'I Will Make You' | Pastor Javan Shashaty | Discipleship Night 2026

If you have a Bible, go ahead and take it out. We're gonna spend just a few moments together in Galatians chapter five. Galatians five is where we're gonna be. I'm honored to be with you guys to spend a moment in this passage. And Pastor Doug shared this verse earlier from Matthew 4.19 where Jesus said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And I vibe with you. I'm honored to be with you. I'm honored to be with you. I love you. Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. We just talked about what it looks like to follow Jesus, to be with him. So now we're gonna talk about what it means to be formed into the image of Christ. You could ask it this way. If I follow Jesus, what kind of person will I become? Think about that for your life. If I say yes and I wanna follow Jesus, what's my life gonna look like? Well, thankfully, we have the example of a dozen men who followed Jesus for three and a half years. They watched everything he did. I mean, think of the miracles that these dudes saw, walking on water, healing the sick, casting out demons, but not just all of the miraculous stuff. They watched how the Savior, God in the flesh,

the Messiah lived his life every single day. You know what's crazy? After three years, their rabbi, their teacher, he died, he rose again, and he ascended into heaven. So you can imagine, these guys are thinking, how do I become like Jesus if Jesus isn't here? How can I continue to follow him, to be discipled by him if he's no longer here with me? But God is so good that he sent the presence of his Holy Spirit to be with his people, to guide them. The Holy Spirit would remind the disciples all of the things that Jesus taught them so they could become more like Jesus. They started to look like him, and how they acted, and how they spoke. My son, Eli, a lot of people say he looks exactly like me. It's crazy, he even starts to talk like me. I do this thing when I walk. I don't know how to control it. I like bounce up and down. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. You Boca people, you see me around campus. I don't know what it is. I don't know how to, I don't think about it. It just happens. And my son does it too. Like, where did you get this walk from? By spending time together, by being together all the time, he just starts to embody the characteristics of his father.

Unfortunately, some of the bad ones too, but that's a conversation for another time. You start to look like your father, and the more that you spend time with Jesus, you start to become like him. God gives you his Holy Spirit to guide you to look more like Christ. The question is, how do I know I'm becoming more like Jesus? You wanna know how you're becoming more like Jesus? Galatians 5, look at verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control against such things. There is no law. How do you know you're becoming more like Jesus? You begin to exhibit what the Bible calls the fruit of the Spirit. I know this is a familiar passage for most of us, but I wanna challenge you to lean in a little bit. We're gonna look at how Jesus embodied these characteristics, what it looked like in his life, how he set the example, how the disciples followed in that example, and what this will look like for us as we become more like Jesus too. So Paul says, the fruit of the Spirit is love. Jesus said, the law and the prophets can be summed up in that one word, love. He taught his disciples, greater love has no one than this than you lay down your life for your friends. Jesus laid down his life in his service of them,

and the disciples did the same thing in the early church. The way they loved God's people, the early followers of Jesus, they loved them, they cared for them, they laid down their lives for them. If you wanna become like Jesus, guess what? You gotta learn how to love people. Do you love people? Yes. Some of you are like, who's people? Yeah. The person that came to your mind when I said that? That's people. We laugh, because we know it's true. Listen, if you wanna love people the way Jesus did, that means loving your enemies too. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Paul also says, the fruit of the Spirit is joy. When I first started following Christ, I remember my friends were like, isn't that boring? Don't you guys just sit around a campfire and like sing songs and stuff? And I was like, we do sing a lot, but that's not the point, okay? Following Jesus is not boring. Following Jesus is not just sitting in a service. It's not just studying the Bible. Those are amazing things. But Christianity is far from boring. Christians should be the most joyful people in the entire world, shouldn't we?

We've been saved by Christ. Some of you have the joy of the Lord, praise God. Jesus said in John 15, 11, I've told you these things that you may have. Joy. The early church is proof the disciples were filled with so much joy that people looked on at them and like, these crazy dudes, they got something that I don't have. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. Paul also says the fruit of the Spirit is peace. Isaiah prophesied the Messiah would be called the prince of what? Peace. Jesus said, my peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. As you follow Jesus, your life starts to become characterized by peace. I think of one of the disciples who probably embraced this the most. His name was Simon the Zealot. How would you like to be called that? You know what a zealot was? They were fighting a revolution for the people. This is a man that his whole life was bent on war and destruction. He was one of those people that just always had this angst and this unrest that was just bubbling beneath the surface. He was never at peace. And then something changed.

