First Epistle of John, chapter four, and verse eighteen. Herein is our love, or rather herein is love with us made perfect. It says in our love, his perfect love for us. Herein is love with us made perfect. that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. As He is, so are we in this world. When I first began to read the Bible seriously, I was foolish enough to think that I could make a lot of improvement. When I saw statements like this, I thought, well, now that should read as he is, so we ought to be in this world. And when I read statements like, we walk by faith, not by sight, I thought it should say, we ought to walk by faith, not by sight. But I found that God has a way of stating things as he sees them. and as he has made them, and then leading us to be like what he has made. Let me state it in another way. God makes you and me to be just what he wants us to be, in his own sight, and then he asks us to act like that. He called the people at Corinth saints. If you want to insult anybody in the days when the Apostle Paul was here on this earth, he just called him a Corinthian. That's like calling him a libertine. That's like calling him a rotter. He's a regular Corinthian. He has no morals. He has no... He's just no good at all. Some of these folks at Corinth got saved, and so he wrote to them as the saint of God. And then he proceeded to correct a lot of unsaintly actions in their lives. Why they were so far gone, some of them, that they were getting drunk at the Lord's Supper. And one man was living with his stepmother. Is that saintly? Does that sound like saints? Yet the Lord called them saints, and then He proceeded to show them how to act like saints. Saints means those who are set apart to God, made holy by the Spirit of God, by the precious blood. Now He says act like saints. So he says to us here in First John, as he is, so are we in this world. I was preaching, I was telling somebody about this yesterday, this happened in California too, but don't ask me where. I'm not going to tell you that. I was preaching one time here in California about our acceptance in Christ from the first chapter of Ephesians. And I said there are people who would be afraid to say, I'm just as welcome in the presence of God as the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And the leading brother in that meeting came to me afterward and said, did you say some folks would be a little afraid to say I'm just as welcome in the presence of God as the Lord Jesus Christ? Yes, I did say that. Wasn't there, he said, you know, up until this morning, I think I'd have been afraid to say that. He says, I think I see it, all right. My, he says, that's a tremendous thought. And I really believe that that fellow had been saved for forty years, saw for the first time that morning. that we are as welcome in the presence of God as the Lord Jesus Christ, and for the same reason, because we're welcome in Him. We are accepted in the beloved. Do you really believe this? Do you really believe this, as He is, so are we in this world. This is the way we can have boldness in the day of judgment. This is the way fear can be taken away. This is the way you and I can face that time when we're going to stand before God and have no qualms at all, have no disturbance at all. Do you really believe this? Has God actually placed you in His sight, in love, as His own Son? Does God love you as much as He loves Christ? Well, I put it another way. Does the Lord love you better when you've been a good boy than when you've been a bad boy? Right down your heart, you know very well that you're just arguing that over and you're saying, well, I guess the Scripture says we're loved the same all the time, but I sure feel like he loves me more when I've been good. Well, he doesn't. He never had any reason to start loving you, did he? And he never had any reason to stop loving you. He loves you because that's his nature. That's his character. God is love, and he couldn't do anything else but love you. And I speak respectfully and reverently. God couldn't do anything else but love you. And he loves you just the same when you're a stinker as he does when you're pretty good. Of course, that's only comparative. When you're pretty good, you still are a stinker. Don't you forget that. The very best you ever got before God. You still are not worth shooting. There is no one of us that's worth our fault. Didn't the Lord teach his own to say that after we've done the very best we could, we still should say, we're unprofitable servants. We're no good for anything even when we are good. But I love you. Oh, I'm glad God loves me for Christ's sake. I'm glad God has accepted me for Christ's sake. I'm glad that he's accepted me in Christ. You are too, aren't you? You're really glad about it, even if you have got faces that don't show it to some of you this morning. You haven't been to wait too long. That's what's the matter with you. Well, I don't expect you to grin like a tessy cat all the time. I just want you to think. That's all. I just want you to appreciate it. I want you to get hold of this this morning. God loves you just like he loves Christ. God accepts you just like he accepts Christ. God welcomes you just like he welcomes Christ. You could never go to God and find him too busy. You could never go to God and find him a little bit cool toward you. As he is, so are we. in this world. Is that the whole story? No, it isn't the whole story. In the eighth chapter of Romans, the Lord tells us that he has a plan for the future for his people. I think it was our brother, Mr. Tatham, who said that we're pretty strong on what God did do in saving us and we're strong on what he's going to do when he comes back again that we kind of miss the peace in between. Well, let me cover both these others first. The Lord has done a wonderful thing for us in accepting us in Christ. He's going to do a wonderful thing for us in the coming day when he conforms us completely to Christ, physically as well as every other way. We have a dear old Christian in Kansas City, a colored lady, who is working for one of the white Christians there, and I don't know why he said it. I'll never know why he said it, but he