Picture This

Picture This

Big Idea: See yourself as you are, not as you were

MRI: We have a Motivation to undergo a Renovation so that we can bring Illumination to the world.

How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as a good person or a bad person? Do you see yourself as wealthy or poor? Do you see yourself as beautiful or ugly? Do you see yourself as a sinner or a saint? Do you see yourself as alone or do you see yourself always with good company? Do you see yourself as a greedy person, or a generous person? Do you see yourself as a prisoner to sin or someone set free from sin? Do you see yourself as a gossip or a trustworthy confidant? Do you see yourself as someone who lives in darkness or someone who lives in light?

How we picture ourselves is a major factor in our sense of well-being and completeness. People often see themselves in a more negative light than others do. Perhaps you saw an advertisement some years back that showed women describing themselves. As they described themselves, a sketch artist drew their picture. Then, a friend described the same person. The difference was amazing. The way the friend described the person resulted in a much better picture than how the person described themselves.

Today, I want to enlighten you a little about how God sees you if you are a believer. If you are one who has made Jesus Christ Lord of your life, and have accepted the grace of God to salvation through His blood, I want you to picture yourself as God pictures you. And if I can make just a little progress in helping you to understand how God sees you, I hope it will provide a motivation to you to undergo a renovation in order that we can bring illumination to our world.

Ephesians 5:3–14 ESV

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

So this passage can make us a little uncomfortable, since it demands that we examine ourselves, but really, the gospel itself makes us uncomfortable in the same way. Billy Graham said the cross is an offense because it demands a response, and so does a passage like this. However, we can decide to take this passage in the negative view, or in the positive view, and I prefer the positive, so we will look at it from that angle. 

If you have your salvation through Christ, then I want to share with you God’s answers to how He sees you: 

Do you see yourself as a good person or a bad person? Since God sees you through the blood of Christ, He sees you as a good person. 

Do you see yourself as wealthy or poor? As one who will inherit the Kingdom of God, He considers you to be wealthy. 

Do you see yourself as beautiful or ugly? God made you in His image, so He thinks you are beautiful. 

Do you see yourself as a sinner or a saint? Again, he sees you through Christ’s blood, you you are a saint.

Do you see yourself as alone or do you see yourself always with good company? Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you. You are never alone.

Do you see yourself as a greedy person, or a generous person? If you share the blessings of God, you can be generous. 

Do you see yourself as a prisoner to sin or someone set free from sin? You can overcome your sin, but only with God’s help. 

Do you see yourself as a gossip or a trustworthy confidant? God can help you to model good Christian communications.

Do you see yourself as someone who lives in darkness or someone who lives in light? The Bible says we are children of light.

Based on the view of God, and how he pictures you and I, I think we have a great motivation to undergo a renovation in order that we can be illumination to our world. Let’s see how that works with our passage this morning. 

There are some tough things for us to consider here. Passages like this can be a grind to get through. Clearly, there are some direct warnings about behavior in there. Today, I am going to encourage you to read through and think about this passage, prayerfully asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what things you need to deal with in your life. 

I am not going to go through them one by one. I think today the Lord speaks through His Word to believers about how God sees us. I believe that God wants to break chains of bondage that the enemy has snared some in regarding who they really are in Christ. If you are one of His, He sees you as His creation, His redeemed, and the object of His love. 

God wants to heal some hearts today that are wounded by a lack of faith in who He says the believer is. He wants believers to take new steps forward in their faith, beyond the realization of your sins and need for His grace and enter into an understanding of how God sees you. When you see how He sees you, you will be better able to put off the old person. So let’s look at ourselves through God’s eyes, shall we?

God sees you as someone who was dirty, and sinful, and deserving of His wrath and punishment, and who desperately needed His grace. If you have not found salvation in Christ, He still sees you that way. If you have accepted the grace of God and His gift of eternal life, He sees you in a completely new way, as I mentioned earlier. He sees you as His own, and He is making something beautiful out of the mess you once were. 

That is our motivation. Our understanding not only of what God did for us through Christ, but also how He thinks of us, as His beloved children, motivates us to undergo a renovation. We call that sanctification, and sometimes this is the hardest part of our faith. We look at the fourfold gospel and say, Yes! Christ our Savior! Yes! Christ our Healer! Yes, Christ our Coming King! Sanctifier? What? no, no, no… That requires me to do something. 

