Lifestyle or Likeness

Paul Pattison · Tidal Church Moncton · March 8, 2026 · For Our City series

Paul Pattison teaches from Hebrews 5, 1 Peter 2 and Ephesians 4 that God wants to make us truly like Jesus, not just change our habits. He shows how truth, people and troubles shape Christ's character in us.

More from Paul Pattison · The For Our City series

Topics: Identity, Suffering, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] I just wanted to say just what a joy it is to be with you. I bring you tidings. Glad tidings. There you go. Sound like an angel. I bring you greetings from the saints at Glad Tidings. And I also wanna say what an honor it is to stand behind this pulpit and to bring the word to you this morning. So would you bow your hearts with me as we just surrender our hearts to the Holy Spirit as we minister His word? Precious Lord, we thank You. We thank You for Your life changing word. We thank You for Your presence of God and we gather together and we know that we come to worship You. We come to be encouraged. We come to exalt Your name. We come, oh Lord, to be changed. Be made more like You. And so I pray we have ears to hear what Your Spirit would say this morning and all that is done glorify You in Your precious name. Amen. Amen.

[0:46] Well, excuse me this morning, if my voice kind of starts to wane during the message, been having this cold for the last while. So, try not to take too many drinks of water, but I feel like my head is echoing. I can hear everything I'm saying twice and the advantage of that is I can take notes on myself. So if you're wondering what I'm saying this morning, I wanna speak on the topic of likeness versus lifestyle. Likeness versus lifestyle. If you know your Bibles, then you know in the very opening chapter of scripture in the Old Testament, the Bible says that when God made us, He created us in His image. That is, He made us to be just like what we see in Jesus Himself. But of course, we know that man figured that he knew better, wanted to go his own way and so he went his own way and he sinned.

[1:37] What happened was, if you could imagine just this pure glass globe, solid glass, and you were to drop that globe on a concrete floor, it wouldn't shatter into a thousand pieces, being the solid piece that it is. But what would happen is that it would be filled with cracks. And so that when you looked into that globe, you would barely recognize yourself. There'd be all this distortion. And that's essentially what happened when we sin, the image of God in us became broken. It became distorted. And so Jesus came into this world. He came, of course, to heal our broken relationship, but He also came to restore His image in us so that we can look to the Lord and we can pray, Jesus, make me more like what I see in You.

[2:32] And that really ought to be our prayer as followers of Jesus Christ. It should not be about the things that we're allowed to do or not allowed to do. It is all about the miracle. It is all about the abundant life of actually becoming increasingly like Jesus. You read the scripture with me. Paul writes in Ephesians 4, he said, you were taught to be made new in your heart to become a new person. That new person is made to be like God, made to be truly good and holy. That word new is interesting. I'm sure you're familiar with, in the Greek language, it's metamorpho. We get our English word metamorphosis, which of course is a caterpillar being transformed into a butterfly.

[3:18] That same miracle transformation is to take place in your life and mind. What that means is to be a Christian, to be one who follows Jesus, to be one in whom the Spirit of God lives is not just to be a person who has modified their behavior. We have been given the provision whereby we actually become a brand new creation. We're not the same as we used to be. There is a radical transformation in us. The Bible says in Hebrews 1: 3 that Jesus reflects the glory of God and He shows exactly what God is like. What He's saying is that just as Jesus could literally look into a mirror and see the reflection of His Father looking back at Him, that is exactly what our Heavenly Father intends for you and me, that we are able to look into a mirror and see that we are being changed on a regular basis to actually reflect Jesus Christ.

[4:18] And the Lord says, listen, that will actually happen in you if you'll allow Me to change you. Because you'll see that reflection that we're intended to show is not meant just to be skin deep. How many understand that your child can look like you on the outside, but they're not like you at all? That can happen. It can happen for believers as well. The Lord says, I want you to be the same as Me, not just in an outward appearance in the sense of a lifestyle that you conform to things that you do and do not do. I want you to be like Me in personality. I want you to be like Me in the innermost depths of your being. And I don't want you just to be like Me in the good things you do or bad things that you don't do.