said to her... Anabelle, what color do you want to be when you get to heaven? And she said, Brother, I want to be just like the Lord Jesus Christ. Wasn't that a sweet answer? Did you think of anything to beat that? I used to have an old Swedish Sunday school teacher. My, how I loved that old man. He did me a world of good when I was a boy. And he said one day, you know, there aren't going to be any Swedes in heaven. And I'm a Swedes. And I'm going to heaven. But he said, when the Lord takes me to heaven, he's going to leave all the Swedes behind. Well, that's right. He's going to leave everything behind that isn't like Christ. He's going to change us and make us completely like Christ. And in the eighth of Romans he says, whom he called, then he also justified, whom he justified, then he also glorified. Now that all has to do with predestination. Don't be afraid of predestination. That simply means that God as the right kind of a father has planned for the future of his children. And every child of God, according to his plan, is going to be exactly like Christ, to be conformed to the image of his Son. You're going to be just like the Lord Jesus, even physically. Of course, you won't have an earthly body. You'll have a spiritual body. Not a spirit body, but a spiritual body. A body that's fitted for there. You're going to have the right kind of a body. you're going to be the right kind of a person when you get home to heaven. Let me say that's fine. Now let's let's let it go right there. No, no, I can't do that. Can't do that. There's something in between. God made you like Christ. He's going to make you like Christ. But he's got something he wants to do right now. In between he wants to make you like Christ. In the third chapter of this epistle, he says, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. And so we are. Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God. And it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. For we shall see him as he is. The old boy gave his testimony. He said, I ain't much to look at. But you wait till I get all dressed up in Jesus. We're going to be something to look at then. We're really going to be something to look at then. We're going to be just like the Lord Jesus Christ, sharing His glory. The Lord is going to be admired in all his saints. He's going to be admired by all these saints too, but that verse in Second Thessalonians hasn't anything to do with our admiration for him. It has to do with the admiration of all the rest of God's creation, and they're going to admire Christ as they see him in us. Every place they look, they will see the Lord Jesus Christ in His people. He's going to be admired in all them that believe. I wish that was, I wish that got hold of our hearts. I wish it really gripped mine. One thing, no fact. It's another thing for facts to get hold of us. This is your destiny. Your destiny isn't to become famous in this world. Your destiny isn't to become a millionaire. Your destiny is to be like Christ. Now, let's talk a little bit about the present. Conformity to Christ. How is it effected? Well, let me say, first of all, this is not the imitation of Christ. A monk in the Dark Ages wrote a book. I guess it was a pretty spiritual book for those days, but it misses the whole point. He called it the imitation of Christ. I don't see anything in the New Testament at all to urge us to imitate Christ. I know that he does say be imitators of God as dear children, but I don't think that's the point here at all. I don't think that's God's way of making us like Christ. I believe that God's way of making us like Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit of God. I'd like to read a verse or two to you about this. Turn first of all to Galatians. Galatians the fourth chapter Galatians four and verse nineteen my little children sounds almost like John Paul's the writer here by the Spirit of God says the same thing my dear children Of whom I travail in birth again? Again? You mean these people have to be born again? Again? Mr. C.W. Ross used to object to the bass coming in on that chorus. You know the song about you must be born again? And the bass had come in again? And he said, I was just assuming that your bass singers would leave that out. He said, the Bible doesn't teach you need to be born again, again. You just need to be born again. You need to be born from above. But here he says, my little children of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you. Now it's one thing for you to be in Christ. It's another thing for Christ to be in you. It's one thing for you to be saved by his grace. It's another thing for you to be like the Savior. And he said, my desire for you, Galatians, is that you might be, that Christ might be formed in you. I think we miss it sometimes when we fail to realize that God's desire is not to make servants out of us, but to make us like Christ. Now, I wouldn't for a minute take the emphasis off service. I'd just like to put a little more on this. When the Lord called his own and drew them to himself, He said, I have not called you servants. I have called you friends. In the Old Testament, the relationship of the people of God to God was that of servants to a master. Not as children to a father. Not as friends with a companion. But in the New Testament, we are called the servants of God. And incidentally, Don't let anybody rob you of that by applying that only to preachers. I'm putting on a one-man campaign and have been for twenty-five years to get rid of this wretched clergy and laity thing among us. That certain men are the servants of God and others are not. That's an abomination. You're just as much God's servant as I am or anybody else who is who's spending all his time in the work of the Lord. In fact, the matter is, I'm not even a full-time servant. I take off eight hours every night, please. And usually an hour and a half to three hours during the day to eat. I'm not a full-time servant, and I doubt if there are any. There are good many times that I have to work on my own house and yard, too. We're all full-time servants of God. Now, I've delivered myself of that. I'll get back to the subject. The Lord doesn't want you for a