Being conformed - what is that process?
Vern Peterman · Feb 6, 2011
What God Is Doing in Believers, No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926225451921

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We spent the last four weeks looking at, you know, who were we, who are we, and who are we going to be? And so just kind of the bullet points, in Adam, the old man, the old sin nature, in Christ, the new man, the new nature, the continuity of person or continuing person, the part of each believer that God is changing over time. We look at that the second Sunday of January. The next one we looked at those same terms, but looked at what's the identification truths perspective, going beyond in Adam and in Christ, looking at what we are separated from and joined to in those identification truths.

The third one is the physical and spiritual aspects of human beings, looking at the brain as a part of the physical body of a person and the soul as a part of the spiritual being of a person. the five senses in both the physical realm and the spiritual realm, and we talked about just as we have five senses seeing, hearing, physically, there are similarly five senses in the spiritual realm, people who have spiritual sight, people who have spiritual hearing.

So that aspect of it. And the idea that the mind, emotions, and will each are parts of both the brain and the soul. There's a physical aspect of mind, emotions, and will, and there is likewise a spiritual aspect. The brain and the soul have been kind of spiritual and physical, physical and spiritual counterparts of one another. Hi.

The image and likeness of God as human beings are originally created that image marred but still present was what we looked at last week are being confirmed rather and transformed into the image of Christ rather than being made into Adam again. So having these insights we're going to move forward from here and we have there in the middle of page one here's the schedule for this month We're going to be looking at being conformed. What is that process? Being conformed, what is God's part? That is, what is God doing? Right there. What is God doing? Being conformed, what is the believer's part in that? And then finally, being conformed is not conformed to this world.

That's the caution that we have from Scripture. What we're going to do here is to have greater insight into the processes God is using in our lives, what God's part is and what our part is in those processes, and what God intends those processes to result in. As we have been saying in recent weeks and months at Holly Hills, this earth is a getting ready kind of place. If life is simply a matter of, boy, this is all there is, and when you head to the grave, you're done, right? Then that's one entirely different way of looking at life from what I believe scripture presents. And that is, this is all a getting ready kind of place. The real thing that's happening is where we're headed next. That's the real thing. And so this is all about getting ready.

To use an analogy, it's kind of like do you want to live in a house, or do you want to live in a train station? You know? We are people who are kind of in that train station capacity. If we want to say all of life is just a train station, which is really the world's perspective, isn't it? All of life is just living in the train station, and when you're done, you're done. So here's this process called being conformed.

We're going to make reference to other verses and passages. As a matter of fact, if we look at what we're going to cover today, you're going to say, but Vern, you didn't address the whole verse. I will say, yes, you are right. Because we're going to just look at certain parts of it and continue to look at the verse over the next two weeks to follow here. So here's Romans 8, 28-30, particularly verses 28-29. So on to page 2, which simply quotes that, Romans 8, 28-30.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed in the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called. And these whom he called, he also justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified.

Now, the we know term, which basically takes up most of page two, is, I think, a critical one. It's easy to skip over it, but I would prefer that we not. And the reason is this. This we know or similar ideas show up about 30 places in the New Testament letters. And especially in our era, that we know term is particularly important to get down straight.

It shows up here these several dozen times, almost entirely, not entirely, but almost entirely in the writings of Paul and John as a knowledge that is or ought to be common knowledge among Christian believers. Now, having said that, whenever you see we know, or similar things, as we'll address it, there's a good chance that Christian believers don't know it, which is essentially a failing in the churches. The churches, when we see that we know, the churches ought to be making these things abundantly clear. And when you find believers in great numbers that don't know what the Bible says we know, That means somehow the pastors and teachers are not doing their job.

These are things that most certainly ought to be taught, and we're going to, of course, do that here today. Here's a few things we can say. The first bullet says, knowing as common knowledge among believers implies that it's not only possible to know spiritual truth with certainty and clarity, and there are those who teach it's not possible.

There was a fellow who came here. He and his wife came here. They visited for several weeks and then moved along. Nancy and I had him over for lunch, and he said, well, I go to Colorado Christian University. And one of my professors there says, if somebody tells you they know what the Bible says, that's heresy. But what I'm going to tell you is that's completely upside down. If you don't know what the Bible says and you emphatically say that you can't, that's heresy. OK? All right.