[5:08] I want you to walk in miracle power like I did. I want you to be Jesus in the marketplace. I want you, like Jesus did, wherever you go, that I'm able to use you, that people are able to encounter the presence of God Himself through your words, through your conversation, through your ministry. However I lead you, because you are being transformed. You are becoming like Jesus in your personhood and again, not just in your lifestyle. So the question I wanna address this morning is simply this. How did Jesus the human actually become like His Father in heaven again? How did Jesus the human actually become like His Father in heaven?

[5:56] And it's very important that we understand that because our Heavenly Father uses the exact same process in you and me as sons and daughters of God that He used in His Son. So how did Jesus become like His Father in His human form in this world? You're not gonna like the answer. It's found in Hebrews chapter 5. Will you read it with me? Even though Jesus was God's Son, He had to learn from experience what it was like to obey when obeying meant suffering. It's very easy for us to obey or to conform to things that are convenient to us. It's altogether different when we know there's something we should do that we just don't feel like doing or it's a struggle to do that.

[6:43] But our goal is actually to be transformed in the process. And so we actually submit to the process, which may oftentimes involve inconvenience or suffering. You see, when Jesus came into this world, we need to understand that though He was born sinless, Jesus had no advantage that you and I do not enjoy as people whose sins have been washed away, who've been made a brand new creation and in whom God Himself by the Holy Spirit dwells in us. There's no advantage that Jesus had that we don't have today. That's why Jesus said time and time again, listen, anything I do I am doing by the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in Me. I do what I see the Father doing.

[7:29] I speak what I hear the Father saying. I am in fellowship with the Father. And as I move through my day, I am very simply sensitive to the Holy Spirit's prompting. And it's by His ability that I do anything that I do. And the Lord has set the stage for you and me to experience that same infilling and that same fruitfulness. The Bible says in Hebrews 4, Jesus understands our weaknesses. Why? He had the same temptations we do, though He never once gave way to them and sinned. So how did Jesus remain sinless? Peter gives us some insight in 1 Peter 2. This suffering is all part of the work God has given you.

[8:15] Christ who suffered for you is your example. Follow in His steps. He never sinned. He never told a lie. He never answered back. When insulted, when He suffered, He did not threaten to get even. He left His case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly. In other words, He left it with God to deal with. What do we see in the Scripture? Look at it again. He never sinned. He never told a lie, never answered back. When insulted, when He suffered, He didn't threaten to get even. What's Peter saying? These are all things that you and I encounter as well, and these are all things that you and I are able to do just like Jesus did.

[9:10] It should not be the exception, as sons of God in whom the Spirit of God dwells, that we do not sin. It should not be the exception that we forgive those who hurt us. It should not be the exception that we don't return evil for evil if the Spirit of God truly lives within us. Now, don't believe for a moment that the attacks that Jesus endured somehow just rolled off His back. I think sometimes in the Western church we think that Jesus was our example and that He modeled what we should do, but He didn't really experience the struggles that we experienced. Peter says, don't fool yourself. Jesus experienced a level of pain, a level of temptation, of struggle, of fear that maybe many of us will never experience to begin with. Jesus was the only person I know of in this world who constantly had Satan assigned to Him every single day to try to mess Him up.

[10:01] Peter says, listen, what He went through was very real. And it came with a temptation that at any point Jesus could have said, I've had enough. I don't have to do this. I'm going back to My Father. You guys deal with your own sin. You pay for your own sin. To me, that would've been a very great temptation. How many of us would be tempted beyond what we understand if we were ever in a situation where we actually had the power to say, I'm outta here? And yet He continued to submit to what God was doing through that. In fact, on the night that Jesus was betrayed in the garden before He went to the cross, the disciples, of course, when the temple guards arrived to arrest Jesus, they wanted to fight back. They basically wanted to escape what it was God had planned.

[10:47] They didn't realize this was all God, part of God's plan. But Jesus says in Matthew 26, He says to them, don't you realize that I could ask My Father to send thousands of angels to protect us and He would send them instantly? This is key. But if I did that, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what is happening? Now think about that for a moment. How many things does Jesus want to work in your life? How many prayers does He want to answer when you're saying, Lord, help me in this area. I wanna be more like You in this area. Lord, I wanna see Your presence in my home. I wanna see a spouse come to You. I wanna be used by You in the workplace.

