Pastor Ralph Douglas West - We Shall Be Like Him - 1 John 2:28-29; 3:1-3

0:01 This is the day the Lord has made we rejoice and we are glad in it. What a joy. Thank you men for blessing us and encouraging us on this Lord's day. God's grace is amazing.

0:34 Yes, it is. What a joy. While you're standing, take the Word of God, open it to 1 John chapter 2. verses 28 and 29, chapter 3, verses 1 through 3. Those of you who have never been with us before, it takes me 30 minutes to preach one verse. So we could be here for a good while today. We shall be like him. And now, dear children, continue in him.

1:36 So that when he appears, we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

1:58 See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. That is what we are. the reason the world does not know us is well it didn't know him dear 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 and all who have this hope in him purify themselves just as he is pure. This is the word of God. Amen. You may be seated.

2:55 I can't remember if it's a short story or not. I tried to look it up. But I remember having read it, The Old Man and the Mountain. He lives with his gaze fixed on a mountain.

3:23 He listens to the wind whip around the trees. He watches the trees, he sees the vegetation. He hears the buzzing of the bees. He watches birds flapping their wings. their wings. He sees the rivulets running across the little ponds, over the rocks in the ponds. He raises his family there. And with all that is changing, he keeps his gaze on the mountain. After years of raising family there, living there, the conclusion is he started looking like the mountain. you don't have to pretend that you don't understand what I'm talking about. If you've seen married couples who've been together for a long time, they start looking alike.

4:27 We know they can answer each other's sentences. We know that they can anticipate what one is saying, but for certain they start looking alike. That was a blanket statement at one time, then it was research, and it's researched the longer people together they start looking alike. We watched this years ago when it became now almost a phenomenon. People have been married a long time, one of the spouses die, and it's just a matter of time before the other follows. Not out of just grief, just the cycle of life.

5:10 John is talking about a grandiose meeting that you and I will have. He says that we'll have this meeting with Jesus Christ in the presence of God. We're living now in an invisible reality of God. that he's very much present with us right now in this room, a place that we call a sanctuary, a cathedral, in this room that we call church. God is here. But we're preparing for another meeting, a meeting where faith will give way to sight. We're reminded of this throughout the scriptures. Jesus prays this in what is called the real Lord's prayer in John chapter 17 where he pleads with God the Father to reveal to those that are with him that they may see his glory. In the last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter 22, there too is this punctuated statement and they shall see him.

6:27 And so this morning, you and I live with an energy that we will have ultimately a meeting with God. And because of that, it changes the way that we live in the here and the now. So hear what God's word has to say to us in preparation of this grand meeting that we shall have. It begins with a kind of persistent desire which marks the life of those who one day shall see him. Three words stand out when you look at verses 28 and 29. Listen to what John says once again as he prepares us for this perpetual relationship that has been initiated through Jesus Christ. Our faith, by the way, is not just an initiation.

7:33 It's a continuation. It's a journey. We're going somewhere. That is, we don't just meet God today and that's the end of it. we are growing in Christ and so hear what he says and now dear children John likes that word time doesn't permit for me to go on chasing after what he means when he says all that but you hear how he's a pastor this is a tender statement that he's referring to his congregation and now dear children. Here's the first word, continue. In other places when you read John's writing like in the gospels, you'll find a word abide. And so in this perpetual relationship, he says here continue. That is abide, be at home with, remain, stay with God, be sturdy with him. Our relationship again in Christ Jesus is not just we start the day and stop, but we continue.

8:38 Some of you were here earlier and you heard Jewel talk about we're reading through the Bible. And as we read through the scriptures together, some of you will take the format that we're using. I'm not using that one this year. I read through the scripture last year that way and I try to change up periodically. So I'm reading the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation. And so this year I've set aside an hour a day where I can read through it. But there are sometimes I don't get to an hour. But I'm not speed reading. I'm trying to hear what God has to say. The point is my reading is not an exercise. My reading is a continuation. It's a perpetual relationship. That the more I read about God, the deeper my relationship with God can be. That I may know him and that he might know me.