Now, these things ought to be things known in common and with uniformity. So when Paul says, we know that, he doesn't say, and we know that. He doesn't suddenly start mumbling. He spells out what we all most certainly ought to know, right? The next one there, this biblical viewpoint stands in sharp contrast to the postmodern and similar worldviews that tell us that we cannot know anything with certainty. The world has this idea that we can't know things with certainty and some Christians have embraced that too. This repeated we know including in this passage, it stands in sharp contrast to that. More than once the expected common knowledge among believers involves the identification truths.

As a matter of fact, some of the first we knows and similar knowing and do you not know with the grammatical and contextual implied yes, we do, right? Those show up, they start in Romans chapter 6. And knowing this, and knowing this, and do you not know? And what are you knowing the identification truths? Don't you know that you've been baptized with Christ? And of course you do.

Right? Now, the next bullet. At times the New Testament author would write, we know, and other times he would write, knowing this or knowing that. Yes? Okay, she asks a good question. Knowing brain and spirit. Remember we had this diagram. There we go, right here. On page 3. We have this diagram.

When we say knowing, how do we know? Where does the knowledge of biblical truth start from? Pardon? It starts from the Holy Spirit, but in actual fact, where do we read it? In the Bible. So here we have a Holy Spirit, spiritually inspired, written document in the physical realm that we take in through our physical senses, right? And how far does it go? Does it go to the brain and stop? Does it go into the brain? The source of this writing is the Holy Spirit and the working of it into our lives so that we understand it and live it out is also the Holy Spirit. So, all the way from the spiritual realm into the physical realm, back into the spiritual realm, in you, the Holy Spirit's involved, right? The Holy Spirit's involved.

So, to answer your question, here we have something that's in the physical realm, it's taken in through our physical senses, it does register in the brain, But what happens, it doesn't stop there, it continues on, as a matter of fact we said last week in Ephesians 4.12, continues on to the very depth of a person, into that deep place, the dividing line between soul and spirit. So it starts in the physical realm, it's taken in with our senses, mostly hearing and seeing. It's taken in with the physical senses. It is then brought into the brain. We do have a brain registry of that truth, but it doesn't stop there. It's carried over into the soul, affecting mind, emotions, and will, and even to the deepest part of a person, that dividing line between soul and spirit.

Yes, and guess what? It also impacts our senses on the spiritual side. Do you see that? We see and hear from this thing. How? We see and hear because it is a work of the Holy Spirit all the way along. From the Holy Spirit to inspire it and to sustain the Word of God.

It's a miracle we have this book. For centuries it was illegal to have one. Many centuries. Illegal to have one. This is a miraculous book. We also have here a modern version of an ancient document, don't we? So it is a phenomenal book, but God doesn't just sit there and say, here, here's a phenomenal book.

He takes it and works it all the way into the very depths of our being. From the physical realm, something outside of us, into something that impacts the very deepest part of us, including allowing us to see and hear and have other senses in the spiritual realm? Okay, so excellent question. It impacts every bit of us, is I think the full answer.

Okay. Continuing on there on page two. In some context, knowing this or knowing that is in a grammatical form as it is in Romans 6, 6 and 6, 9, because you know. Our translations will say knowing, but it's actually the Greek form means in those verses and sometimes other places, because you know. So, real interesting. The because you know assumes that you do know and also allows you to make the next logical conclusion.

Because you know, therefore consider yourselves dead to sin, right? and a life to God, because you know. The next one, the third bullet, at times the same truth was stated in the New Testament in Romans four times, First Corinthians ten times, James once, with a question having an implied answer.

Do you, plural, not know as common knowledge? Don't you know as common knowledge? And both the grammatical statement and the context says, yes you do, or of course you do. In Romans 7, Paul says, do you not know? And he says, and I'm writing to those who know. So it's abundantly clear what he means by do you not know. By asking the question, don't you know?

The implication is he wants them to think through the process with them and answer in their minds, well, yes, I do. He wants the affirmative answer. Not just because he says, you know, but because he's asked the question and they can answer yes in their own minds and hearts. The question was used then to draw logical spiritual conclusions as part of an exhortation, but he didn't want to just tell his readers and tell his readers and tell his readers.

He would ask the question so that they would think it through themselves and that they would come with an agreeing, yes, we know that. The fourth bullet, knowing these spiritual basics allows us to build upon these truths, and that is how Paul and James use the statement form, we know, or the question form, do you not know? of Christian common knowledge to draw further spiritual, moral, and ethical conclusions. Romans 6, for example, Paul used, do you not know, in verse 3, and because you know, in verses 6 and 9. That is why in verse 11 he says that they must draw a conclusion from the things they most certainly know in common.

