In 2024, Decide to Look Like Christ

Every new year, you make resolutions. Lose weight, manage your time better, learn a new language. All good things. But if you had to keep only one decision, one obsession, which one would it be?

In this message from the first Sunday of January 2024 at ICC Montreal, Pastor Celestin YAO lays the foundations for the year ahead. The title is direct: "In 2024, Decide to Look Like Christ." Not just another sermon, a cornerstone. Because if you miss this decision, you miss the very reason you were created.

This article covers the essentials of the message so you can meditate on it, apply it, and share it.

1. You Were Predestined to Look Like Christ

The base text is Romans 8:29: "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers."

Even before your parents ever met, even before the foundation of the world, God had chosen you. Not because you came from a good family. Not because someone negotiated on your behalf. But according to his good pleasure. Paul says it clearly in Ephesians 1:4-5: God chose you in Christ so that you would be holy and blameless before him, and he predestined you, in love, to be adopted as his child.

Look closely at the goal: to look like the firstborn Son. The Greek word Paul uses (summorphos) speaks of a shared form, a deep resemblance. God wants a large family where every child bears the features of the elder brother, Jesus Christ. This is the shared calling of everyone who has been redeemed. It is not an advanced spiritual option reserved for a select few: it is God's plan for your life.

2. God Looks at the Inner Man, Not the Wrapping

The problem is that the enemy's greatest deception is to make you chase only the outside: your appearance, your status, what others see. Year after year, we take care of the wrapping and forget to ask how our inner man is doing.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:6-7 that God made his light shine in our hearts and that we carry this treasure "in jars of clay." Your body is the vessel that carries the treasure. It is useful, it needs care, but it is not the priority.

Here's the proof: when someone dies, the body remains, but what made them a person (their spirit) has left. You are a spirit, who lives in a body, and who possesses a soul. And God always looks at what is on the inside.

That is why Paul continues in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18: "Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day." While everything visible deteriorates with the years, if you are serious with God, a glory is growing on the inside. Cherish your inner man. That is where eternity is decided.

3. The Hidden Mystery: Christ in You

Here is the revelation that changes everything. From the beginning, God wanted to build a house where he would dwell. He explained it to David in 2 Samuel 7: it is not you who will build me a house, it is your son. Solomon built the first temple. It was destroyed. The second temple was defiled. Because God was not talking about a building made of stone.

The hidden mystery, finally revealed to Paul, you find in Colossians 1:26-27: "the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints... Christ in you, the hope of glory."

The temple God always wanted to build is you. Paul writes it plainly: "Do you not know that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit?" (1 Corinthians 6:19). The Holy Spirit is God. If he comes to live in you, then the great God who created the heavens and the earth has made his home in your spirit.

No one is more intimate with your life than the Holy Spirit. He knows your secret place. He walks with you when you draft a contract, when you study, when you sigh without knowing what to say. Stop looking for an ally outside when God himself has come to dwell inside you.

4. How to Look Like Christ: Beholding Through the Word and the Spirit

Looking like Christ does not happen through your own human effort. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit always works with the Word. Since Genesis, when the Spirit hovered over the waters, God had to say "Let there be light" for life to spring forth. Your conversion happened this way too: the Word you heard, the Holy Spirit who touched your heart.

The process continues every day according to 2 Corinthians 3:18: "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."

The mirror Paul speaks of is not like the one in your bathroom. When you look into that mirror, you do not see your own face. You see Christ. And through the Word preached, you adjust your life to look more like him.

Practically, this means: every Sunday, every week, when you hear a word, do not treat it as ordinary. Do not let the week go by without returning to it. Go look at yourself in the mirror of the Word. Ask yourself: which areas of my life are starting to look like Christ? Where do I need to align?

And declare with Paul, in Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." That is the watchword for this year. That is your obsession, your focus.

Key Takeaways

• Looking like Christ is not optional, it is the shared calling of everyone God has redeemed.
• God looks at your inner man long before your outward wrapping. That is where he works, and that is where you must invest.
• The glorious mystery of the gospel is Christ in you, the hope of glory. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
• Transformation into the image of Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit, never of your own effort, and it always happens through the Word meditated on and lived out.
• This transformation is progressive. You go from glory to glory, as long as you stay connected to the source.

Personal Application

1. What took up most of your energy this past year: your outward wrapping or your inner man?
2. Are you aware every day of the presence of the Holy Spirit in you, even when no one else is watching?
3. What recent sermon did you treat as ordinary instead of returning to it during the week to adjust your life?
4. In which concrete area of your life (speech, reactions, relationships, handling money, time with God) do you want to look more like Christ this year?
5. Can you, today, declare with Paul: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me"? What needs to be let go of for that to be true?

Verses Cited

• Romans 8:29 · Predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son
• Ephesians 1:4-5 · Chosen before the foundation of the world
• 2 Corinthians 4:6-7 · This treasure in jars of clay
• 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 · The inner self is being renewed day by day
• 2 Corinthians 3:18 · Transformed from glory to glory
• Colossians 1:26-27 · Christ in you, the hope of glory
• Colossians 1:28-29 · Presenting everyone mature in Christ
• Galatians 2:20 · It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me
• 1 Corinthians 6:19 · You are the temple of the Holy Spirit
• 2 Samuel 7 · The house God wants to build

FAQ

Does looking like Christ mean becoming perfect in the sense of "without fault"?
No. The Greek word translated "perfect" in Colossians 1:28 is better rendered "mature" or "complete." It means reaching the goal for which God raised you up, fulfilling the mission he entrusted to you as a mature child in Christ. It is not about never failing again, but about growing in maturity, from glory to glory.

Why does Pastor Celestin insist so much on the inner man?
Because that is where God looks, and that is where transformation into the image of Christ begins. Taking care only of appearance, status, or visible performance means missing the real work God wants to do. The wrapping deteriorates over the years; the inner man, on the other hand, can be renewed all the way to eternity.

Practically, where do I start so that Christ lives more fully in me this year?
With three simple practices: listen attentively to the Word, do not treat it as ordinary but return to it during the week to adjust your life; cultivate a continual awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit in you, even in the secret place; and declare every day, with Paul, "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me," letting go of whatever contradicts that statement.