YOU are a masterpiece! Let that sink in. God is a master craftsman, and you are His handiwork, a masterpiece that He has created and saved for a beautiful and important purpose. Today, we are going to spend time unpacking this idea.

The last four weeks we have been doing a series entitled “Such a Great Salvation.” We now have two bonus weeks—this week and next week—to continue the study. Today is part 5: Christlikeness. We will talk about how Christlikeness is an important part of our salvation and ties together the stages of our salvation.

We have talked in previous weeks about three stages of our salvation:

In justification – We have become holy legally or positionally.

In sanctification – We are in the process of becoming holy in practice.

In glorification – We will finish the process of becoming completely holy in practice.

I’ll start with a question: Are you captivated by a compellingly beautiful vision of what God is doing in your life and in the world, which allows you to pursue God with joyful passion, confidence, and perseverance? People all over the world are gripped by vision of some sort. Some are gripped by a vision to save the earth’s environment. Some are gripped by a vision to be rich. Some are gripped by a vision for their children’s success. Some are gripped by a vision of their sports team winning the championship. These people are fueled by a vision that allows them to pursue their goals with passion, confidence, and perseverance. What about you? My aim today is to give you a compellingly beautiful vision of God and His work in our lives.

Oftentimes, when we talk about salvation, we talk about being saved from sin. But what are we saved for? We are not only saved FROM sin, but we are saved FOR something beautiful. We often think of our salvation as being forgiven of our sins so that we can go to heaven. But it’s much bigger and better than that. God is committed to not only forgiving us, but healing and transforming us to be like Jesus and reflect His glory. That is a consistent message throughout the NT.

We will answer five questions today and end with a video. Here are the questions:

1. What does it mean to be holy?

2. Why is our Christlikeness so important to God?

3. What part does hope play in Christlikeness?

4. Do we have to wait until we die to experience glory?

5. So what?

Two weeks ago, we talked about sanctification, the process of growing in holiness. Our first question is:

1. What does it mean to be holy?

If I say, “You should be holy this week,” what comes to mind? Is that appealing to you? This is a very important question because for many people, the idea of being holy isn’t appealing because it’s doesn’t sound like much fun. Many of us think of being holy in terms of duty and in terms of avoiding certain things, but not delight. The essence of being holy is not just avoiding certain things; it is Christlikeness.

1 Peter 1:14–16

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, since it is written, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’

Why should we be holy? Because God is holy. Holiness is not an arbitrary demand but a family trait. V 14 starts with: “As obedient children…” We are to look like Him because we are His children.

Ephesians 5:1

Be imitators of God, as dearly loved children.

God’s intention for us is imitation of Himself, which is not a harsh, burdensome command. It comes from His loving Father’s heart for us. The Lord is infinitely beautiful, just, loving, joyful, peaceful, wise, glorious, and faithful. So it’s much more compelling to think of sanctification—growing in holiness—not as a list of things you shouldn’t do, but as becoming beautiful, just, loving, joyful, peaceful, wise, glorious, and faithful—like God.

One interesting area of research in the realm of psychology is the Nature vs Nurture debate. This debate is about which aspects of behavior are inherited vs. learned. Are we more influenced by our genes or our environment? Our genes are encoded in our DNA.

My children will likely grow up to have a lot of similarities to Kim and me. This is because they have inherited our DNA and because they have grown up in our house: both nature and nurture, both genes and environment. If we had adopted a child, that child would grow to be like us to an extent because of nurture, but they would not share our DNA.

God uses both of these means to mold us into His image. When we come to faith, we are not just adopted as God’s children, but we are born again, and thus given a new nature. Let’s look at verses that describe the nature and nurture of being God’s children.

1 John 3:9 [talks about nature]

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed [or DNA] remains in them.

The word “seed” connotes DNA, genetic material. A seed might be small, but it is so powerful because it can create and reproduce life of a certain kind. A seed for a pine tree creates a different kind of plant than a carrot seed, because they create in accordance with their DNA. This verse says that anyone born of God will stop sinning. Why? Because God’s DNA, His genetic material of holiness, is in them. We know from comparing this verse to other scripture that it’s not teaching that we reach complete sinlessness in this life, but there should be change in our life. If a person supposedly comes to faith, but there’s no change toward holiness, John is saying no real conversion took place. True believers are regenerated, born of God, and have a new nature, new spiritual DNA.

Hebrews 12:10 [talks about nurture]

[Our earthly fathers] disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

We can share in God’s holiness as He molds us through discipline, teaching and example—just like I mold my children through discipline, teaching and example. If a child is to grow into the fullest expression of his Father’s character, he needs both the DNA by virtue of birth and the practice of that character with the help of his father’s discipline. We need both regeneration by God’s seed and sanctification by God’s Spirit. We need both God’s nature and nurture.

