Becoming a Restored Person

Our Theme for 2025 is “Live Like Jesus”

It comes out of a simple desire to follow Jesus - and to learn better what that means.

We are spending the entire year in the Gospel of Matthew.

Over the last several months we talked about divine healing, deliverance and forgiveness .

We have talked about faith, repentance and having a personal relationship with God.

We looked at parables of Jesus and about miracles, signs and wonders which demonstrate both the power of God and His purpose to restore all things.

A few weeks ago, we covered the subjects of religion and tradition.

And last week was about transformation.

The heart of Jesus’ teaching an ministry is personal and spiritual transformation.

I have been saying all through these teachings that God’s purpose in sending Jesus was to restore all things.

So often when we read the Bible, we begin in Genesis 3 with sin and the fall, we recognize the Jesus death on the cross is the turning point of the story and we think the story ends in Revelation 20 with the world standing before God in Judgement.

But that version of the story misses the first two chapters and the last two chapters of the Bible.

The whole story of the Bible begins with a perfectly created world and the book ends with a new heaven and earth and a perfectly restored creation.

Revelation 22:1–4 ESV

1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Notice how God is going to undo the curse.

He is going to heal our infirmity and our brokenness.

He is going to retore us to relationship with Him.

When our theology begins with sin and ends with judgement it keeps us in a state of crisis, focused primarily on what we don’t want to do or become.

But when we look at ourselves through the lens of new creation as God’s ultimate purpose, we see what God intended all along and what we are eventually becoming.

It means that while we don’t deny the past, we are not focused on it either.

We are free to focus on the future and become all that God made us to be.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

It’s the story of the caterpillar and the butterfly, with the emphasis on life as a butterfly.

You were made for something more than what you have experience up until now.

You were made to fly!

When it comes to God restoring humanity - Jesus is the model for what we are becoming.

Colossians 1:15 NLT

15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,

Yes, we were made to reflect God’s image.

And that image has become so distorted and so tarnished that it is barely recognizable sometimes.

But Jesus came to show us what God looks like,

and by extension, what we are to look like as restored people.

Restored humanity is not first and foremost about appearance.

It’s about those intangible, invisible qualities that are God-like, but not always so evident in our fallen human nature.

When we started this series with the Sermon on the Mount - we observed that Jesus said that the good life is often just the opposite of what we think it should be.

The qualities of a restored humanity are not exactly what we might expect either.

As we move through Matthew chapter 17 and into chapter 18, we are going to see what some of the qualities are.

What are some of the things that God is restoring?

He is restoring our dependence on Him.

He is restoring our innocence.

And he is restoring the human dignity of every person as created in His image.

And as such, He invites us to join with Him in his purpose of restoring all things.

Restored dependence on God.

Matthew 17:22–23 ESV

22 As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, 23 and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed.

Last week we talked about Jesus’ rebuke to Peter when he tried to dissuade Jesus from His talk about dying.

But here, just a chapter later, Matthew records Jesus repeating his warnings to the disciples.

Remember - repetition in the Bible is emphasis!

Matthew wants to make sure that we know that Jesus told the disciples beforehand what was going to happen.

So as people who are being restored, what do we learn from this?

Umm, God knows what He is doing and we just have to trust Him!

Give up trying to control things.

If God, who created the world is going to restore the world, we have to stop trying to be God and let Him do what He does best.

Have you noticed that when you try to run your own life, things always seem to end up in disorder?

But when you let God be the One in charge and you respond in obedience to Him, then things just seem to fall into place.

And even when things to do go horribly wrong, if you have practiced letting go,

you can more easily trust that God is going to use whatever went wrong and turn it around somehow.

Do you remember what it was like to learn to ride a bike? If you were like me you probably remember falling a lot. Most of us learned to ride with a parent, a sibling or an older adult holding the back of the seat as we learn to peddle and steer.

You see the more we try not to fall, the more we end up falling. But if you are convinced that someone has you and will keep you from falling. It frees you to focus on the path ahead of you. And when you begin to relax and look out ahead, that is when you find that you are actually riding the bike.

Jude 24 TPT

24 Now, to the one with enough power to prevent you from stumbling into sin and bring you faultless before his glorious presence to stand before him with ecstatic delight,

A restored person knows that God is there and that He is able to keep them from falling.

Yes, bad things will still happen.

But God will turn those bad things into better things.

Just as Jesus had to go to the cross.

So that there would also be a resurrection - and restoration!

Trust God to provide for you.

Matthew 17:24–27 ESV

24 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” 25 He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” 26 And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. 27 However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.”

As the Passover Feast was approaching, Jewish leaders were coming around to collect the temple tax.