[11:33] How many different prayers maybe do we have or desires of our heart that we have or things the Lord has spoken to us about that He wants to do? But unlike Jesus, when push comes to shove, we tend to short circuit God's process. The Lord says, yes, that's what I wanna do. This is My word to you. This is My promise to you. Are you willing to walk with Me through this? That not only am I able to bring to pass what it is I've told you about, but in the process I'm gonna continue to shape you and grow you. You're gonna know Me more, you're gonna be more confident in Me. You're gonna see My word come to life. You're gonna have a living faith. And yet oftentimes we're so tempted to short circuit what God wants to do.

[12:18] I think one of the reasons why we even sin so easily in the Western church is because we have this idea of theology that, you know, there's just this big catch net that God has provided for us. That if we sin, if we fail, well, I can just ask forgiveness. And don't bother raising your hand, but I'll be honest enough to raise my hand. There have been times when I've made that calculation. I know what God is speaking to me. I know what I should say or do. I know how I should step out. I know how I should be quiet. I know how I should not defend myself or argue or fight flesh with flesh. But surely God doesn't understand. And if He does and I disobey, well, at least I know that He will forgive me. And the problem with that attitude is that we look at obedience or disobedience as something that doesn't really have much of a cost.

[13:09] You see, Jesus didn't play that game. He didn't play with sin, disobedience. He didn't. He didn't trivialize the word of God to Him because Jesus knew that the mission of God in this life was at stake. And we need to remind ourselves sometimes that the potential consequence of Jesus' sin reminds us of the potential severity of sin and disobedience or indifference in our own lives. Why? Because sin, disobedience, indifference, it will actually derail God's mission from my life. We don't appreciate the seriousness of sin because I don't believe we really grasp the glorious purpose that God has for us. Incredible things God would do in and through our lives. And so we think there's no real cost for settling for so little, but there really is.

[14:00] And oftentimes what we settle for, again, is a lifestyle. As Scripture says, we have this outer veneer of godliness, but we deny the actual power that could truly make us godly, could truly make us Christlike, that truly could introduce the power of God into my home, into my marriage, into my workplace, into my life, into my ministry, that it would actually have the living faith that Jesus wants me to have. We're all tempted to settle for so much less in every situation. Jesus did exactly what He instructs you and me to do. It's found in the word of James. We know the Scripture well. He writes it. Give yourselves completely to God. Stand against the devil and the devil will run from you.

[14:50] I wish we truly understood the power of that Scripture. One of the things we probably don't recognize with spiritual warfare is when you submit to God, when you come against the enemy and you stand on God's word and you stand on what you know He's speaking to you. When you submit yourself to God and the enemy comes, He gives you weapons to fight the enemy and you wanna believe it. When you use the weapons, though, the enemy of spiritual being, we have spiritual weapons, which mean when we use them, he gets hurt. He actually feels the pain of the weapons that we have. You see, my friends, we understand if we stand and having done all to stand, I promise you, we grow in freedom. Not only 'cause what the Lord is working in our lives, we also grow in freedom 'cause we find the attacks come less frequently.

[15:38] Why? Because the enemy knows if he comes, he's gonna get hurt. Because I will submit to God, I will not first entertain the lies. I will not doubt, I will not look at this as obedience as something that is optional. I know when the Holy Spirit speaks. I say, "Yes, sir." And the enemy knows that of saying in the first service, I believe the simplest measure of spiritual maturity. We all know this. Spiritual maturity has very little to do with how long I've attended church, how long I profess to know the Lord. The gauge of your spiritual maturity is simply this. How long does it take you to say yes to the Holy Spirit? How long does it take you to say yes when you know God is speaking to you? That is the measure of your maturity. If your response is immediate, then you are mature in the Lord.

[16:27] You see, when we first come to the Lord, there is this general transformation of our old nature as new life begins to stream into our being. But as James says, it's when I learn to give myself completely to God, when I learn at every detail, every word, everything He says to me that my response is obedience. That is when His work in me becomes more and more precise. That's where Jesus is actually being fashioned in my life. I become more like Him. Ephesians 3:20, Paul writes, with God's power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or imagine.

