Christ Formed in You — E.A. Johnston

The Witness of Christlike Believers

When I think back on the men who have influenced me to live for Jesus, several faces come to mind. These men were sought, and they made me thirsty for Jesus. Do you know people like that? That when you're around them, they make you thirsty to live more for Christ in eternity.

I'm thinking now about a pastor who gave me my first Bible when I was a teenager and how he encouraged me in the Christian faith. He modeled Jesus well, and I enjoyed being around that dear man. My subject today, friends, is Christ's likeness in the believer.

Or if you prefer the doctrine name, it's sanctification. And the title of my message today is Christ Formed in You. My text is found in Paul's epistle to the Galatians. You can turn in your Bibles there now.

We will be in chapter 4 and verse 19. We'll also spend some time in chapter 5 as well. Let me read that verse to us now. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you.

Did you catch that, friends? Christ be formed in you. And to whom do you believe the apostle Paul is addressing here? Why you, my dear friends. That Christ be formed in you. Like I said, there have been men in my life who have made me think of Jesus and just being with them made me feel like I was with Jesus.

Adrian Rogers and the Visible Likeness of Christ

I'll never forget the evening of a storm. It was raining cats and dogs as I dropped my family off at a local restaurant while I went and parked the car. As the wind blew my umbrella up and I was getting soaking wet walking through the parking lot, I finally left the darkness of the night and entered a well-lit lobby of a restaurant.

I saw a figure of a man standing there with his arms outstretched. And as I approached him, he threw his arms around me and in a loud booming voice greeted me with, Ernesto, it was Adrian Rogers. And in that brief moment, I felt as one who had left this realm of sin and darkness and was now in a realm of light and Jesus was embracing me because that's who Adrian Rogers always reminded me of, Jesus.

To be with him made you thirsty for Jesus and the things of Christ and his kingdom. Our text today speaks of something which only God can bring about. Our text today speaks of a supernatural act of God which takes place inside an individual where the Apostle Paul states, Christ be formed in you.

Regeneration and the Holy Spirit’s Work of Sanctification

Only God can do that, friend. A person can join the church and make a decision to become a Christian and serve that church in the best of their capacity and reform themselves by cleaning themselves up on the outside so better to fit in with the church people.

But unless the Holy Spirit performs a work of grace upon the heart in regeneration, there will be no sanctification in that person's life. Only a true believer experiences a sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit upon that person.

When one is truly converted, the Holy Spirit plants the disposition for holiness within that person. Do you believe that? Many in our churches today do not. Nevertheless, it's true, friend. It is true.

We are told in Galatians 5 .16, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Let me ask you a question. Do you want to be more Christlike? Do you desire a life of holiness unto the Lord?

Or is your brand of Christianity just to have salvation and a ticket to heaven and for it to be something you did 10 or 20 years ago and you just put it in a tin can and buried it in your backyard? Or are you actively pursuing God in this present moment of your life?

Is to be Christlike your chief concern? Or is it being a Christian to you, a person who is on his or her way to heaven, but you still sit on the throne of your heart and rule there? Who sits on the throne of your life, dear friend?

You or Christ? There's only room for one there. Is Christ your king? Or is he merely your servant, a servant who smooths out the bumps in your road along the way as you live your life in this present world?

Crucifying the Flesh and Walking in the Spirit

We don't hear a lot on the subject of sanctification in our pulpits today because it's not a popular subject and a crucifixion is not pleasant either. Yet the apostle Paul makes an alarming statement in Galatians 5 and verses 24 and 25.

Allow me to read them to you now. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. What Paul is saying here is that the normal Christian life has a cross smack dab in the middle of it and we are to get up on that cross and crucify our passions and we are to exist in this world with the help of the comforter as we walk in the spirit.

The Christian life, friend, is an utterly impossible life to live unless you are truly born again. It's a supernatural life lived out here in a sin-cursed world with the enablement of the spirit of God.

False Conversion and the Limits of External Reform

I will give you an illustration of which I speak. I had a friend once in church who seemed at the time to be a very vibrant Christian. He was active in church in a leadership position and when you were around him, he enjoyed speaking about Christianity and church life.

He shared his testimony with me one day. It went something like this. As a younger man, he lived a sinful life and one day he decided to become a Christian and the very first thing he did was to take his rock albums.

In those days, music was on vinyl records. Anyway, he took all his rock albums and made a bonfire in his backyard and burned them. Then he joined a local church and began to attend there. He made some church friends and began to hourly reform himself.

When I knew him, he was married and had a godly wife and some lovely children. One day, I bumped into him at church and he looked agitated. He didn't want to look me in the eye. I later found out the reason why.

He was having an affair with his young secretary and the news became public in a scandal. He resigned his leadership role at the church and divorced his wife of 20 plus years and ran off with his secretary.

Since that time, he's had a succession of lady friends and I say all this because he is a man who's never repented of his sin of adultery which occurred nearly 10 years ago. He lives in sin and seems to enjoy it.

From time to time, I run into him but he still shies away from me. He obviously was an unconverted church member who made a decision for Christ and hourly reformed himself somewhat so as to better fit in with church folks.