Got that? Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Why? Because you know. Because you know. Alright, so that's how he starts this passage in Romans 8, 28-30. And we know. That's what that means. And I want us to grab hold of it and not just jump past it. It answers questions that our culture tries to take us sideways on. Our culture says, you can't know anything. As a matter of fact, if you claim you know, that's arrogance. Paul says, of course you know.

It seems like, I was just kind of thinking of an analogy or something that, you know, you know that the sun is going to rise in the east, etc. at the end of the day. You know that, so if you're planning a trip, and you know it's going to be hot in the middle of the day, then don't do that. Yeah, these are things that you can count on that ought to be common knowledge and because of your knowledge of them, that's the way you do things. Because you know what the road is like when it's snowy, you do not drive down Holly Street at 65 miles an hour, right? Okay, you know that. Okay, the next thing on the top of page three, God causes. God is the ultimate causer, isn't he? He is the one who brought everything into existence.

But God didn't just bring things into existence and then walk away and we'll see how this turns out. Or he says, I don't care how it turns out. We don't teach deism because the Bible doesn't teach deism. God is a God who not only created the world, but continues to have involvement with it intensively. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good for most of those who, wait a minute, is that what it says? For those, and I think the implication there is very clearly every single one.

God did not have continuing involvement. He does not have continuing involvement to leave you out of the picture or just do it kind of on the average. So that on the average, all things work together for good? No. What's amazing is with all the things that God is involved with and causing and getting involved with and intensively concerned with the details, He does not think of you as, okay, well the average Christian is going to get helped by this.

He is involved with each individual person to this end. Every single believer. God causes all things to work together for good. So we've looked at the we know part and the part that we know with certainty and common with all believers is the truth that God causes. God is intimately involved in the circumstances. Now let's just think about this a minute. He's involved in all the circumstances. He is still intimately involved with his creation and including you. So does that mean that God just controls everything and you're not really making any choices? No. And why not?

What's that? We have a will. And that's part of what we looked at here and it's part of what's in that diagram. We have a will. Now does God have a will? Yes. But God has made part of His will sovereignly. In other words, He determines certain things to be. And there are other things in which he gives us the latitude to exercise our wills.

So this isn't that God's got everything as this big machine and every breath you take and every move you make is God just making it all happen, and any choices that you think you're making are just a guise, a subjective sense of making a choice. In reality, God's making all the choices, right?

No. That's not the case. Look at the diagram here below. When God causes, is God only causing things in the physical realm? No. So there is everything in the physical realm. And can you give me some examples of the different things that happen in the physical realm that God might be involved in causing? He's the author of life.

Okay, what do we mean by that? Okay, yeah, he's created life in the physical realm, okay? The weather that's happening, okay? We talked earlier about our meteorologists kind of giving it their best guess with the information they have. Is God guessing? No. He doesn't have to have the thermometers, you know, hanging in space.

He knows it all. There's nothing that has escaped his attention. He's not overwhelmed by all the detail. Doesn't bother him in the least. He knows everything. And he knows about what the traffic is like on I-25. And he knows the weather. And he knows whether we're going to have a lot of water or not so much water this spring. And he knows things that are happening in Egypt. He knows how this thing in Egypt is going to turn out.

Okay? He knows how that's going to turn out. You know, all kinds of people in the political realm are looking towards the election in 2012. You know, he knows how that's all going to turn out. He's not pacing the floor of heaven, wringing his hands, and, oh heavens, what am I going to do with Vern?

You know? Yeah. You got that right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean their weather is not a lot better than what it is right here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Global warming. Yeah. And so all these external circumstances, you know, we've got volcanoes, you know, that are active here in an unusual kind of way in various parts of the world. How about even some of the things we talk about our bodies? Is God, you know, at his wits end knowing what to do with our bodies and, you know, why our bodies are doing this or that?

Is God You know, puzzling, wanting to do heavenly research, trying to figure out what's happening? No. Even what's going on in our bodies, even how our brain functions, all that, none of that's a puzzle to Him. I would suggest to you that all these things that human beings get all wrapped around the axle about are all things that God's involved in. And what is God's involvement? Is God looking at their all these things in the physical realm saying, gee, I wonder how this will turn out. Is God looking at all these things in the physical realm and saying, you know, boy, that'll be a doozy for him? No. He's not puzzled by it. He has a particular purpose in those things in the physical realm.

Now, let's talk about, I'm sorry, yeah? What is that theological term? You're not talking about deists? No. No, there's another term. There's another one. I can't say it. It's where they think God got things started and everything. He doesn't really know what's going to happen. Ah, okay. Maybe open theism? That's what you're thinking of? Yeah.