[17:17] Now the Lord can only work in those areas of my life where I surrender to Him. But what He's saying is, the ability that I make available to you, I promise you, is greater than anything that would come against you. What's the key? The key is in the choices that you make. I read many years ago about a biosphere that scientists were trying to create. They were trying to find a perfect environment to grow plants and shrubs, trees, and different sorts of vegetation and everything was going well. But after a number of months passed, they discovered that the trees that they were growing actually would only get to a certain height. And once they begin to blossom or bear fruit, many of them begin to snap in half at the trunk or the roots would not be strong enough to hold it and it would tip over.

[18:11] They didn't know what was going on at first, but then as they discussed it, they realized they had missed a very important element in growth. And that is there needs to be resistance. These trees had never experienced the wind. They'd never had a situation where they actually had to kind of dig in their roots and resist the wind and the weather coming against 'em because it was always smooth, always easy. When the first sign of needing strength came, they actually fell. I believe if we hope to represent Jesus in whatever comes our way, we have to learn to experience resistance. We have to learn to stand. And when we've done all that we can, that we stand, that we stop compromising.

[18:59] We stop treating obedience as optional. We stop looking as the word of God as suggestion, but we understand that the word of God is full of living power and that power is released when there's a life that submits to it and that power is available to us. Again, resistance shows up in the choices that we make. And with every right choice that we make, every choice of obedience, the personality of Jesus is more clearly formed in us. There are a number of different resistors God will use to actually shape Jesus in us, to transform us, to save us from just this empty lifestyle that is nice on the outside.

[19:45] But when real trials come or when the anointing is needed, it's just not there. The Lord wants to deliver us from that religiousness and bring us into a relationship where we know who we are as the people of God. And we don't live with a pride or a cockiness, but we understand who we are and there's a confidence to bring the presence of God wherever we are to bring light into darkness. I just wanna share three of them with you. Three resistors God will use to develop His personality in us. The first is the most obvious and it is simply truth. You know the scripture well, but Jesus said, what? You will know the truth and the truth will make you free. Isn't that a great promise? That's good stuff.

[20:31] But how many have discovered that God's truth not only makes you free, but sometimes it makes you miserable when you're in the word of God, when the Lord is speaking His word to you, what's He doing? He's exposing your heart. He's exposing your motivations. He's helping you to realize that on the veneer, you may think about yourself a certain way, but you get alone in His presence. He says, "My child, I love you dearly, but look, we gotta start addressing this thing. This thing that you're praying about to change here, this person you wanna change. You know what? If you would let me change you, I'd be able to release through you something that would be redemptive in this situation. But are you willing to change? Are you willing to allow me to work in your heart?" You see, the word of God comes to us.

[21:17] We need to understand it comes to us full of grace and truth. Jesus does. But when He comes to us, He's our Master and He says, "I'm sharing truth with you. And you know what? I expect you to change. If I am your Lord, I expect you to obey." Jesus said in 1 John 2, the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you know the truth. You ever had one of those conversations with the Lord? You know what? He's speaking to you. You've read His word or the Holy Spirit just dropped something in your heart and you know what is true. But you start to rationalize, you start saying, well, surely God would not expect, or the Lord doesn't understand, and we go ahead and make all these different arguments in our heads. And the Holy Spirit just stands there quietly, lovingly.

[22:04] And when we're done our complaining, we're done. Our justification. What does He say? You know the truth, don't you? You know what you need to do. I'm here to help you. But you know the truth. Jesus said in John 16, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will lead you into all truth, every area of your life that He wants to unlock and bring fruitfulness and fulfillment, He will lead you into how to do that. Now, notice it's very important. Scripture doesn't say that you get to lead Him into your truth. We live in that day today, don't we? There's this thing called "your truth." I think most of us understand there's no such thing as your truth. There is simply God's truth, and there's your opinion, and the Holy Spirit comes along to help you to discern between the two.