Question 2. Why is our Christlikeness so important to God?

It’s because this was God’s plan from the very beginning. I preached a sermon about a year ago with this theme:

You were created to rule as God’s representative under His authority and express his righteous reign.

We looked at the bookends of the Bible, the first two chapters in the garden and the last two chapters in the new heavens and new earth. We looked at our creation mandate:

Gen 1:26

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

God’s original intent for the universe was to fill the earth with people created in His image, that we might rule over creation as His representatives. God is a righteous, faithful, loving, just, creative, competent, and wise ruler. We were created to be like Him, so that He might entrust the stewardship of this earth to us, that God’s will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.

But you know how the story goes. Instead, we plunged creation into ruin and brokenness through our rebellion. His image in us has been corrupted and marred, and we have generally done a terrible job of ruling over this world. However, through our salvation, that which was broken is being restored and repaired.

Col 3:9-10

9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Notice this wonderful phrase used by Paul: our new self is renewed in the image of its creator. Renew means to take something broken and corrupted, and to restore it, heal it, make it like new again. So God’s original intent in Gen 1 was for us to look like Him, but this image was broken and corrupted. Now, God is renewing His image in us and restoring us to our rightful role of ruling over this world as His representatives and filling the earth with the glory of His righteous reign. We experience a degree of this healing process in this lifetime through our sanctification, but will experience it in full through our glorification, after which we will reign over a restored and healed earth forever with Christ.

Rom 8:29-30 [gives us a sweeping view of God’s sovereign plan of salvation from eternity past to eternity future]

29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

I have highlighted the stages of God’s sovereign plan of salvation in this passage: foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification. We don’t have time to address the issue of predestination, but it’s clear that God is in charge of this process and has been from eternity past. V 29 says that we are predestined to not only be forgiven, but to be transformed to be like Christ. That is crucial to understand salvation: God’s plan is not only to forgive us but conform us to the image of His Son.

Why is this God’s plan? That Christ might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. God is absolutely committed to perfecting us, like Jesus, so we are not just an army of slave labor, but that we would be a family, and that Jesus would be preeminent in glory as the first among many brothers and sisters. God has destined us to share Christ's glory in order that the Son might be magnified in His countless brothers and sisters reflecting His glory like a mirror, and that the Son might be exalted as the most beautiful among the beautiful host of redeemed peoples.

God invites us to join the glorious, eternal love and harmony of the Trinity, not because He is lacking self-esteem and needs us to praise him, but because He wants to share His joy and love with an expanding number of children. And the most loving thing He could do for us is to mold us into Christlike children who can worship Him and enjoy His beauty forever.

V 30 says: those he justified, he also glorified. Why is it in the past tense? Why doesn’t it say “those he justified, he will glorify?” It’s because God is outside of time and sees all of history at once, and already sees our future glorification. In His eyes, our glorification is so certain, so secure, that it’s as good as done already. This give us wonderful assurance: nothing can stop God’s sovereign plan of salvation in our lives. As the words of the hymn say:

From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand.

As we talked about last week, Phil 1:6 says:

He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

He will complete the work. Your unspeakably great future is as sure as the promise and power of the sovereign Lord.

Here's the way CS Lewis describes God’s commitment to finishing the work:

The command “Be ye perfect” 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… If we let Him…He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a [god-like being], a 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) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful, but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.

Question 3. What part does hope play in Christlikeness?

Last week I talked about the importance of hope in the future to help us have joy now and persevere through the struggles of life. However, hope does more than that. Hope can transform our lives.

1 John 3:2-3 [He’s talking about what we will be like in the age to come]

2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

When John says in V 2 “what we will be has not yet been made known,” he means: we know we will be glorious after the resurrection, but we don’t know much more than that; we don’t have all the details yet. But the one thing we do know: we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. There is something powerfully transformative about seeing Jesus, about being in the presence of God. That’s true in this life as well: the more clearly we comprehend God’s love and wisdom and faithfulness and righteousness and beauty, the more we love Him and leave behind our other paltry idols.

Like the old hymn says: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace.” But in this life, we only have the smallest glimpse of His beauty. When we see Him in all His glory, we will be transformed to be like Him in an instant.

And V 3 says that all who have this hope purify themselves. Why is it that when we hope in our future transformation, it changes us now? It’s because we know that’s our identity, our destiny, and are naturally drawn to start living out now our true identity.