He became filled with the peace of God. How does that happen? The prince of peace changed his life. So what about you? Do you have that unrest? That agitation bubbling beneath the surface? Or is your life characterized by peace? Jesus also said the fruit of the spirit is patience. The NIV says forbearance. Jesus was the prime example of patience, wasn't he? I mean, the man waited 30 years to begin his public ministry. Think of all of the nonsense that he endured during his time here on earth, most of which from the 12 men that he chose to be his disciples. And he put up with all of it. Even as he suffered on the cross, he patiently awaited the glory that would follow at his resurrection. The disciples learned something from that. As they encountered nonsense throughout the early church, false doctrine, division, they handled it all with patience. What about you? What happens when you encounter nonsense in your life? Is patience the right word? Are you becoming a more patient person because of Jesus? Paul said, the fruit of the spirit is kindness, goodness, gentleness.

Those words, Jesus was kind. He was good. He was gentle. He always went out of his way to stop and to talk to the person who needed him, who needed healing, who needed a miracle. His disciples did this too. Think about Philip. As he saw an Ethiopian eunuch sitting in his chariot, reading a book, Philip could have just said, eh, another day. But because he had been with Jesus, you know what Philip did? He stopped. He was kind. He was good. He was gentle. He went over and explained to the man what he was reading. How would your friends describe you? Kind? Good? Gentle? If they wouldn't use those words, maybe there's some things in your life that need to change. Paul says, the fruit of the spirit is faithfulness. I love how Revelation 1.5 defines Jesus, says he is the faithful witness. He was faithful to the end, to finish the work that he started. He had a mission to go to the cross,

to pay for our sin and to rise again. And even as he hung there with his dying breath, he said, it is what? Finished. He was faithful to the end. And his disciples learned something from that. Every one of them, except for John, martyred for their faith, killed because they followed Jesus. They followed his example of faithfulness, didn't they? Now I'm not telling you tonight that you're all called to be a martyr for the gospel, but I am saying this. We have a mission. The great commission to go and make disciples. Will you be faithful to the mission that God has called you to? The fruit of the spirit is self-control. Seem to remember a moment where James and John wanted Jesus to call down fire from heaven on these Samaritans who were being mean to them. I think about Peter who took out his sword and cut off a man's ear. He said, who's next? And Jesus said, no, no, no, self-control. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, he didn't give in. When he was spit on and beaten on a cross, he could have called down angels from heaven to save him, and he didn't. When he was falsely accused before the Sanhedrin,

he did not open his mouth. Self-control is a difficult one, probably the one that we all struggle with the most. But if you wanna become like Jesus, you gotta get used to saying no to yourself. We're gonna close in verse 24. It says, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. And since we live by the spirit, let us what? Keep in step with the spirit. Now, the other day I found an old journal of mine from high school. And it's funny just to read some of the things that I used to write in this journal. It was around the time that I just started to take my faith seriously. But to be honest, I was not walking in step with the spirit. I was not living by the spirit of God. In full transparency at that time, I was struggling with so much lust and pride. Sin had taken over my heart. my life was a mess. There were plenty of things in my life that I needed to crucify. See, the problem was I grew up in church. I was in a Christian school. So I got really good at making it look on the outside like I had everything all together. But on the inside, I was plagued with sin. And as I started to read these words in my journal,

I saw the shifts start to happen where the Lord began to change me. The time in my life where I started reading my Bible, God's words started to shape my heart. I read verses like this one, Galatians 5, 24. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. You know what I realized? If I wanna be like Jesus, I've gotta crucify my passions and desires. I have to walk in obedience to him. It wasn't easy and I'm far from perfect, but the Lord is faithful. Listen, if you are in bondage to sin right now, I'm telling you this because I care about you. Crucify it. Put it to death. Make war with your flesh and keep in step with the Spirit of God. Leave no stone unturned in your discipleship to Jesus Christ. It will not be easy and it won't happen overnight, but listen, the Lord is faithful. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion into the day of Christ Jesus, amen? Amen. Amen.