servant half so much as he wants you for a friend. That's the subject of the official of John. We're called into the fellowship of his son. He wants you to link arm in arm with him. He wants you to walk with him. He wants you to know him. And as you get to know him, He will be reproduced in you by the Holy Spirit. Now what means does He use for that? Well, look back at Second Corinthians just a moment. Second Corinthians chapter three. I'm going to break in here for brevity's sake and read only verse eighteen. But we believers all This isn't just for the clergy. This isn't just for missionaries. But we all, with open faith, beholding as in the glass the glory of the Lord, take your choice whether this glass means the mirror of the Word of God or whether it means that we see through a glass, that is, the glass that they had in those days was a... semi-translucent material, not clear glass, but something that didn't give the full image, but gave enough so that you could tell who it was. In either case, you and I are beholding, as in the glass, the glory of the Lord. What happens? Are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Now the Spirit of God forms Christ in us. How does he do it? We're changed by beholding. You become like that which you admire. Young people, it's terribly dangerous to have as a close friend, one who is not saved. Because when you admire a person, When you like a person or love a person, you're going to become like that person. Remember that, girls, before you ever get married, too. Look the fellow over and look his bald-headed dad over and see if you really want to be like him. Because if you allow yourself to fall in love with him, chances are you're going to get to act like him and maybe even look a little bit like him. Horrors. But that's what happens. You're not afraid of becoming like the Lord Jesus, are you? That's what you are. If you're really a child of God, that's what you want. You long for this. You say, I can't think of anything any better. If I could just be like the Lord Jesus, I'm so unlike you, so am I. I'm painfully aware of it. There's so little of the Lord Jesus about me. There's so little Christ-likeness about me. Religion? I don't have any. Some people have. I don't even admire it. My friend Jack Charles used to call it piety. I don't even admire it. Anybody can be religious. That isn't what we're talking about. Oh, you say, I know what you mean. You mean being like all the folks in our assembly. No, I don't. Every group, every social group, every religious group, every political group has their little pattern. And to be a good Republican, you must conform to the Republican pattern. To be a good Methodist, you should conform to the Methodist pattern. That is what I'm talking about at all. You can follow a pattern. and you may satisfy a few unspiritual Christians, some of whom are taking the leadership in your group. But you'll never satisfy the Lord. The Lord isn't interested in your conforming to a religious pattern. He's interested in making you like Christ. Now don't go looking at yourself in the glass and trying to see whether you're any more like him than you were before. I mean any kind of a glass. We're not thinking now about our faces. We're thinking about our conformity to the Lord in spiritual ways. Don't analyze yourself. Don't spend too much time in self-occupation. Self-occupation will either make a hypocrite out of you or discourage you. It's the bad you'll never get your head up again. Self-occupation. Now, self-judgment is necessary, but remember what Rutherford said, for every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. If you don't do it, you'll get terribly discouraged. We do need to examine ourselves in the presence of God, but not to see if we're a little more Christ-like, so that we can find a little more satisfaction with ourselves. In this third chapter of Corinthians, second Corinthians, from which we read, we're told that Moses went up onto the mount, and there he met God. And he received a message from God. And when he came down off the mountain, his face shone like the sun. And the people couldn't look at his face. And he didn't know it. Anybody who says, see how my face shines, probably shined it. Just left the powder on. Anybody who thinks that they're becoming Christ-like and wishes to call attention to it is showing by that very thing that he is not Christ-like. For the Lord Jesus never called attention to himself. He was here to represent his Father. And he says, as the Father sent me into the world, so send I you into the world. Calling attention to ourselves is unchrist-like. Calling attention to Christ is an indication of Christ-likeness. If you want the Lord Jesus to be seen and known, that's a good indication that you're becoming like Him. There's a great deal more to this. I don't think I'm going to say any more about it in the morning. I'd just like to tell you that the way we become like Christ is by the power of the Holy Spirit, leading us to occupation with Christ, by the medium of the Word of God. Please don't sit down and try to figure out, like wasn't it, Bruce Barton, who said, what would Christ do in a case like this? Well, in the first place, he wouldn't get in a case like that. Most of the messes we get ourselves into and wonder what the Lord would do in a case like this, he wouldn't even be there. So that isn't a fair test. That isn't what we're to do at all. We're to turn to the Word of God and see what he did. And I would suggest that we need to spend more time in the gospel. Now, I appreciate the epistle. the prison epistles and all the rest of the epistles. And my Bible is probably dirtier there than anywhere else. But I think we need to spend a lot more time in the Gospels to see what the Lord Jesus Christ is like. Because when we learn what he is like, we learn what the Father is like. We know that we know the Father because we know Christ. And as we're occupied with Christ, as he was here among men, as well as he is at the right hand of God, we're changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of God. Then the Spirit of God conforms us to Christ as we behold him in his word. Try it. I'm sure it'll work. you