Me To God: Changing the Main Character

Intro: The main character.

Who here likes a good movie?

What’s you’re favorite movie?

Mine is the Lord of the Rings (I’ve gone on record multiple times saying that).

Something that I’ve always found interesting is that we typically like movies and other entertainment that we can associate with.

We all want, in some way, to be like Aragorn or Frodo or John Wick or Cinderella. We have this view in our mind that we can be the main character.

This is actually a psychological phenomena that’s being discussed in our day now

There is a concept called the “Main Character Syndrome” that is all over social media and is incredible rampant in our culture, which is when someone has a view of themselves that they are the main character in a story, and everyone else are background characters that need to stay in the background.

And so we cut people off in traffic and get mad when someone takes “our seat” at church and get angry when someone in front of us is walking too slow.

We are starting a new series today on our values at the church. There are five different values, and this first one is Me to God. We have to turn from a focus on me to a focus on God.

Because when we look at the story of Jesus, we see something very different from our culture’s view of the self.

In Luke 22, we see Jesus right before He is about to be betrayed by one of His closest friends to be beaten, publicly mocked, tortured, and murdered.

He goes to His Father in prayer and begs Him, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup away from me…”

The cup is the suffering and wrath of God that Jesus must take.

Jesus begs His Father in heaven that He might not die for the sins of the world because of the anguish that He was experiencing.

However, after that, He says, “nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done.”

And then in answer, an angel comes and ministers to Him; which is very kind, but that was the Father’s way of telling Him that He must suffer and die for the sins of His children, you and I.

Instead of having “Main Character Syndrome” (which Jesus was RIGHT to have), He put the will of His Father first.

And, you and I, as followers of Jesus, are told to live like Him. So,

A faithful follower of Jesus must place God at the center of their life.

So how do we do that?

Change the Main Character

If we are going to be people who change our focus from me (myself) towards God, then we have to make the choice to change who the main character is.

I’m not Aragorn, I’m not even Gimli, in my story I can maybe be an extra that doesn’t die at the end, but I tend to act a lot more like Gollum.

That’s only funny if you like LOTR

We need to shift the viewpoint of our lives from a focus on ourselves to a focus on God.

We see this in Jesus.

All throughout His life, but specifically at this point, He made the choice to not focus on Himself and instead focus on God.

NOTICE: It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t matter to Himself anymore, it was that the Father mattered more.

Jesus acknowledges His suffering (which was immense) and that He didn’t want to go through with this (which is valid!), but He ended it by submitting to God.

The call of Christ is not that you start hating yourself and only care about God. The call of Christ is that you would love God over all.

So, how does this shift change the way we look at ourselves and at God?

Not the main character, a masterpiece.

We are not the main characters in our own stories, we are instead beautiful masterpieces, created by God for a purpose.

Ephesians 2:8–10 (ESV)

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The NLT says it in v. 10 a little different.

New Living Translation Chapter 2

10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago

The big difference to me is that word workmanship or masterpiece. In Greek, the original language of the NT, the word is the same word that we use for poem or great work.

You are God’s poem! You’re his masterpiece! This does two really big things for us when we’re thinking about changing the focus from ourselves.

You are not a mistake or too far gone!

God loves you and gave His Son to save you! He does not look at us as the summation of all of our failures, He looks at you as His poem that He’s lovingly crafted!

That speaks to a guy like me who’s dealt with self-hatred my entire life! I need to know that God sees me with much more love than I give Him credit for!

AND

A masterpiece does not focus on itself, it points!

Who’s this guy?

Put up a pic of Leonardo DaVinci

And what did he paint?

The Mona Lisa

I know who DaVinci is, partially because I know this painting!

The Mona Lisa doesn’t do anything for itself. People who know about the painting, even people who study the painting with the trained eye of an art connoisseur will point to the skill and care that DaVinci put into the painting.

The masterpiece of the Mona Lisa only points to the artistry of DaVinci

A masterpiece’s focus is not on itself but in making the Artist’s greatness known.

We are saved by grace, not by doing anything. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Him.

That’s the gospel!

God created us to be with Him in a community of love forever, but that we messed it up and then sin, the brokenness and rebellion in our hearts and the wounds that we carried because of sin pull us farther and farther away from God.

But then God the Father sends His Son as a sacrifice to pay the debt of sin that you and I could never pay! He died a death that we deserved out of a love for you, then He beat death so that you and I could be with Him forever if we surrender our lives over to Him.

There’s a piece of the Westminster Shorter Catechism that talks so perfectly about this.

It’s a document that talks about what Christian’s should believe, and it’s in a question and answer section.