This tax was for every adult Jewish male to pay about two days wages for the upkeep and daily maintenance of the temple.

After all, they are not going to go to the Romans to fund their religious activities.

In the OT, this was a one-time offering, a symbolic ransom of one’s life given to God.

But by the time of Jesus, this seems to have evolved into a yearly thing, due each Passover.

However, Priest, Levites and even some rabbi’s were excluded.

The way Matthew set’s up the narrative, it looks as if people are watching to see if Jesus is going to speak out against the temple tax.

After all, it seems to be a corrupted practice.

On what basis might he as a Rabbi claim exemption - perhaps if he “kisses up” to the right people?

However, its also commanded in the scripture.

This could be the perfect trap - they have multiple way of making him look bad.

Why should a rabbi who serves voluntarily, give two day wages which he never earned?

Jesus sends Peter out to do what Peter does - go fishing.

Except that instead of needing to catch a boatload of fish and sell them to get a days wage - Peter catches one fish with four day’s wages in it’s mouth.

Congratulations Peter, you just earned enough to pay the tax for both you and the rabbi -

and it didn’t take four days worth of work to do it!

Have you ever experienced that God, instead of taking away the obstacle, gives you what you need to get through it?

There are two different ways to meet a financial challenge.

You can increase income or you can reduce expense.

You never know how God is going to provide -

Sometimes it’s one way and sometimes the other.

I think everyone thought that Jesus would find a way to get out of paying the tax.

Instead, he found a way to pay it.

God will always provide - just maybe not in the way that you expected.

You just have to learn to trust Him...

Restored innocence.

When God created the world and mankind with it - they were in a state of innocence.

Genesis 2:25 CEV

25 Although the man and his wife were both naked, they were not ashamed.

Ok so we can’t even read that line without blushing a bit.

That’s because when we read the word “naked” our thoughts go immediately to immorality.

“Naked” means “naughty” for most of us.

I say most of us, because what we consider to be naked or naughty can be influenced by culture and the way we were raised.

What was it like to grow up in a world before sin?

What would it be like to live in a world where there is nothing to be ashamed of?

What would it be like to be completely transparent with your thoughts, your feelings and your intentions and not have to fear anyone’s disapproval?

What would it be like to be completely vulnerable - which is what naked really means- and yet be completely loved and accepted as you are?

Well, that would be like paradise! - Exactly!

That’s the world that God created - and its what he is re-creating.

So how do we get back to what God intended?

Become like a child.

Matthew 18:1–6 ESV

1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

To demonstrate new creation, Jesus put a child right in the middle of their conversation.

“Be like this child!”

No, He didn’t mean cry a lot and wear diapers!

He meant be innocent like a child.

The best way to illustrate what innocence looks like is to remember what it was like before we knew what sin was.

The world was fresh and new - everything was amazing and exciting.

We didn’t worry about things that could hurt us - we were protected from those things.

We didn’t have guilt or fear - unless of course the grown-ups communicated those thing to us.

We were blissfully unaware of evil.

A child is supposed to be innocent - that is why we protect our children.

We want them to be unaware of evil for as long as is humanly possible.

And people who hurt children - they should get a millstone necklace!

So how do we become like a child?

Nobody wants to be naive, but we all should desire to be innocent.

When did we become so jaded?

When did we start worrying and stop trusting?

When did life become more about self-preservation than becoming all that God meant for us to be?

Our human nature is to become more calloused as we grow older.

But the restored person is becoming more tender.

Ephesians 4:32 ESV

32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

In other words, you can be vulnerable again when you are trusting God for your protection.

Forgiveness make it possible to reverse the curse.

Innocence can be restored!

But that doesn’t mean we are naive.

Be relentless in your fight against sin.

Matthew 18:7–9 ESV

7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

Once we have established a picture of innocence as the goal, then sin becomes a big deal!

We just said that anyone who tries to take a child’s innocence should be drown.

But what about your own internal struggle with sin?

Do you just brush it off as “oh well, nobody’s perfect!”

Or are you like, “not today devil! Get out of my head!”

Yes, we live in a fallen sinful world - but have we become so acclimated to sin that we no longer care about what it is dong to us?

Have our consciences become dull?

Are our hearts so hardened?

Have we given up even trying?

That is the urgency that Jesus is communicating to his followers.

If you want to partner with God in restoring all things, lets not waste our time and energy participating in things that are taking us down a wrong path.

Yes, sin happens! - But you don’t want it happening through you!

I would never literally pluck out an eye or cut off a hand - but I would confront my own thoughts and actions with that kind of urgency!