9:37 It's a continuation. But what's the ultimate reason for this? Continue in him. Why do we do this? So that when he or we appear. so when he appears we may be confident at his appearing so that when he appears which means that he has a promise God will appear and will you be confident in the appearing several years ago Joel Gregory and I we took our professors out we shared some of the same people that trained him, trained me. Dr. Leo Garrett was one of them, and another one was Dr. Al Faisal, Dr. Leon Macbeth, and Dr. Joel Gregory. So we were at the table. We took them out to lunch, and gratefully we did because since then, two of those men have folded that tent and moved upstairs. Dr. Garrett is a systematic theologian, gone on to be with the Lord now. PhD Harvard, PhD Southwestern. And then that was Dr. Leon Macbeth, one of the leading Baptist historians, Dr. Faisal, who trained me in homiletics. And so Dr. Macbeth asked a question.

11:09 He said, Ralph, how do you preach on hell? And then he said, this is not a trick question. I'm interested in my own way of how would I approach that so when they asked me that question when Dr. Macbeth asked that question and I had completed my studies he was not talking to his student he was talking to now someone who had been trained in the discipline but there's something about these people who you have such admiration for I dare not just step in where angels fear to tread.

11:55 Even though they had said no Ralph call me Leo call me Al call me I can't do it. It's something about the reverence you have for these people. You just don't go around and just call them out of their name. They're always doctor this. So if you're listening carefully you pick up that I was reticent on how to answer that. I preach every Sunday. He would listen to me. So he wanted to know, how would you go about doing that? But in that rarefied air, I didn't know how to answer that. So I did what only a very astute, intellectual,

12:38 suave pastor would do. I said, Dr. Faisal, how would you answer that? And without a hesitation, Dr. Faser said, well, Leon, I would begin with the primary text and read it and read it in its languages. And then I would consult with theologians and 2000 years of church history. and then I would get on my knees and pray and ask God for his insight and whatever he gave me I would get up off my knees and with confidence stand up and say it. So I always wait now for somebody to ask me that question because when I now answer it I say I begin with the primary text. John had passed down to the church that kind of response when questions about the faith would be asked to them that they could confidently know that I stand with not just a continuity and a consistency but with a confidence because of Christ's appearing.

13:59 But there's another word here, and that is the word which is opposite of confidence, that we may stand, you see it, unashamed. so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

14:30 This is the continued evidence for the readiness of the meeting that you and I will have with God. And that is we can stand unashamed. Why? In verse 29, if you know that he is righteous, and this is the character of God. You know what righteousness is? That's one reason I love preaching to this church. You ask all the right questions. the righteousness of God is one of the ways that we have proof that we know God, that it is God's righteousness. That is not just to do right, but speaks now of our right conduct, our right act, our right belief, our right behavior. God's righteousness.

15:28 I grew up in a church. We used to have what you call BTU. BTU was normally on Sunday evening, five o'clock, six o'clock, something like that. And this is where, as a young Christian, you would be trained. Those of you who have grown up as Catholics, you probably remember catechism. Those of you who have grown up in Episcopal churches and others, you remember these classes that you had to take. Well, that's what BTU was. One night, we had to describe the attributes of God. And so they said, Ralph, name an attribute. Well, that's a pretty big word for a youngster. I didn't know how to answer it. And so they gave me a rough time because I didn't know how to answer the attributes of God.

16:27 Some of them even laughed. They made a mistake that many people even in church make, and that is they assume because I was preaching that I should know what an attribute is of God. There are some of you here, you've been hanging around church a long time, and you're praying today, Lord, don't put the mic in my face that they asked me that question.

16:52 The difference is you know them, you just don't answer it that way. the love of God, the patience of God, the joy of God. Of course, now that I say that, everybody knows it. A hard thing for most people to admit that once in their life they didn't know something. But I didn't know it.

17:13 And so I was laughed at for not knowing the attributes of God. Here is not a laughing matter. God's character and this is the test by which we shall be weighed by God's righteousness. Righteousness is a big word in the Bible. It runs throughout the scripture.

17:37 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed. Romans chapter 1 verses 15, 16, 17 gives us insight that if you want to know the righteousness of God, then you spend some time reading the word of God. You want to know the mind of God, then you read the word of God. Righteousness.

18:06 Righteousness is God's justice. That's what righteousness is. injustice is we took God's righteousness, his justice, and we turned it upside down. You know more about what I'm saying than you're letting on to. When the Hebrew children had been marched into Egypt and they were enslaved and made to make brick without straw and bill, the pyramids, this was an injustice.

