©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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10/11/98
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That I May Know Him Pt. 3
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Philippians 3:10
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10/11/98 That I May Know Him Pt. 3
Phil. 3:8 More than that, I count all things
to be loss in view of the surpassing value
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things,
and count them but rubbish in order that I
may gain Christ,
Phil. 3:9 and may be found in Him, not
having a righteousness of my own derived
from the Law, but that which is through
faith in Christ, the righteousness which
comes from God on the basis of faith,
Phil. 3:10 that I may know Him, and the
power of His resurrection and the
fellowship of His sufferings, being
conformed to His death;
Phil. 3:11 in order that I may attain to the
resurrection from the dead.
The knowledge of Christ
is the lens through which
all the rest of life is brought into focus.
In one concise, powerful passage
here in Philip. chapter 3
the Apostle Paul tells us
that the knowledge of Christ
is of such incredible value to him
that anything else he might have possessed
is like garbage by comparison.
For the past two weeks
we've been talking about why that is.
Two weeks ago
we spent the whole morning
talking about how it is only through
the knowledge Christ
that we can gain a true and accurate
knowledge of ourselves.
Outside of Christ
all we have to rely on
in trying to figure out
who we are
and why or if we have value
is the feedback we get
from other human beings.
The problem, of course,
is that they are all trying to figure out
who they are, too.
Everyone is competing with everyone else
for some measure of affirmation
and acceptance.
But there is no fixed point,
no absolute, reliable center
by which we can know ourselves,
and know that our knowledge is correct
and accurate
no matter what others may or may not say.
Only the Creator
can affirm His creation
in a way that brings us peace
with Him,
and with ourselves.
Paul told us that he gladly exchanged
his position of great social prominence
within the Jewish community,
he turned his back on it
in exchange for the knowledge of
Christ.
Why? Because he was deeply spiritual
and pious,
seeing the eternal perspective
rather than the temporal view?
No!
He did it in part
because the knowledge of Christ
could give him something
that all of his social success
could never give him -
an accurate knowledge of himself.
I had an excellent question come up
after the service two weeks ago
that I think we would do well
to spend a few minutes on as a group
before we move on.
The question was,
"Just how do we go about
hearing that voice of affirmation
from our Creator
in a way that brings that inner
peace?"
That's a great question!
How can we find freedom
from our addiction to the affirmation
of those around us?
Finding peace with God
is inseparably linked
with finding peace with ourselves.
In fact,
though we try hard to separate the two in our
minds,
I have come to the conclusion
that it is impossible for us to like God
any more than we like ourselves.
Let me restate that from the other direction
and maybe it will make more sense.
The degree to which we experience
true peace with God
is determined by the degree to which
we experience true peace with ourselves.
Want me to try again?
My true heart attitude towards my Creator
will be determined to a great degree
by how I choose to evaluate His creation,
and the one part of His creation
that I know better than all the rest
is myself.
Now let me try to explain.
There is a world of difference
between accepting God's forgiveness
and truly being at peace with God.
We can look at our sin
and our load of guilt
and our shame
and then hear the affirmation of God
that the death of Christ
paid the price for the sins
of the entire world.
We can confess our sin
and thank Him for His payment of that debt,
and know we have eternal life.
But we can do that
in a way that never allows us
to believe that God really likes us
personally.
EX. Its like being hired by a large corporation
and being allowed to sign up for their health
insurance
because we are an employee.
It has nothing to do with us personally.
We qualify simply because
we are an employee of the company.
In the same way,
when we are told that Christ died
for the sins of the whole world,
and we accept His offer of forgiveness through
faith Christ,
emotionally we can find ourselves
feeling grateful that the debt is paid,
but at the same time
feeling as though
it wasn't us personally
that God loved and died for
so much as it was the whole human
race.
My point is this.
I believe the real test
of our understanding of God's personal
love for us as an individual
is most accurately mirrored
in our own attitude towards ourself.
EX.
When we look at ourselves
and say to ourselves,
"That's no good...
(and I'm not talking about
good or bad choices here,
I'm talking about who we are
by design, as an individual human
being,)
when we say,
"I should be taller,
or I should be shorter,
or I should be smarter,
or I should be shaped differently,
or I should have better athletic potential,
or I should have a better a singing voice,
or more musical talent,
or more charisma..."
Whenever we look at ourselves
and find ourselves lacking,
or defective,
or wanting,
what we are really saying is,
"God you goofed!
God, you blew it.
God, you either didn't care,
or I didn't matter enough to you
for You to make me the way
I should really have been made."
It is impossible for us to criticize ourselves
without that criticism
having a powerful impact
on our attitude towards God
and our trust in Him.
And when we hear David saying,
Ps. 139:13 ¶ For You (oh God) formed my
inward parts; You wove me in my mother's
womb.
Ps. 139:15 My frame was not hidden from
You, When I was made in secret, And
skillfully wrought in the depths of the
earth;
we know that who we are
is a direct result
of the active designing work of God.
If I do not like me,
then I will not like the One who made me.
I may worship Him because He's bigger.
I may submit to Him,
but I will not like Him,
and it will be very hard for me to trust
Him.
If I couldn't trust Him to do right by me
on the day of my creation,
then how can I trust Him now?
So, one of the many things
that God seeks to accomplish in our lives
when we come to Him
is to free us from the critical self-evaluation
that robs us of true peace with ourselves
and makes it impossible
for us to have a true heart of gratitude
towards the One who created us.