In open theism, the idea is that, unlike what we teach here, they teach that God is subject to time. And that except for those things God has deliberately determined, God doesn't know what's happening next. And that's why they would say prophecy is only God's best guess, rather than a statement of this is God saying what will happen, knowing what will take place. So yeah, it's open theism, I think, is what you're talking about.

Now, but let's also look on the spiritual side. Does God cause things to happen in the spiritual realm so that all things work together for good? Yes, He does. And can you think of some things that He does in the spiritual realm that are also part of this God causes statement? The only way you're going to get anywhere spiritually is by faith. That's the only thing that's going to go anywhere. What are some of the other things God causes in the spiritual realm?

Spiritual growth, okay, and we're going to be looking at that. Yeah, the spiritual growth isn't something we pull off all by ourselves. God has a very deliberate intent and involvement with that spiritual growth. Good. What else? Yeah, didn't we just see these things on the spiritual side here? It's stated in verse 30.

So these are things that God has caused. Do you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you? Yes, and some aspects of that indwelling are a once done, always done, and some parts of it are ongoing. So as Hal went out and made the kind of one-page listing of almost two dozen different ministries of the Holy Spirit, all those things are God-causing on the spiritual side. So you look at that diagram, on the spiritual side you have the Holy Spirit's ministries on all all of those ministries going on in the spiritual side, and God's causing those. How about this?

What are the other beings in the spiritual realm apart from, say, ourselves? What other beings in the spiritual realm are there? Are there angels? Now, are all angels the same? No. What are the differences between different angels? Some are fallen angels, okay? Revelation chapter 12 says it's a third. A third of them are fallen, right? But those that are not, how would you describe them?

There is a ministry to believers, and here's something else interesting we pointed out from Ephesians 3.10, and that is that God uses you to teach the angels. That's very interesting.

Ephesians 3.10 says that. So here's an interesting aspect. You start looking at it.

Is God causing those unfallen angels to do things that are working together for good for you? Yes, isn't that amazing? So God's involved with that. Now, are those angels who are fallen, are they just running completely willy-nilly wild or does God have a say in what they do? Isn't that interesting? God does have a say even in what the fallen angels do.

And it is even possible that God will use the fallen angels for good. twice, Paul writes, that someone was turned over to Satan, which I think is specifically an apostolic ability. I don't think that's a continuing thing. We do have evidence that it is. But people were turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Very interesting. And does Satan just do whatever he wants to do? Does Satan have free will? No. What's very interesting is that Satan is only free to do what he is specifically allowed to do by God. Yeah, just like with Job.

And so the reality is, even the fallen angels are going to be part of God's causes. Isn't that something? So we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us with all the ministries, almost two dozen of them. that the Holy Spirit has. We have Jesus Christ indwelling us and living all those things are intended to be a part of the spiritual side of God causes. And we're not done. We also talked about the angels that are fallen and unfallen.

What else? What other spiritual beings are there? Where spiritual events are out there? What has God caused spiritually that will not change about you, the believer? Position. That's exactly it. Everything about our position, though it is locked in place, is also a part of God's causes. And that's all in the spiritual realm, isn't it? Isn't this amazing stuff? But not just our position, God has ongoing processes. We mentioned involving ministry within ourselves by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, by Christ being in your hearts, but we're not done.

God is going to use other spiritual beings, human beings, who are spiritual beings, both saved and unsaved, for the good that you will be conformed to the image of his Son. He is going to use other believers for that good. And he's even going to use unbelievers for that good.

Yes, there is a dynamic relationship. You're right. Exactly. And sometimes you can look at it and say, you know, that wasn't good. And I think as you look at this verse, it's important for us to be able to look at certain events, whether spiritual or physical, and look at it and say, you know, that's not good. And we're free, I think, to say that.

We don't have to play some sort of, you know, I had a great aunt who was Christian science and she died of a goiter she didn't have. I don't think we have to play mind games. By the way, she was a Christian science practitioner too, so it's supposed to be one of those healing kinds. But anyway, she died of a goiter she didn't have. We don't have to play mind games and pretend things.

When something is bad, we can say, you know, that was really bad. Because this verse doesn't say everything is good. We don't have to play silly mind games like my great-aunt did. We can say when something is bad, whether it's physical or spiritual, you know, that was downright bad. But this verse says all things work together toward the good that we're conformed to the image of the sun. So whether things are really good and we're rejoicing and smiling about it, or whether they are really bad and we're free to say some things are just bad, we can do that. Pardon? And that's conditioned. But whether we say, boy, that was really good, or whether we say that was really bad, all those things are things God causes in all the different ways that He does.