There's a lot of church folks like that, friends. But being a Christian isn't just taking the name of Christ and joining a church. It's rather what the apostle Paul has related to us today. It is Christ formed in you.

Examining the Evidence of Christlikeness

Now let me ask you a question. Can you honestly say that Christ is formed in you? Let me rephrase the question. Can others say of you that Christ is formed in you? Are you a Christ-like individual or do you have a bad temper that explodes suddenly on those all around you like a bad thunderstorm?

Do you have a filthy mouth? Do you enjoy a pet sin and hug it dearly to your bosom? I want to read a serious and solemn portion of scripture to us at this time, friends. It's found in Galatians chapter 5.

I will first read us verse 13 which states, For brethren, ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. There is a doctrine in our church today called once saved, always saved.

But I fear many abuse the biblical doctrine of perseverance of the saints to sin all they want to. I want to read us more from our chapter in Galatians chapter 5 beginning at verse 19. For it is a laundry list which describes the wicked who will end up in hell.

This is a very solemn section of scripture, friends. Please listen to it carefully with your full attention. And as I read it to us now, be honest with yourself to see if you appear upon this list. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

The Fruit of the Spirit and Final Perseverance

Now friends, let me read you another list and see if you are on this list. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, gentleness, faith, meekness, temperance. All of these are Christlike characteristics, fruit they are called of the Spirit.

What kind of fruit is being produced in your life, friend? Is it good fruit or bad fruit? For by the fruit you will know the tree, and if you are suddenly cut off and die, a tree lays as it falls. In Revelation it declares, he that is unjust, let him be unjust still.

And he which is filthy, let him be filthy still. And he that is righteous, let him be righteous still. As I said, a tree lays where it falls. I have a great fear that there are many in our churches today, like my former friend, who have never been truly regenerated by the Spirit of God and Christ has not been formed in them.

For to be a true believer is to be Christlike. Do you believe that? Our sanctification process is a never-ending process until we reach heaven and its glories and we are removed from the presence of sin.

But as we live here, friends, in this world of sin, we have a power available to us by the Holy Spirit to have power over sin. For Christ saved us with his blood and by his death. He saved us both from the penalty of sin and the dominion of sin.

He bought us with his precious blood and purchased us out of the marketplace of sin to live for him and a life of holiness unto him for God's great glory. Do you believe that? Do you? Christ formed in you.

Christlikeness in the Home, Church, and Workplace

Can others see Jesus in you? Can your spouse say of you that you are Christlike in the home? Can your children say of you that you are a godly parent who models Jesus well? Can your co-workers see a difference in your life or do you tell the same dirty jokes they tell to get a cheap laugh?

I'll never forget the deacon who came to visit me in my office one day. In church, this man would publicly pray the most glorious prayers of adoration that would lift your thoughts heavenward. But when he came to my office that day, he had a mouth like a sailor.

He used the most filthy language that at first I was so shocked I couldn't believe what I was hearing and what was coming out of his mouth. But this man apparently was one man at church and quite another during the week.

Do you know people like that? But the apostle Paul says that a true follower of Christ would be Christlike, actually Christ would be formed in that person. Others will see the difference. I will end this message with a true account of revival I was witness to many years ago.

Revival Through Christlike Transformation

It occurred in a rural church where the man had been away on a retreat. And while those men of the church were away on that retreat, God did a work in them. God got a hold of them in a startling and transforming way.

I believe he saved most of them. Anyway, when these men returned to their homes, they began to behave like true Christian men to their wives. They were gentle in their tone with them and spoke softly and sweetly to them.

They were different men than when they had initially gone away to that retreat. There was a lasting change made in them. Christ was being formed in them to such a degree that the wives began to have a personal revival and many of the wives in that church came to Christ in a saving way.

And they too began to live in the home as godly women, setting an example for the family as Christ was formed in these ladies. Well, to make a long story short, the night I arrived at that church, it was a Saturday evening and there were about a thousand people in there.

I had to climb the stairs up to the balcony to even find a seat and I barely squeezed in. All was quiet. No one stirred or spoke. It was well into the service and as I looked at the platform, I could not see anyone behind the pulpit.

All was quiet and many were softly sobbing. There was a strong presence of God in the sanctuary. It was so quiet you could hear people breathe. I later found out what had occurred in that church service before I arrived there.

The teenagers had gone forward to the altar right in the middle of the sermon and many of them were saved. Apparently, what had happened during the previous weeks was this. The teenagers of the church finally saw what it was like to have truly godly parents in the home and it so mystified them and gripped them that God finally got a hold of the teenagers as well because they wanted what their parents had, that Christ was formed in them.

Seeking a Life in Which Christ Is Formed

Oh dear friends, do you see the difference between what we call Christianity today and what true biblical Christianity really is? It is Christ formed in you. Let us take this time now to be still before the Lord and ask him to do a work of grace within our own hearts to make us more like him, to make us more Christ-like in our home, to make us more Christ-like in our workplace and community where we go about our daily activities.

Someone, just someone might say of us like the Shunammite woman said of Elijah, I perceive that this is a holy man of God which passes by us continually. May our prayer be for each of us friends that this will be a year where Christ is formed in us to such a degree that people pick up and notice and they look at us and they see one person and what they see is Jesus, Jesus formed in us.

Let us pray.