[22:55] But hear me, friends, if you choose to rationalize what you know is wrong, if you choose to disobey, disregard, consider optional what you know Holy Spirit is speaking to you, He's not gonna keep laboring with you on that point, and eventually you will become enslaved to your own deception. In fact, the Bible is very clear in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, that in these last days, and he is not only speaking, I believe unfortunately, of our culture, he's also speaking to many, I think, in the Western church. But he says in that day there will be a generation, a culture that will believe the lies. But the reason they believe the lies is not because God has not made truth available to them. But he says previously, because they did not love the truth.

[23:45] If they had loved the truth, the light would be on to distinguish the lies, and they would be safe. You see, there's a difference. We're very good in our culture, in the church, of believing the truth. We have a lot of beliefs. But may I suggest one of the problems in the church today is we have a lot of beliefs, but we have very few convictions. Belief will inspire you, conviction will change you. That's what Jesus is after. So keep your heart tender, keep your heart responsive to the Lord. Amen. You still with me? I heard you're the livelier crowd this good, but we need to keep our heart tender and responsive to Holy Spirit because He wants to deliver us from the religiousness of lifestyle alone.

[24:39] He says, "I want you to be like Jesus. I want you to know the joy and the freedom. I want you to know the fruitfulness. I want you to know what it is to walk through your day and just sense the kiss of heaven on your face." As the Father says, "You're My child. I love you. I'm so pleased with you." And truth is the first resistor God will use to grow His nature in us. The second is people. People, I think it was Max Lucado who said many, many years ago, "To live above with saints we love, oh, that will be glory. But to live below with saints we know, well, that's a different story." I think you know where I'm coming from.

[25:26] You see, one of the only ways we grow is when we allow Holy Spirit to stretch us out of our comfort. And one of the best ways He will stretch us is by using people. And for example, you've heard it said, whatever you pray for, don't pray for patience, right? 'Cause God will bring you into some things that will require patience. And He usually uses people to do that. People who will try your patience. But the reality is, how can you become more patient if you don't allow the Lord to refine that in you through people who try your patience? How can you truly become a person who loves like Jesus loves? Unless you find yourself around people who are hard to love, how can you ever grow and become more gracious, more forgiving, more compassionate if nobody ever hurts you?

[26:21] You see, Jesus brings people into your life and mine for the purpose of being a blessing to them, but in the process also to shape you. We call them grace growers, people God uses to grow grace in your life. And I know when I say that, some of you are thinking of somebody, somebody comes to your mind. If you're looking straight at me, they're probably sitting beside you. But that's okay, because as I say this, you are probably coming to someone's mind too, because we're all broken. We all have sharp edges. And God will use people to make you more like Christ. C. S. Lewis said, "Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying them at the moment."

[27:07] We're all peachy keen when everything's peachy. Keen, right? The third one, He uses truth. He uses people. And finally, He uses troubles. That's a third resistor God will use to make Christ in us. We all go through different troubles, in fact. So oftentimes people are going through things, we don't even realize that we look at them. I remember years ago there was this couple who was going through something, a struggle in their life and their marriage, and they were just, you know, it just seemed impossible to surmount. It was just kinda some normal stuff. And they brought up this other couple in the church and saying, "Oh, I wish we could just be like them. I wish, you know, we just had what they had. They just seemed to be happy all the time." And what they didn't know was about a week or so previous, I had sat down with the other couple, the woman had had an affair and was pregnant, and they were trying to sort through what they're gonna do with that.

[28:03] You don't know what other people are going through. And so whatever we're going through, we can adopt a posture that just asks over and over again, "Lord, why? Why, why, why?" But listen, friends, it doesn't really matter, does it? Troubles come to all of our lives. And Jesus said, "In this world, you will have troubles." But be encouraged. And I'll paraphrase what He was saying: be encouraged. Because in the midst of those troubles, you gotta understand your God is aware and your God is allowing, because He has a purpose for them. He's going to use them to fashion you, to grow you, to kill some things, to bring to life some new things. So there's really only two choices. We can either allow the troubles to work for us or they can work against us.

