"Becoming More Like Jesus"
Genesis 41:46-52; Galatians 5:16-23
Sunday, January 29, 2012

Introduction: As parents, we are constantly trying to make sure our kids stay safe. We also regularly teach them how to make good decisions. Not too long ago I was driving in the car with Tiffany when this teenager made a wild U-turn in front of me. I began to talk with her about being careful whom she rode with in a car. Or maybe we are watching a television show and something comes on the TV that we need to process together.

The truth is we live in a world that has all kinds of dangers and horrors around us. We pray that our kids will stay safe; that we will stay safe. But sometimes it can happen where we face some deep hurt. It might come from a relationship gone bad, or a bad investment, or even something happening in our families. We cannot completely control what we will experience. In these times of deep hurt it is good to know that the Holy Spirit is there for us.

Today we finish our series on the comfort of the Holy Spirit, understanding that the Holy Spirit can help us even when we are hurt deeply!

I. The Walking Wounded- (Genesis 41:46-52)

a. Parting with resentment- There are many people, many Christians,

who are ‘walking wounded.’ Meaning, that they have some deep hurt that they have experienced but have not been able to let go of. There are many people who don’t know how to get rid of these hurts in their lives! Part of the problem is that when we are hurt deeply, when experience resentment toward the person or event. This resentment can cause even further damage in our lives.

Often times we either try to mask the hurt or go through the motions in trying to find healing. However, because the hurt is so deep, we have trouble letting ourselves deal with it completely, and so the hurt stays in our lives. It might be dormant for a time, and then one day just pop up out of the blue. We think it is gone, but it is not… There is hope though.

Thanks be to God for the Holy Spirit, who comes to us to heal our deep hurts. Because the Holy Spirit can delve deep into our spirit, the Holy Spirit can do the work that needs to be done to rid us of this pain. However, for the Holy Spirit to be able to heal our deep hurts, we must be willing to part with the resentment that is in our hearts. When something deeply hurtful happens to us, more often than not we respond by feeling sorry for ourselves. We wonder, why me?

The only way to abandon the resentment is to give it to the Holy Spirit. We need to let the Holy Spirit completely remove the resentment from our lives! Only then can there be the deep healing that will help us to get past the hurt and live our lives again free from concern. The Holy Spirit can’t bring healing where there is bitterness. But once the bitterness and resentment are removed, then you will be amazed at how life will seem worth living again.

Let me give you a couple of examples….

b. Joseph being sold into slavery- You might be familiar with the story of

Joseph, in the book of Genesis. Joseph was given a gift from God. This gift enabled him to see the future. In one of his dreams he saw that he would be over his brothers (who were all older than him). When Joseph told the dream to them they got so incensed that they concocted a plan to sell Joseph into slavery. So, one day they staged his death, put blood on his coat, sold him to travelers, and then took the coat back to their father to tell him that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.

How do you think Joseph felt having been sold into slavery? He was probably fearful about now being a slave. He was fearful having to live in a strange land; in Egypt, far away from his family! He was angry and bitter that his brothers would do such a horrible thing to him. How could they sell him as a slave? How could they hate him so much? He felt unloved and troubled by where he was now in his life. Deep pain. Deep bitterness. Deep resentment.

It took much time for Joseph to deal with this resentment. Joseph spent many days and nights praying to God. Joseph had to deal with the loneliness of being in a strange country. He had to deal with the humiliation of being a slave. But Joseph, with God’s help, sought to make the best of it. In time Joseph became a high ranking person in the Pharaoh’s land.