In a life or death scenario, it would be worth losing an eye or a hand to come out alive.

Well sin is a matter of life or death - every choice you make leads somewhere.

It is either back to the garden or the lake of fire - which way do you want to go?

The key is to see your life and your choices in the light of God’s eternal purpose.

God is restoring humanity back to the goodness of creation.

Are you working with Him or against Him?

Jesus died to give you a choice - what is it going to be?

Good or evil?

Innocence or guilt?

Vulnerability or self-preservation?

You decide when you decide whether or not to follow Jesus.

Restored dignity.

I’m afraid that as Christians we have not always done a good job of communicating to good news of what Jesus is offering.

We have made it about rules and traditions.

We have made the church seem like an exclusive club that people no longer want to join.

The truth is, following Jesus is about becoming the person that God originally intended you to be.

God loves you - and He wants you back!

I know - some of you hear this and you think that I’m talking about someone else.

I’m talking to you - I have a message from God - He loves you and He wants you BACK!

How do I know that? - Because you are a person created in God’s image.

Your humanity is proof of God’s goodness - He wants you to let Him make it so.

Every “one” is valuable.

Matthew 18:10–14 ESV

10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. 12 What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14 So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

God looks out for the weak and the vulnerable.

Even children have guardian angels.

God cares what happens to children and nothing escapes His notice.

It is in this context that Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep.

We all know the story of the good shepherd leaving 99 sheep in the fold to go after one lost sheep.

The story is often used to illustrate why it is important to share Jesus with lost people.

As if the 99 sheep are the ones in the church and the one is the lost soul outside the church.

That’s one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it is to say that all of us, at some time in our lives are that one lost sheep.

Isaiah 53:6 NLT

6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.

Is one sheep more valuable than 99? Not at all!

It just happens to be the one who needs the Shepherd the most at that moment.

God’s heart is for the “one” who recognizes their need of Him.

Even if you are one of the 99 at the moment - take comfort in knowing that if you are ever that one lost sheep - Jesus will be there for you too.

Every person is created by God in His image - therefore each one is valuable!

Even the one who is not where they are supposed to be.

Everyone has dignity in God’s restored Kingdom.

And that also goes for people who are a little “out there” at the moment.

Show people respect.

Matthew 18:15–17 ESV

15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

We know this passage as the church discipline passage.

Jesus gives us steps and a process for correcting those who have gone astray.

But based on what we have said thus far, I want to highlight how the process begins.

You go to the person first - in some cultures you would go to an authority figure who is responsible for that person and their behavior.

The point is that before you make a big scene - you treat the person with dignity.

In American culture we like it when people say things to our face rather than behind our backs.

That’s just common decency - “I may be wrong, but at least acknowledge that I’m worthy of your attention” - even if you don’t like me.

We show a person respect by including them in the process.

I realize that just as I mentioned, there are cultures where is is not appropriate to go directly to an individual

And in the case of abuse it is rarely a good idea to confront an abuser alone.

But the principle is that we go first in a way that protects a person’s dignity

It gives them an opportunity to respond before we widen the circle of who is involved in the process.

The idea is that we correct people in a way that is most likely to be redemptive.

After all the goal is of any such correction should be restoration.

An perhaps, if things go well, even reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:20 NLT

20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

We are partnering with God in restoring all things.

Your prayers matter.

Matthew 18:18–20 ESV

18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

Yes, I normally have six-point outlines, but this one deserves its own fill-in-the-blank.

God is telling us how much it matters that we partner with Him in his purpose of restoring all things.

Our choices matter!

Whatever we allow… is allowed!

Whatever we do not allow… is not allowed!

That is the essence of binding and loosing.

In other words, God gives us meaningful decisions in helping to shape the world that we live in.

What kind of world do you want to live in?

One that resembles God’s original design?

Then make the choices that align with God’s will.

And this is not just about our individual choices - it is about our personal and corporate prayers.

We want to agree with God in praying for His will - the restoration of all things in Jesus Christ!

And when we joint together with others and pray in agreement with God’s will - that is even more powerful!

God is all about restoring people, but He also chooses to work through people.

So let’s be the restored people that God uses to restore people to Himself!

Questions for reflection:

Does your understanding of the gospel include the restoration of all things? Is it something you think about when you pray? Is it part of your own spiritual growth? Are you partnering with God toward this purpose?

How does reflecting on God’s plan for restoration change the way you see other people? Can you look at a person and see them for who God intended that they should be? Can you see the value and dignity in each one?

What do you think about innocence? Is it something that you aspire to? To what extent is it even achievable? How does desiring innocence help us in our battle against sin? What will you look like as a restored person?