[28:49] That's why Paul said that in all things, God works for the good, for those who love Him, those who are called according to His purpose, those who are on mission, you can be sure that whatever is coming at you, whatever you're struggling with, if you'll submit yourself first to God, walk with Him through that. He will use that to shape you, and not only to shape you, but most times what you go through, God will use to work a compassion in you and a ministry in you towards somebody else later who's going through a similar thing. There comes an authority, a weight to your life because you've walked with God through that yourself. So we can't determine whether or not troubles are gonna come our way. The only thing we have control over is our choice. Look what James says in chapter 1. I'm reading from The Message translation.

[29:36] He says, "Consider it a gift when challenges come at you from all sides. Why? You know that under pressure, it's under pressure. Your faith is forced into the open, and it shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well developed, not deficient in any way." What is James saying? I believe again, he's saying God wants you to have a living faith. He wants you to know your God. He wants you to be like Him.

[30:21] And so in those areas, and He will allow these things to happen when He knows the time is right, He will not give you more than you can bear. But when He sees something in our life that needs to grow, or He sees an attitude in our heart where we think we're all that and we're really not that much, He says, I'm gonna allow some pressures to come, not because I'm angry at you, I love you. I wanna get this outta your life, but I want you to see what's really inside of you because you're not gonna like it, but I'm exposing it so that you're able to confess it and you're also able to open your heart to the help of the Holy Spirit to come and to help that thing change once and for all. Years ago just comes to my mind right now, when my kids were only small, probably three, four years of age, I just had this problem where I was moody.

[31:13] I was a moody person. Kinda reminds the Israelites how they would murmur. Don't you love that word? Murmur. It just has a ring to it. And that was me. And I could get upset with my wife over something that might even seem silly, but I would just get moody. And it got to a point where a few years ago by me, I could go days without talking to her. We could pass in the hall. I don't know if anybody can relate. I know you all have beautiful, happy marriages. It's one of the pressure cookers God will use. And I just got tired of it and I said, God, I just feel powerless. What's wrong with me? And I never really thought of it before. I'm not trying to project it in anybody else. For the Holy Spirit very quickly showed me that same spirit was in your home growing up. And I realized my father was the same way.

[31:59] Didn't even dawn on me. But I can remember walking on eggshells. I can remember moodiness in the home. I can remember the tension between my mother and father, and I just repented. I said, oh God, I hate this. I don't want to be, I don't wanna give place to this anymore. I repent of this evil in my heart. Forgive me because, you see, I got tired of seeing my two little boys whom I give my life for having to live in that environment. And the Lord set me free. How? Through the pressure, He showed me what was really inside of me. And I chose not to justify it. I chose not to excuse it. I didn't say, well, you know, I'm Scottish. My background, I'm always angry. You know, we always fight whatever the reasoning may be.

[32:47] All I know is I looked at that and said, Jesus is not like that, and I don't wanna be like that either. I wanna be free. And the Lord, through the pressure and through the transparency, He brought freedom. And I never looked back after that time. The Bible tells a story of a young man named Joseph. You probably know the story well in Genesis. And his brothers were jealous of him and probably for good cause. He was a bit of a bragger. He'd always tell 'em what the dreams he had and how they were serving him. And you don't only take so much as older siblings. And they decided one day they're out in the fields, whatever, and they decide to throw him in a pit and get rid of him. One of the brothers put up the idea, said, listen, hey, don't kill him. Let's just sell him into slavery. There's a caravan going to Egypt. Let's make some money.

[33:32] And basically trying to spare his life. And so he did. If you know the story at all, when Joseph went to Egypt, he was sold into slavery. But he was a man who honored God. He was a man who was righteous in an ungodly environment. Time and time again, he refused to sin, to affront God and just to honor God. And God raised him up through the ranks. And many years later, he became the most powerful man in all of Egypt next to Pharaoh where there was a famine in then known world. And then their brothers traveled for miles from their homeland to Egypt to try to buy some grain. And they didn't realize they were standing in front of their brother, whom they had sold into slavery. The brother who only had to speak the word, and they could all be slaughtered right there.