18:50 When Nebuchadnezzar had carted off God's choice, his children, over into Babylon, and there too they had been enslaved and their language had been robbed and their culture and their identity taken away from them, this was an injustice. God's righteousness had been turned upside down.

19:16 Anytime there is an injustice, you think back and you read the history of 1619 of black people coming across or the transatlantic slave trade and the millions of bodies that have been buried in those waters. that's an injustice in fact when you see a mistreatment of anybody when you see children that go to bed at night hungry when you see people that have to live under the bridges in a country like America all of that is an injustice that is not how God created us He did not create us to lord our capitalism over somebody else, but to make life affordable for everybody. Righteousness, justice.

20:16 and that is the test to know the righteousness of God in the U.S. Treasury Department when agents are being trained to spot inauthenticity, they pull out a bill.

20:43 I don't even have a dollar. And they pull out a bill. And you know what they don't teach them? they don't teach them about counterfeit. In other words, here's a counterfeit. This is a counterfeit. They don't teach the characteristics of counterfeiting. No. They teach the authenticity of the bill. They say, here's a $100 bill. This is what a $100 bill looks like. This is what a $100 bill feels like. When you rub your sensei across it, say this is what it feel like this is how it handles in your hand likewise in Christ John is not here like many of us like to talk about what a person is not he says no let me point out who you are what you are what you're made out of and then you can compare that to where you do not measure up the righteousness of God You And so here, at 8 o'clock, my time is up.

21:54 So let me just give you the big pictures of the rest of the sermon. But I want you to get verses 28 and verse 29 so that you can see exactly what is taking place in these verses together. Now change your angle of vision to verses 1 and 2. And here's the dignity or the present dignity that really motivates those who are saying one day we shall meet him. We shall see him. We will be encouraged by what we're looking at. And so here's what believers recognize first. See what great love the father has, let's say it together, lavished on us. Now you don't have to know the Greek New Testament to know that when John said lavished on us, he is getting to something important. He says, don't lose vision of what God did for you, Ralph West.

22:55 As messed up, as rebellious, as sinful as you were before you met Christ. and then in your own era, you know what God did? God lavished his love on you. Another way of saying this, God put his out of this world love on you. You can't find this love on the bachelor. You can't find it in the basketball wives of Atlanta and you can't find it in the housewives of Utah. You can't find this on love and hip hop. This is out of this world love that God loved you so much that while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you.

23:57 That's what it means. Lord have mercy. He loved us so much that here's how we can go home. That we should be called, Lord have mercy, children of God.

24:22 So how do we look then? This sermon is getting good and good, I tell you. So how do we do this? Since, look at the punctuation of John in that verse one, when he says, since that's what we are.

24:44 So he moves over now, still in verse one, and gives us the reason why he says what he says. The reason the world does not know us, let me just stop right there. is because they don't know him. Now let me just give you a practical illustration. I gave it to them at 8 o'clock and they start throwing tomatoes because you know they don't know much about Jesus at 8 o'clock. Now they, don't tell them I said that at all. Now here's what happens.

25:39 Now just pay attention to this. You're sitting down, you're getting your bills ready and you're going down the line and you have the nerve, you know, with your friends and say, and 10%, this is God, and then let me take care of this. Then they say, you mean to tell me you're going to give your money to that church?

26:07 You know Pastor West steals the money. You can look at it. and you say yeah I'm going to give my money to the Lord so Pastor Wes can steal it. And listen, don't get offended when your friends say that about you. I'm serious. How are they going to know if they don't know? I mean it's just the truth so the test of his character spills over into us who have been lavished by his love and so now like the way you test the authenticity of a bill you don't have to judge you just know that if you're in a room and there's three Christians, four, five, and the Christians say, well, I don't, listen, those who are at home, don't get mad.

27:28 I don't go to church. I don't be bothered with them people. I ain't going to do this. Don't get mad because you can go to a building and never be in the church. I'm not trying to give anybody a hard time. It's the truth. That focus sit right here every week. And they know nothing. And don't tell me you can't know. Anybody who can keep up with the Texans record. you can know something Let me I got two minutes Here we go Last point Now here's the promise Here's the promise This is the promise If you keep in note A promise destiny that motivates Okay Those who are going to see him Here it is Look at verse 2 Dear friends now we are children of God.

28:46 Three things he's going to point out here. And what we will be has not yet been known. So this promised destiny is number one concealed. What you're going to be, you don't know yet. But think about it. You're going to be something.