All these things are directed towards the good end that were conformed to the image of His Son. That's pretty immense, isn't it? And we can see things realistically, and that means seeing things spiritually that the world does not see. But we can have that insight, we can be free to pronounce bad things as bad and good things as good, all the while recognizing that whether good or bad, the Lord is going to use it to conform us to the good image of His Son. That's the good that God causes. Okay, let's take a look at page four. So we have the top there. Oh good. It makes clear that God is working in a specific direction as he works all things together. He's not just kind of mixing it up.

When I was a kid, my mom would have me mix things up on the stove, and a lot of times I would sit there stirring, and I had no idea what I was stirring. I'd sing songs about just a bunch of greasy, grimy gopher guts. Things like that. I had no idea what this thing was or what I was mixing. She just asked me to do it.

That's not the way God works here. He's not just stirring it up and saying, gee, I wonder what's going to happen. Right? He is instead doing this, you know, working together, knowing how it's going to turn out and knowing what end result he's looking for. Because God allows bad things to happen. He's causing bad things to happen. Yeah. And here's, yeah, that's an important point. People say, well, it's God's fault.

But that is often done with a blindness to the fact, what is God ultimately wanting to happen? In the middle of that paragraph, so really awful things do happen. It does not mean that God has failed in working all things together for good. Where was God? People will ask. Where was God in the middle of this Holocaust? Where's God in the middle of this mess in Egypt? Where's God?

It's not God's job to make everything good, both in the physical realm and the spiritual realm. That's not what God's doing. That's not the process that He's in the midst of carrying out. If that was God's job, I would have to say He's doing a terrible job. If that was God's job. We're not justified in being mad or disappointed in God. or downgrading our concept of the power or intent of goodness of God. Nancy read a book by a Jewish rabbi who said that, you know, God feels bad about all the bad things that happen. He just can't do anything about it. She said, well, that was a really stupid book.

I said, yep. Okay. All right. So what does it mean that God does in fact work all things to the good end that we're conformed through these things, the image of Jesus Christ, his son, excuse me, what it does mean rather being conformed to the image of his son is good.

Even if the things that happen along the way are simply not good. There are things that we can cry about and we don't have to feel bad. Like, well, I shouldn't cry. No. Some things you probably ought to cry about because they're just gut-wrenching and awful. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Is God's ultimate goal to make you happy? If that's God's job, He's not doing a very good job. That's not the ultimate goal. Being conformed. This particular word in the original language means together formed. It starts with a prefix that's the same as seated together with Christ. So you're together formed.

Our ongoing formation into the likeness of Christ and character is not superficial, nor does it take place at a distance from Christ, having only an approximate correspondence to and relationship with Him. It is a deep conformity with Him, as the pattern about which we are together formed, to be like Him. So as to express his character outwardly from a likeness to him that comes from the depth of who we are. An outward expression of the deep character of Christ. Having been made to be like him in character as an ongoing process. God is conforming you on the inside to express his character on the outside.

I'd like to show some slides here. Here is what's called the tortoise formation among the Roman soldiers of New Testament times. And you'll notice among the various things there, you see that metal piece that's in the middle of the shields? And it's got this little bulge.

How did they make that? Forming. Conforming. Here is an example, they would do that with that. There's also all the other pieces like in the helmet. Here's how they would do that. On the right, which you'll see over here, is there is on the top of a piece of wood an indentation into the wood. So the metal, using a hammer, the metal would be placed on this indentation and they would pound it until it was conformed to the shape of that indentation. The conforming process puts the metal and the wood in very close contact. You see that?

Conformity makes you close with the pattern. As a matter of fact, the more it goes on, the closer the piece of metal corresponds to the pattern, right? When they first start, because you don't take the big hammer and go, bang! And now it's all done, right? How do they do it? Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. So what is God doing in the process of all the things going on in your life?

And some of them you say, that's great, and some of them you look at and say, boy, that's downright uncomfortable. But all along the way, every little tap, every little tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, is all designed to have you in conformity to Christ. The same way that metal becomes increasingly conformed to the shape that is pounded into it. What they would do for all the different pieces of metal, say for different parts of the helmet, for those little handhold areas in the shields, Every one of those would have a shape that they would pound the metal into.

Here's the master pattern, and all the pieces of metal are being pounded, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap God doing something in our circumstances.