Joseph continued to use his gift and continued to live his life, instead of dwelling on his hurt and resentment. God gave Joseph a dream that there would be a famine. So Joseph began to store up extra food so that the people of the land would not starve. In time, this led Joseph’s family to have to come and buy grain from him (although they didn’t know it was Joseph at first). In this way Joes

We saw in our reading from Genesis 41 that Joseph also got married and had two sons. In Genesis 41:52 we see Joseph’s frame of mind, where he says: “It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.” Joseph was able to give his resentment to God, and God’s Spirit was able to free his from his pain. Because of this Joseph led a prosperous life for the Lord. Because of this, Joseph wasn’t crippled by his pain. Because of this, Joseph wasn’t controlled by his bitterness!

c. Joni Eareckson- Have you heard of Joni Eareckson? As a teenager,

Joni loved life. She enjoyed riding horses, hiking, tennis, and loved to swim. But on a hot summer day in July 1967, that all changed. While on a beach with some friends, Joni dove into Chesapeake Bay not knowing how shallow the water was. She broke her neck—a fracture between the fourth and fifth cervical levels—and became a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the shoulders down. While her friends were preparing to go to college in the fall, Joni was fighting for her life and facing the fact that she would have to live the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Joni’s rehabilitation was not easy, and she struggled through it for the next two years. She was angry, struggled with depression, and had frequent thoughts of suicide. She wrote a book in which she questions how God could let this happen to her. She decided to immerse herself in the Bible to become spiritually strong.

When Joni became paralyzed, she had a choice to make. She could become bitter at God and at her circumstances. OR, she could seek out God and ask for His help. Joni chose to seek out God and God’s Spirit came to her and strengthened her in her spirit! Instead of holding onto bitterness, she took hold of God’s comfort. Instead of dwelling on why this happened, she sought God in how she could still live a full and meaningful life.

What became of Joni’s life? Despite her severe disability, she has led an adventurous life. She has written over forty books, recorded several musical albums, starred in a major autobiographical movie of her life and is actively involved as an advocate for disabled people. During her two years of rehabilitation, Joni learned how to paint with a brush between her teeth, and later began selling her artwork.

We do know that at first Joni was angry and bitter. That is natural and expected when something painful happens. It was how she chose to act after this anger and bitterness, that is so important. She didn’t let the bitterness and anger control her. She gave it to God, and let go of it. In doing this, she experienced inner healing. Outside she remained the same, but inside she was made anew.

We all have a choice when we experience hurtful things in our lives. We will probably experience bitterness, anger, and resentment in the beginning. But the question is, will we let the resentment win? Will we let the bitterness control us and confine us? OR, will we seek the Holy Spirit and let God’s Spirit give us inner healing? If we do, then we can be free of that hurt and pain and bitterness.

II. The Holy Spirit contributes to our Growth- (Rom. 8:29; Philippians 1:6; Galatians 5:16-23; James 3:9)

a. More like Jesus- In the midst of the 5 hurts that we experience

(rejection, false accusation, disappointment, failure, and deep hurt) there is another aspect where the Holy Spirit helps us: in helping us to become more like Jesus Christ. It is important for us to understand that part of our being Christians is that we are to be followers of Christ; disciples of Christ, so that we can become more like Christ.

I have said before that one of Jesus’ reasons for coming to this earth was to give us an example of how to live. Because of our sinful nature, we have a tendency to default to our sinfulness and not live as God created us to live. We love with conditions. We fail to forgive others. We are selfish and willful. We seek to be independent and not listen to God. And on and on it goes. We often don’t live like Christ, and therefore don’t live as God intended for us.

The good news is that the Holy Spirit comes alongside us in our lives and assists us in becoming more like Jesus. This is good news because on our own we would struggle to understand how we are to live, and not have the strength to carry it out once we do understand.

Have you ever considered what is God’s chief goal for your life? It is not to make you like some other person you admire. God’s chief goal is to mold us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. We are told in Romans 8:29, “For from the very beginning God decided that those who came to Him…should become like His Son.” That is a very wonderful and telling verse! The Holy Spirit comes within us to order our lives and to contribute to this goal of being like Christ.