29:07 Wow. Now I'm talking about something good. And I want to say this for people who have lived with esteem issues and people who have always felt down on themselves. When you are in Christ, he is always raising you up to where he wants you to be. Preach, Pastor Wes. So it does not yet appear. That's the first thing. It's concealed.

29:39 And you're going to be surprised at what you look like. He moves from that to another word of dignity. He comes here and says, now, now, that's being concealed, but this is being compared. Next line. and what we will be has not yet been known, but we know that when Christ appears, try not to run out the door, we shall be like him. I'm gonna stop right there. I don't have to do the rest of it. We shall be like him. So when you look at him and you say you can bring all others in the room, but none compare to him. Hands down, even boxers today say, even when he aged and could not fight up to his weight or his style of class, they said Muhammad Ali was the greatest.

30:48 And then if you didn't tell Ali he was the greatest, he said it himself. I am the greatest. and when he said that, we all know that that's in one area of domain of life, but there's only one somebody that can claim I am the greatest, and then people say, well, there's some greater than him, and some that wrote you, sit down and say, maybe so. The only difference is, the question now is, where is they? and so then you say well they were great and then you say well we can go to Springfield Illinois and we can find that grave or we can go to Atlanta and we can find that grave or we can go to Paris and find that grave or we can go over into London and find that grave where you can go over to the Holy Land and find what's supposed to be his grave the only thing is it's empty Danielle Wait, did you hear what I just said?

31:58 It's empty. Did you hear what John said? And we shall be like him. Some of you have lost loved ones over the last days and year. And I want you to know that the day will come that we shall meet again. Because we shall be like him. empty graves that says we are alive again. I'm done now. I think you get the point. I think you get the point. But it came home closer to me that we shall be like him. That we shall be like, we shall look like him. We shall be like him. And it came home to me another day when I was coming to the house and I was walking on the mantel of the wall is a picture of my baby sister. And this last year she folded up her tent and she moved upstairs.

32:58 And so when I see it all the time, I see it and I think about conversations that people have had when they see her because she looks just like me. Now she didn't like that because she would say, well, he looks like me. But I told her, I'm the oldest, and you look like me. And one day, we were standing here, and somebody came up and said, you don't have to tell me. I know that's your sister. I said, she said, because y'all look just alike. I say yeah we look just like our daddy that's all I'm gonna say if you can't get that one day they're gonna look at us and they're gonna say y'all look just like y'all daddy and let me tell you how much you're gonna look like him that here John says when he comes back and they see us we're gonna look like him That is, when we're on our way to glory, even the angels are going to say, which one is Jesus and which one is John?

34:19 Because you're going to look just like him. Now that's good news. When you think about where you've been, what you've been through, and God has the nerve at the end of it all to say you look just like him. Hallelujah.

34:43 Not just look like him in the face, in the heart, the mind, the soul, the spirit, in your works and your actions. You look just like him. Lord give God prayer that's all I can say about that yes Lord you're going to look just like him let's pray together our Father we thank you for today for the word And now help us to spend more time reading your word. and reading about who you are and what you've done,

35:36 and less about entertainment news and tabloids. We like all that foolishness. But help us not to build our life on it. Spend all our time in it. Let it be just what it is, entertainment. but when it come to reality help us to put our hope and trust in the living Lord we pray thank you for what you have done what you're going to do even for those who are going to unite with us today and to make Jesus their choice we give your name to praise and all God's people together say amen give God praise hallelujah come on church let's celebrate his goodness one time that we shall be like him look the door of the church is open I want to invite you to get up from where you are come down the aisle let the day be the day that you say I'm going to start this new year off following after the Lord Jesus Christ we're waiting on you this is going to be a good good good good good day God bless you come on we see you somebody else and the youth shall lead them how about that what a joy your life today Come to Jesus God bless you too Come on church Give today.

37:25 What a joy. Welcome. We're glad to have you at the church that I walk. Come to Jesus. Yeah. Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. I see you coming from back there. What a joy. God bless you. Come to Jesus. I see you coming and you coming. Come on, this is a good way to start the year. Following after Christ so that we shall be like Him. yes come to Jesus I see you coming back there Take it away Come to Jesus Come to Jesus Welcome I see you coming And you coming And you coming And you coming There you go, come on With your mouth And believe in your heart You shall be saved.

