Christ is a choice. We can work with the Holy Spirit, cooperating with Him to become more like Christ, or we can resist Him. The apostle Paul wrote, playing off the imagery of the Holy Spirit being like fire, “Do not put out the Spirit's fire;” (1 Thessalonians 5:19). We can blow out a fire, and we can put out the Holy Spirit in our lives. In another place Paul stated the same thought in a positive way: “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” (Galatians 5:16)

The spiritual disciplines cause us to act in ways that are conducive to the Spirit’s working in our lives so that we become more like Jesus. Author Terry Wardle wrote, “He has given you the right to choose the level of involvement He is to have in your spiritual development.” (Outrageous Love, Transforming Power, p.85)

INFLUENCED BY HIS CLOSENESS
Jesus rubs off on us! When we seek to truly follow Him in obedience and to “practice the presence,” as Brother Lawrence put it, we’ll find ourselves being influenced in positive ways by Him. We’ll become more like Him!

After Jesus' ascension to heaven His disciples went around preaching and healing people. There's a historical notation in the book of Acts in the Bible about what other people observed and concluded about two of Jesus' disciples. It says, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13) Those people found Peter and John to be amazing, yet they knew they were ordinary men. It was then that the people took note that Peter and John had been with Jesus. Jesus had “rubbed off” on them!

A little brother often follows his big brother around and tries to do whatever he does, trying to act the way his big brother acts. Christ is meant to be our “big brother,” and we’re supposed to follow Him, attempting to copy His behavior and to be like Him. We do this in a practical way by simply trying to remain conscious of Him as much of the time as we can. Brother Lawrence wrote, “At all times, every hour, every minute, even at my busiest times, I drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting my thought of God.” (Devotional Classics, Richard Foster, p.82)

Consistent reflection on Christ can change us. The apostle Paul wrote, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Christ invites us to draw near to Him in the most personal of all relationships! True Christianity isn’t just a certain belief system, though it is that. Christianity isn’t just a set of rules, though there are things we say yes or no to when we seek to follow Christ instead of yielding to our own whims and wills. The basis of Christianity is Jesus Christ and our relationship to Him! The closer to Christ we seek to be, the more we’ll find ourselves influenced by Him and the more we’ll be like Him!

REFLECTING CHRIST NATURALLY
If we do a good deed for someone we really care about and we're thanked by that person, we respond, “Aw, it was nothing,” or “It was my pleasure,” or “I enjoyed doing it for you,” or “It was no trouble.” It wasn’t a duty; it was a delight.

BECOMING LIKE CHRIST isn’t easy; it takes sacrifice, work, and discipline. On the other hand, if we really come to the point where we love Christ, it’s no longer a duty; it’s a delight! The apostle John, who loved Jesus, wrote, “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, . . .” (1 John 5:3) The amazing truth of the Christian faith is that ultimately it’s not a burden or a sacrifice to want to be like Christ, because we love Him! His will becomes more and more our own will. This is hinted at in what Jesus told us about making prayer requests: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” (John 15:7) If we're really committed to Jesus and His Word, we're going to want what He wants. Our requests will essentially be the same requests that He’d make if He were in our situation — and of course He's going to grant those kinds of requests!

Dallas Willard, one of my favorite authors, is an expert on the subject of spirituality. He wrote, “The intention of God for each of us is that we should become the kind of person He can empower to do what we want.” (Preaching Today audio recording of an interview) That’s right: God wants us to be people who can do what we want, and that will happen when we become so much like Christ that we want what He wants!

Obedience to Christ is burdensome only when we keep insisting on having our own way when it’s clearly not His way for us. Our lives will be filled with many fewer personal hassles and much more joy and peace when our desire to be near Christ and to be like Him is greater than our desire for anything else! No wonder Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:30)