But it is those other things He did that should motivate us to allow the sanctifying work to happen. All of us are to undergo a renovation, and sometimes that means things get messy. I’m sure all of you at some point have been at a business that is undergoing a remodeling project. Behind a temporary wall or plastic barrier, the work is going on. You will often see a sign, “Please pardon our mess. We are undergoing a renovation so that we may better serve you in the future.

Similarly, we should think of every Christian wearing a sign that says, “Please pardon my mess, I am undergoing a renovation in order to better bless you in the future.” Every Christian is to undergo this process, but again, it isn't out of some compulsion to do so, but because they have a motivation to do so: That God loved us enough to send His only son. 

So when Paul writes that sexual immorality and impurity and greed and filthiness and foolish talk are not to even be found among us, the church, he is not demanding it under the motivation of severe penalty, but rather, he is reminding us of who we are, and what our motivation is to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. 

When he says that the sexually immoral or impure, or greedy have no inheritance in the kingdom of God, it is so that we remember who we were and remember not to act that way but to act as we are, IN CHRIST. 

He says we need to not be deceived by empty words. To put that in a nutshell, he is saying that anyone who tells you that your behavior doesn't matter as long as you claim Christ, they are a liar, and will suffer the wrath of God. Our behavior does matter; because we claim Christ. We are ambassadors of God, administrators of His grace, we are to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. It is a response to our motivation, and our motivation is the kindness of God.

This passage makes it clear that we are not even associate with wickedness. We are not supposed to dip to our toe in the water, or try to see how close we can get. We are to avoid all appearance of evil, and that means we do not do the things of the world. We are to try to find out, or discern, what is pleasing to the Lord. This is done by spending time with Him, praying, reading His word, enjoying Christian fellowship. 

Finally, we are to be illumination to the world around us. Paul writes that we are to expose the works of darkness, he doesn't mean we go and shine a floodlight on them, or to sit around talking about how evil the world around us is. In fact, this cannot be true, since earlier he says that we are not even supposed to talk about the things that wicked people do. 

So how do we expose the works of darkness? By being children of light. Paul was writing to people who knew about a lot of the evil in the world around them. Some in the church were taking part in the evil. Paul is saying to not do evil, but by doing what is right and good, we automatically bring conviction to the world around us. 

In living in the light, we make visible the works of darkness. This is extremely evident to all of us who have friends or relatives who are unsaved. They get angry when we don’t do the things they do. You don’t have to say a single word about their behavior, you just do the right behavior, and they get med. 

I once put a sign up in my workplace, asking people to watch their language. This made some people very mad. Others respected it. 

There are always at least two different reactions people will have when you live a life that seeks holiness and righteousness. As I mentioned, they may react with anger. This indicates that they realize their own fallen nature, and having rejected God thus far in their life, it goads them to see someone living a life of purpose and peace.

The other reaction is that people will seek you out, wanting to be around you, to learn the secret of your happiness, character and hope in a world that seems hopeless. This is what it means to be salt and light in the world. God uses the light metaphor in many places in scripture, such as Isaiah 60:1-3

Isaiah 60:1–3 ESV

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.

So God’s glory shines through us. He is our light, and we are light to the world. 

I asked at the beginning of the message how you see yourself. How would you describe yourself? How would you sketch yourself? If you see a person without hope, I tell you there is hope. 

The bible says that before Christ, we were slaves to our sin. However, you are no longer a slave to your sin. We know that everyone struggles, everyone fails to live up to the standard all the time. However, God wants us to see ourselves through HIs eyes. He pictures us the way we are in Christ. He sees us as able to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. He sees you as a citizen of heaven, one of His own. 

Galatians 5:1 ESV

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Christ has set us free! and we are free indeed! So why would we want to go back to the old way of life? Why would we want to go back to our old, disgusting behavior? Why would we live like a sinner when Christ’s blood has made us saints? Why would we act like an ugly person when God sees us as beautiful? Why would we be greedy when He shows us His generosity? Why would we not fight for our purity and against our addictive, sinful behavior when He tells us He will help? Why would we see ourselves as lonely when He is always with us? Why should we live in darkness when we are children of light? Why live like one still in prison, when Christ has set the captive free?

I’m going to show you a video. It is powerful, and I pray that someone here is going to realize that it is time to let the old self die. It is time to live in a new way, with a new mind. It is time to walk in a manner worthy of your calling. It is time to realize that the dividing wall of hostility has been destroyed by Christ. It is time to realize that God’s plan for your life is awesome, but it requires you to kill off the old you, and live as the person He created you to be.