God doing something in our bodies. God doing something because of the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit. God doing something as a result of your position in Christ. All those things, God works those things together so that you increasingly take the shape, the form of Christ.

Make sense? Yeah, Holly. And I'll throw on choice. Yes. I guess we're going to get there. Two Sundays from now. Two Sundays from now. Yes. And one of the questions we're going to ask about being conformed and being transformed, the third Sunday in each one, the question that we will answer is what's our part?

In other words, while ultimately this end is predestined, we can, in the short term, thwart God's intent. We can, in fact, do things that run counter to that. Suppose that instead of saying, you know, God caused this in my life, but I don't like it and I'm just going to fight it. The Holy Spirit is directing me to do this. I don't want that. I want this. In the short term, I can thwart God's process. In the ultimate, I will walk through heaven's gates conformed." Very interesting, huh?

God does not come down with a big stamp and go, kaboom, now you're conformed. In our position, we are there, but remember one of the things we said, there is a part of us, this continuing person, that's what's being changed. It's not the new man. It's not the new nature. You're in Christ 100% from the day you believe. That's not what's being informed.

What we're doing, this changing, this conformity, this transformation, is catching up to who we are. It is running to catch up to our new history. See that? Catching up to our history. And only that part, that continuing person, is the part that is changing.

That's why we can have a position in Christ, new man, new nature, and have a daily condition. And the question in that daily condition is, will I understand and work with God's process or will I fight it? Okay, in the image of a son, So we are being together formed into the image of Christ, the Son of God.

This process is to make us like Him, but not simply to be absolutely identical copies of Him. As the passage says, He is to be the first of many brethren. We're not Christ clones. God just doesn't make Christ clones. We are to be like Him, but we're not going to be Him. I will not be deity, and neither will you ever.

That's not what God's in the process of doing, contrary to Mormon teaching, right? Mormon teaching is that, you know, you're being made into this deity and you will ultimately have your own planet and all that. And so that's their teaching. Nope. That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible doesn't say that you have the deity of Christ. It says you have the character of Christ.

We will be like him. We're not a deity duplicate. See that? Alright, last point there, as we've been made to be in Christ and so to share his history, died, buried, raised, ascended, and seated, the processes that God has in place through his making all things work together for good is to catch us up with our new history in him. Back to the future, right? To make us more like him every day until that day when we see him face to face and we shall be like him. Make sense?

Now, if you read the verse, you will notice that there are whole phrases I haven't even begun to talk about. That's why we're going to take several weeks here to finish this out, including addressing Holly's question, which you've only touched on, and that is, what's our part? We'll be taking a closer look at what's God's part. in this conforming process, what is he doing? We touched on it briefly, but if you look at it, God's impacting a whole bunch of things in the physical realm, he's impacting things in the spiritual realm, a great many things, all to the end you're conformed to the image of his Son.

That's not even touching on a parallel process that is not the same, but has the same end, that we look like Christ. And that's being transformed. Being transformed, being conformed are not the same thing. We saw the physical analogy here. That's conforming. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. You know, something happens in our life, it's just another tap. Right? It's just another tap. I'm going to have a lot of them. I'm going to need a lot of them. Just like this. I was reading about the fellow who did this right here. Because this is obviously a modern creation.

And he was using the old pattern they used to use for the Romans, right? And as he was doing that, he says, it seemed like I was tapping that piece of metal forever. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Well, isn't that kind of what God's doing? He's tapping us for a long time. But he knows where it's going. He really does.

So the next time something happens in your life, it's just another tap. Right? It's another tap. Yeah, the working of this does produce some heat. Yes, it does produce heat. The piece of metal does not stay cold. It gets warmed up through this. You're right. Yeah, so some taps, they're not all equal, are they? Yeah. Yeah. Whoa! I wasn't expecting that one. And you know what's interesting is over time, that piece of metal becomes closer and closer to that form. Does that correspond to us being closer and closer to Christ? Yeah. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. One after the next.

All the things, even the things you look at and you say, that was really bad. Those two. Let's pray, we've run out of time. Lord, we do thank you as we look at this passage, actually as we begin to look at it. And we will be looking at it more. We just thank you that lovingly, carefully, you're tapping each one of us.

And you do it because you love us and care for us. You do it because you have a particular intent. You are conforming us to the image of your son. And in that regard, though certainly good things and bad things happen in life, sometimes really good and sometimes really bad, you do have an ultimate good intent. And after all, this is a getting ready kind of place. We just ask that you bring that truth home to us. In Jesus name.