Q. What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.

THAT’S IT! THAT’S THE WHOLE JOB DESCRIPTION OF A FOLLOWER OF JESUS!

Oh, there will be evangelism and holiness and love and leadership, but all of that is all wrapped up in this sentence!

Our job is to delight in the Lord, and I can’t do that if I’m so focused on me that I can’t see God!

Instead of being a main character in a story that’s too big for us, let’s be the artwork of the Artist who’s writing the story.

And this is where I would stop for a long time!

I would preach this to myself or others, and then I’d feel all encouraged and then go into the week feeling motivated until I fell immediately back into the same habits of selfishness and shame.

This continued in my life until about 2 years ago.

Aubree was pregnant with my daughter, and I was just so tired and it felt like doing anything was too difficult to do.

God led me to understand that if I was going to be a faithful pastor to students who I love, if I was going to be the type of husband that could disciple my wife well, and if I was going to look my daughter in the eyes and plead with her to follow a God that I claim to love; then I need to be more than just acquainted with my Savior, I need to be totally dependent on Him.

So I looked to ancient writers that I respected to see what they did.

All of the authors that I looked at kept saying the same thing: They wanted to do what Jesus did.

And so, we have to look at what Jesus did if we actually want to be different Christians, spouses, parents, children, workers, and friends.

This, i think, can be found in what I would call

Spiritual Practices

These four things are different practices that Jesus did throughout His ministry that I think show us different ways to live with a focus on God at the center instead of me at the center.

A couple of quick notes on this

I like to call them practices because we’re never going to be perfect at them, so they don’t need that pressure.

These things don’t save you, but they are MASSIVELY helpful after you’ve been saved by the blood of Jesus by being close with Him.

If you have ANY questions on this or want to learn more, I would absolutely love to talk to you about this. I honestly believe that adding these practices and others in my life has radically changed my relationship with God, and so I can talk for a long time about these different things.

Prayer

Luke 22:41–42 ESV

And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

This feels like the simplest one to do, but it’s so beneficial!

Jesus prayed honestly and openly to God because He relied completely on the Father!

When we pray honestly and not just ask God for things but actively try to submit our will to His, then we are making a statement to God and to ourselves that we have to rely on Him.

When I pray that God would make me a godly man, I’m doing that because I can’t do it on my own; I need to Lord to supply all that is needed for my growth.

PRACTICAL: Take two minutes when you start your day and praying to God about your day and then making the choice to ask Him for His will to be done. If you’re not sure what to pray, pray the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.

Silence

Mark 1:35 ESV

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

This isn’t just sitting and not talking, silence is taking the time to be alone with God and actively do the best we can to listen to Him.

Jesus was known for being a person who did this, throughout the story of Jesus we see that He had a specific place that He would like to go to early in the morning so that He could be with God without other people around.

Silence removes all of the other distractions in our lives and allows us to focus fully on God.

“It is precisely this noisy, chaotic mind that keeps us ignorant of the deeper reality of God as the ground of our being. This ignorance is pervasive and renders us like the proverbial deep sea fisherman, who spends his life fishing for minnows while standing on a whale.” Martin Laird

PRACTICAL: Take 3 minutes set a timer, and spend that time silently praying and listening.

Don’t try to hog the conversation like we’re so good at doing when we pray, just sit and fill your mind with God.

Any longer than 3 minutes will feel like an eternity at first.

Fasting

Luke 4:1–2 ESV

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.

Right after Jesus was baptized, He was led by the Holy Spirit to spend 40 days in fasting

For those of us who maybe aren’t super familiar with fasting, fasting is not eating for a certain amount of time

Fasting is a way for us to pray with our bodies.

Fasting is us communicating with God by saying that I want closeness with you more than I want tikka masala.

PRACTICAL: Choose a day to not eat until dinner. All throughout the day, use the hunger pains and the time you would eat prayerfully reflecting on God’s goodness and His love for you.

Scripture

In that story in Luke 4, the devil tempts Jesus and tries to get Jesus to serve the devil, but every single time, Jesus provides Scripture (the Bible) to fight against the lies of the devil

And we must do the same.

The Bible was given to us so that we might know God and ourselves, so we have to be in the Bible if we want to start changing the focus of our lives!

PRACTICAL: Take 10 minutes in your day to read the Bible.

Start this week by practicing one of these practices seriously, begging God to meet you and change you.

I can’t tell you that everything will miraculously be better when you do this, but I can tell you that if Jesus did it, we should want to be like Him. If I’m His masterpiece, I want to do the best I can to know and point to my Artist.