And all of that was to say
that if we don't like ourselves
we're not going to like God very much
either,
because He is the One
who designed us.
Now, there are at least three great forces
used by Satan
to keep us from finding peace with
ourselves.
1. Our preconceived idea of who we are.
2. Our preconceived idea of who we should be.
3. And lies we believe about the way God views
sinful impulses
and the effects of sin in our lives.
And I want to say a little bit
about each of those three.
The first is our preconceived ideas
about who we are.
During the past several weeks
I have talked a lot about
the way in which our self-concept
is shaped by the kind of feed-back
we get from other people around us.
The more significant they are to us
the more powerful their influence on us.
Maybe the easiest way I can show you
what I want us to see here
is to take us back to an illustration
I shared with you last August.
Sandee, Joni, and I were eating in a restaurant.
While we were waiting for our food
a family sat down at the table next to us.
There were at least five or six in the family.
The father sat down
along with several of the others
including a son about 11 or 12 years
old.
As soon as the son sat down
the father verbally blasted the boy by saying,
"Don't you dare sit down there. You're so stupid.
Can't you see there's no chair for your mother?
Have a little consideration for someone besides
yourself.
Find your mother a chair
and bring it over here."
OK,
in that little speech dad helped to shape
his son's self-concept.
He told his son:
"You are stupid.
You are selfish.
You are thoughtless and inconsiderate."
And by attacking only the boy
he strongly implied
that the boy was of less value in the family
structure than anyone else,
and dad's tone throughout the entire message
told the son clearly that dad was
generally deeply displeased
with who his son was as a human
being.
Now, if that father's input
into his son's life
continues in the same vein
throughout the boy's childhood
he will grow up
with a grossly distorted concept of himself.
He will enter his adult years
mentally and emotionally programmed
to believe that he is a rather pathetic excuse
for a man,
desperately looking for some external affirmation
to help him feel a little better about himself.
He won't like himself
because the self he knows
is all twisted and distorted
by the messages he has received
from those around him.
And the truth is
even the most skilled, loving parents
pass on all sorts of distorted messages
to their children.
And these, combined with the messages
that come from brothers and sisters,
and other children at school,
and an endless stream of exhausted
teachers
leave all of us with a deeply distorted concept
of our true God-designed identity.
2. The second major enemy
to finding peace with ourselves
is our tragically flawed perception
of who we think we should be.
Q. How do you think you should look physically?
How did you arrive at that mental concept?
Most of us look at the athletes
or the movie stars
or the popular people around us
and attempt to conform ourselves
more closely to their standard.
And just as powerful
are the lies surrounding how we think we
should perform.
Ex. It's impossible to be in the Christian
community for long
without developing a vivid image
of how the "good Christian" handles his
life.
Early in my Christian life
I was told by a powerfully persuasive
Christian speaker
that whenever he is with another person
for more than 10 minutes
he considers it a divine appointment
to present the gospel.
The implication was obvious -
anyone who's really devoted to Christ
will follow the same pattern.
For months following my exposure to that fellow
I made sure I never had a conversation
with another person
that lasted longer than nine minutes.
For years I was certain that
the only people God could really use
were extroverts.
For a while I tried very hard to be one,
but it just exhausted me.
I also believed and was told by many people
on many occasions
that I could never hope to be
a truly effective Bible teacher
until I got to the place where I could
teach without notes
so that the Holy Spirit could move through me
unhindered.
I was never real clear about why it was
that the Holy Spirit could only work
at 11:00 a.m. Sunday mornings,
but it seemed to be a well known fact.
When I first started handing out my printed
manuscripts
I can remember feeling terribly embarrassed
about it
because it was this glaring proof
of how far short of the goal I fell.
Well, the point is this:
every one of us are fighting two huge lies
that war against a true heart of gratitude to
God for His careful design of us.
The first is a distorted concept
of who we are,
and the second is a distorted concept
of who we think we should be.
Much of God's healing process in us
is the process of His correcting
our distorted concepts
in those two areas.
It is a learning process
that continues in one form or another
for our entire lives.
Continued exposure
to the truth in God's Word
is a crucial ingredient in the healing process.
The careful, personal work of God's Spirit in our
lives is essential.
There will be times
when He will allow us
to try to be like someone else,
try to force ourselves into the mold
we think we should fit.
And we'll be able to keep it up
for a few hours
or a few days
or a few months.
But it will exhaust us,
and life will become
an overpowering burden.
And then, in His own perfect way,
we will hear His voice saying,
Ps. 46:10 "Stop your striving and know
that I am God..."
and we will hear Him saying,
Matt. 11:28 "Come to Me, all who are
weary and heavy-laden, and I will give
you rest.
Matt. 11:29 "Take My yoke upon you, and
learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble
in heart; and you shall find rest for your
souls.
Matt. 11:30 "For My yoke is easy, and My
load is light."
And we will suddenly realize
that the yoke we have taken upon ourselves
is not the one He gave us to carry.
It's crushing us
because it does not fit
who we are
or the way He designed us.
We didn't get as far with this as I had planned,
and we'll go back into it for a little while next
week,
but I've brought this whole thing up
because I believe it is essential
for a truly effective walk with God.
Man-made religion will hand you
a preformed mold you must attempt to squeeze
yourself into.
God, on the other hand,
shatters that mold
and offers each of us the freedom
that can only be found
in living in harmony
with our individual, unique
personal design.