[34:18] But when they realized it was Joseph, when he told them, they were terrified. But Joseph said this, you meant to hurt me, but God turned your evil into good, to save the lives of many people, which is now being done. Joseph had the power to destroy those who had hurt him. But Joseph guarded his heart. Joseph was an Old Testament type of Jesus. He was a savior of the then known world, but he modeled the personality of Christ. And because of that, God was able to use him to work redemptively to save probably millions at that time. And in the same way, my friends, what the Lord wants to work in you and me, the very things that the enemy wants you to short circuit, he wants you to justify.

[35:07] He wants you to disobey. He wants you to dig your heels and say, God doesn't understand, or if that person would change, it would be different. He says, no, let Me change you. Let My life, My Spirit flow into you. You say, yes, Lord, and I will not only change you, but I will work a capacity of grace in you that is big enough to absorb whatever is broken in somebody else. And My redemption will begin to flow through you. That's what it means to be like Jesus. I'm gonna ask Pastor Dominique to join me as we close this morning. I'm sure you're all familiar with the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. It's interesting, this man, young man grew up in a home.

[35:52] His father was well to do apparently. And he came to him one day and basically saying, father, I've had enough of your rules. I just want to go and do my own thing. I wanna find happiness and just basically doing what I want, no restrictions. He says, father, gimme my inheritance. And the father gives him what was rightfully his, and he goes off to a far away land. And once the money is gone and the friends are gone, he's on the verge of starvation. So he decides to return home. But this time when he approaches his father, he doesn't say, father, give me, please, father, and make me. Make me your servant. And friends, our heavenly Father has promised to care for all of our needs.

[36:40] Jesus said, seek first the kingdom. Seek a relationship with your heavenly Father. Walk in the purposes He has for you, the glorious purposes. Don't settle for less. Don't compromise. Don't cheat out. Lay hold of the kingdom, what it means to truly be a follower of Jesus, to be like Jesus, to do what Jesus does and what He wants to do through you. And He says, if you will do that, then you will find the fulfillment that you've always been looking for. But that fulfillment is found in becoming like Jesus, looking into the mirror and seeing Jesus look back at you. C.S. Lewis wrote, "If we will not learn to eat the only food that the universe grows, then we must starve eternally."

[37:34] Friends, we only know true fulfillment as a child of God, as a follower of Jesus Christ. When we stop saying, "Lord, give me," and we start to pray, "Lord, through this, through Your Word, through people, oh God, through struggles, Lord, make me more like You. I want people to see Your reflection in me. And I want Your anointing to flow unimpeded through me." Because, friends, in every situation, there is an opportunity to learn and there's an opportunity to grow.

[38:25] If we will look for it, it's there. If we will look for it. Would you bow your heads with me? I've asked Pastor Dominique to sing this psalm over you. You know what is just called Jesus at the center? And while our heads are bowed, I want you to think just for a moment. If you're hearing and you don't know Jesus, I wanna invite you to encounter Him. He's here to meet you this morning. I'm not asking you to join a church. I'm not asking you to get religious. I'm inviting you to meet the God who will make you a brand new person. Whatever you've done, He will cleanse you and wash away your sin. Whatever's been broken and devastated by your rebellion, He'll begin to restore and heal and bring fruitfulness and fulfillment to your life.

[39:14] In just a moment, we're gonna give you an opportunity to come and to pray with those who will lead you to Jesus. But while our heads are bowed, if you're a believer this morning, I wanna ask you if there's anything within your heart you'd say, "Yeah, Pastor, I can relate. I've allowed myself to slide into just a lifestyle. I still wanna honor the Lord. I still believe those things. But when push comes to shove, I find I still do what I want to do. I still justify. I still blame. I really want to be like Jesus. I really wanna know the freedom and the presence of God in my heart, in my home, in my workplace. I wanna know the joy again of my salvation."

[40:00] God, if that's Your heart's desire, then I just invite you this morning, even now, just say, "Jesus, I renounce religiousness. I renounce the lifestyle that I've embraced, even though it's good to others on the outside, but I know inside there's no real life for joy. And Jesus, I just wrap my arms around You, and I just pray, Lord, make me more like You." Just take a few moments and just speak to the Holy Spirit right now as they just sing this first verse over you before we pray. Thank you.