38:46 What a joy. Welcome. My mind. God bless you. If you just. Come to Jesus. My mind. Yeah, God bless you. I'll see you. Say yes. Say yes. Say yes. Come on, this is a good day. Say yes. I want to be like him. I see you coming. There you go.

39:41 I want to be like him. What a joy What a joy What a joy Welcome, we're glad to have you at the church Without, come on church, walls, what a joy This might be a time for you to turn to your right and left I know we're still behaving ourselves, hallelujah you and uh but just turn you know all around and and if you know if you know the holy spirit has been working with you and somebody else here's a good time to just turn to the left and turn to the right in front of you and behind you say is pastor west waiting on you tell him let's not quench the spirit let's not grieve the holy spirit let's get ourselves up and come on let's go and And let the day be our day that this becomes a new destination for us.

40:47 All right? I see you coming. I'm turning to you and turning to you too and turning to you. I see you coming. Yeah. Y'all need to do it yourself. You don't know who the Lord might use you to speak to. All right? I see you and you coming and you coming. Come on. What a joy. I see you coming and you coming and you coming. There you go.

41:25 Right. I see you coming. Yeah, make it official. Y'all been coming here every week. Just go make it official. It'll be good. So let me make it official. welcome we're glad to have you at the church without walls what a joy let me pray for you and the church future is in good hands yeah all of you get your train ready show you how to do it and you can lead the church into the future isn't that something you don't know how god might use you. Yeah, you don't know that. I was just a kid who didn't know the attributes of God sitting up in BTU. Didn't even know him. And now pastor in the church. You can take that one or two ways. Either the church got a low estimation on what they select or the Lord can raise you up to become something. I don't know which one it is. What a joy. Let me pray for you ready come on church pray with me gracious god our father thank you for our new family members you know the decisions that are being made in their heart now may we meet them where they are and through jesus christ he raised them to where he wants them to be it's in his name we pray and all god's people say amen welcome we're glad to have you here follow our leaders they're going to get some information.

42:59 Be sure to give them your real information. We promise not to sell it out to anybody Or do that Alright while they're doing that Let's prepare to give our gifts You ready? Let's do it Where there's a temple there's a need Where there's a need there's a provision Where there's a provision there's God And where there's God He'll supply in miraculous ways It's offering time Praise the Lord Where's the family members of where y'all at? Stand up to family members. Let me tell you what these children just told me. Now I'm telling you. I said my goodness. They said they wanted to go outside in the rain to be baptized. So we're getting ready to go back.

43:52 I'm going to redo it. We're going back to jump in the pond to go get baptized. Call me up on one day when y'all are here and we'll go get in the pool. We'll make up something. Now, today you've been baptized. I want you to hear this. You've got those classes you've gone to. You remember those classes? So now you've been baptized and you've been raised in Christ Jesus and the day becomes your first communion. So take one of those and this is the body and the blood of Christ are the bread of life and the cup of blessing. Okay? Now, I want you to open that. It's pretty tough getting in there. It's open. Oh, it's already open? You'll put, just pull that. Okay.

44:42 Yeah, you got to watch it. I messed up a white suit. Given the Lord's Supper, I paid the ultimate price. Father, yeah, I did. I did. I said, oh, Lord, every time I say it, the price that was paid for my soul.

45:08 Okay, you got it? Now, here's the next thing. This is symbolic of Christ's body, okay? I know they said that to you in class, And so the scripture says that the night that our Lord was betrayed, he took bread. There's an image of his body. He says, I want you to break it and eat it. All right. Let's eat together. and then he took a cup this is grape juice but it's symbolic of blood but not so much the drink blood as blood means life that's what it means is life and so Jesus then took a cup he said now this is a testament in my blood my covenant a covenant is an agreement that as often as you do this that is eat the bread, drink from the cup.

46:16 You proclaim, preach like Pastor West was up there to do my death until I return. Okay? So let's drink together. And then it says as often as we do this, yeah, we proclaim that truth. Now, while you're standing there, there's one more thing.

46:39 The right hand of fellowship. Give me your hand. We're going to sanitize after this over. Now hold it like you want to shake my hand. There you go. Now this is the truth now. Now then Galatians, they gave them the right hand of fellowship Now that means that you are a member of this church Alright So it's not that church, y'all church It's what? It's my church There you go Welcome This is the right hand of fellowship God bless you Come on, let's say it together