The apostle Paul encouraged us in this as well in many verses in the New Testament: In Philippians 1:6 we are told, “I am confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” The good work that was begun was our becoming Christians and asking Jesus to be our Savior and Lord. The work that continues is the work of becoming like Christ.

In Galatians 5:16-17 the apostle Paul instructs us how the Holy Spirit assists us in this good work: “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” To even desire to be like Christ we must walk in the Spirit; we must let the Holy Spirit have control of our lives. Our natural tendency is to walk in the flesh, not the Spirit!

When we walk in the Spirit we are told of what becomes of our nature in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” When the Spirit is active in our lives, the result will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather be living with these qualities, than to live with unforgiveness, and selfishness, and a willful spirit!

b. Understanding Christ’s nature- Galatians 5:22-23 helps us to

understand what the nature of Christ is. We need to understand that this is what we are trying to achieve. We are trying to develop these important qualities, fruit in our lives… If you were honest with yourself, you know, and I know, that we need to do better with how we love, how we experience joy, how we allow peace to reign in our lives, and so on!

The nine fruit of the Spirit were exemplified in the life of Jesus. The Holy Spirit wants to infuse them into our personalities. The reasons they are referred to as “fruit” is because they are to become a natural outcome of who we are. We are not to have these fruit forced upon us, but rather enhanced in our lives. We already know how to love, just not unconditionally. We already know how to enjoy life/ to an extent, but our enjoyment of life is based on the good experiences. God wants us to experience joy in all aspects of life.

Wouldn’t it be nice to experience true peace in life? Well, when the Holy Spirit comforts us from our hurts, and worries, and anxiety, and replaces them with hope, then we do experience peace. We have times when we are patient, but many times when we are not. With the Holy Spirit our patience will increase. We can be truly good people, doing good works, if we allow the Holy Spirit to come fully into our lives.

We exhibit kindness when we open the door for someone, or give someone a ride. But our kindness is tempered by our propensity for anger. And in our anger, our kindness disappears. It is one thing to be gentle with a baby, because we know the baby is fragile, or in our praise of God. We can be gentle when we encourage another person. But then we turn around and curse someone else. As James says in James 3:9, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.”

We are faithful when we keep our commitments and do what we say we will do. Yet, how many times have we let someone down? How many times have we not kept our promises? One of the areas we all struggle with the most is self-control. This shows itself to be true differently for different people. For one it might be a tendency to eat too many desserts. For another it might be the inclination to gossip about another person. We have trouble exercising self-control in all areas of our lives! But with the Holy Spirit the fruit of the Spirit can be evident in our lives.

Someone once said, when we are in Christ, (through the power of the Holy Spirit), evil is alien, but goodness is natural.” Remember Adam and Eve, back before they sinned. They didn’t know evil, just good. It wasn’t until they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that they knew evil. Once they ate, they knew they were naked, and their nakedness became evil. Because of this they covered themselves with fig leaves!

The nature of Christ is love. The nature of Christ is joy. The nature of Christ is kindness. The nature of Christ is self-control. That nature can be ours. The more we are able to let the Holy Spirit dwell in us, and work in us, and comfort us, and strengthen us, the more we will have the nature of Christ!

Conclusion: Our prayer to God should be one of praise and thanksgiving. If you would like, please pray this prayer with me. It is printed in the outline of your bulletin. “Holy God, we know that we are far from what we should be. Forgive us. We thank you that Your Holy Spirit is here, active in our lives. May we be open to Your Spirit. May we allow the Spirit to comfort us in our pain, and lift us up to become more like Christ. Help us to desire to take on the nature of Christ by allowing the Holy Spirit to cause the Fruit of the Spirit to blossom in our lives. Let our lives bring glory to You, O God, so that those around us will see the light we shine, and see that this light shines to You. We praise You for being a God who created us with great care and concern. We thank you for being a personal and loving God. We thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to bring about the expression of the Fruit of the Spirit out of our lives. We commit ourselves to You in this, O God, this day, and every day. Amen.”