Discovering The Real Me Part 1
The Languishing Self verse the Flourishing Self
Fearfully and wonderfully made.
Psalms 139:13-14 (NIV)
you
created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are
wonderful, I know that full well.
King David is singing a song of praise and in it he is asking God to examine him.
I have been fearfully and wonderfully made.
Am I the person you intend for me to be?
Am I on target?
The Apostle Paul wrote to believers:
Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Workmanship means handcrafted by a master craftsman.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made by the most skilled and creative
geniuses of all.
Do you feel that way?
That you are fearfully and wonderfully made?
Is your life an expression of the handiwork of God?
Over the next few weeks I invite you to accompany me on a journey to discover
your real self.
The “me” that God crafted you to be.
Today we are going to consider what life is really about and how our choices either
help us or hurt us in becoming the person God created.
We’ll look at the languishing self verses the flourishing self.
Returning to David’s request for an examination.
For me everything rises and falls on relationships.
For me life is about becoming righteous.
Righteous means right wise, or rightly related, or simply being the
person God created me to be.
God desires us to have a right relationship with Him,
A right relationship with Others.
A right relationship with the Earth,
And a right relationship with Self.
The entry way into this journey of becoming righteous is faith.
Faith is belief that motivates you to action.
The belief is that Jesus made atonement for all our sins.
Everything inherent in being human that deters, damages and
destroys right relationships, and
Everything that you’ve done that deterred, damaged or destroyed
right relationships,
finds forgiveness by the grace of God in the atonement of Jesus,
in His death on the cross.
Hebrews 2:17 (NIV)
For this reason [Jesus] had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might … make atonement for the sins of the people.
The action based on that belief is
A. Acknowledge that you are a sinner.
A sinner is a person who has either with purpose or by accident
Deterred, damaged or destroyed a relationship.
B. Believe that Jesus made atonement that makes it possible for God to forgive you of your sin.
C. Commit your self to a life of discipleship,
learning how to live for the one who died for you.
Then faith is exercised by calling out to God to accept you as His own.
When God accepts your faith,
He forgives your sins,
Declares you in the courts of Heaven to be righteous.
And empowers you to start becoming the person He has
declared you to be.
You are now on your way to becoming the Real You.
Becoming that fearfully and wonderfully crafted person God intended for
you to be.
God empowers you to create, grow and thrive in righteousness.
Realizing that God loves you
You begin to love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.
You begin to love your self in a new and healthy way,
The kind of self love that God always intended for you to have.
You begin to love others,
Seeking to meet their needs even at the cost of a personal
sacrifice, inconveniencing yourself,
maybe even suffering to help another.
Just like Jesus helped you.
God empowers you to live what Jesus called the greatest of commands.
Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV)
"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[
Life is all about being righteous and righteous is all about love,
so Life is about loving the way God intended.
“Life isn’t about any particular achievement or experiences,
its not what you do, its who you are” (John Ortberg, The Me I want To Be, p. 13)
Its only through faith in God that you will find out who you are meant to be.
Becoming who you are meant to be is what living your life to the full is all
about.
In this faith journey of becoming the person God created you to be,
Becoming your Real Self,
Living your life to the full,
Right now you are either languishing on the journey
Or flourishing on the journey.
I was teaching seventh grade life science and when we got to the part about plants I
had the students grow potatoes.
Pretty simple, coffee can, potting soil, half a potato.
Pop a hole or two in the bottom of the can,
Water and in a very short time you’ve got a potato plant.
The plants that didn’t get the right amount of water, and the right amount of
sun languished, they were stunted, sickly and some died.
The plants that got the right amount of water, and the right amount of sun
shine, flourished, they grew quickly, strong and blossomed.
Right now on your spiritual journey you are either languishing or flourishing.
David asked God to examine him and see if he was living up to being fearfully and
wonderfully made.
Being the person that God created him to be.
How would God answer you if you asked that same question of
Him?
Would He say that you’re languishing or flourishing?
Sometimes I think we languish because we have the wrong idea of who we are
meant to be.
Lets call them counterfeit me’s. (Ortberg, p. 23—Counterfeits pp24-28))
Counterfeit Me Number One:
“The Me I Pretend To Be” (Orterg, p. 24)
Guys if you’ve gone through the “Wild at Heart” series the me I pretend to
be is the poser.
The guy whose hiding behind an image,
projecting a false self to others.
He’s afraid that he doesn’t have what it takes so he fakes it
but he’ll never make it.
If you are pretending you’ve got your act all together,
Because you’re afraid that the real you is not lovable,
That the real you in incompetent.
That if you don’t appear practically perfect in every way
people will reject you.
Then you’re not allowing God to give you
the love you need to flourish.
Counterfeit Me Number Two:
“The Me I Think I Should Be.” (Ortberg, p. 25)
If you think you need to be like somebody else, then you are languishing.
Comparing yourself to others,
covers God’s sunshine of love in a cloud of guilt.
You feel that you don’t measure up but console yourself
by thinking you’re not as bad as somebody else.
God made you to be you.
You are unique.
God designed you to display His glory through.
As you become that person, you shine.
Don’t waste your time trying to be like somebody else,
Instead expend your energy in discovering the real you.
Counterfeit Me Number Three:
“The Me Other People Want Me To Be”(Ortberg pp-26-27)
Feel that pressure “they” put on you to be the way “they” want you to be?
It seems like everyone has an agenda for your life.
Everyone wants you to be what they want you to be.
People place all kinds of expectations on us.
Those expectations are nothing more than demands that we meet their
needs.
As children and young adults we need the guidance of expectations.
But when we become mature adults we need freedom to choose
what we do based on what is in accord with whom God
has created us to be.
Augustine put it best: “Love, and do what you will.”
Or as often misquoted: Love God and do what you want.
“Once for all, then, a short precept is given you: Love, and do what you will: whether you hold your peace, through love hold your peace; whether you cry out, through love cry out; whether you correct, through love correct; whether you spare, through love do you spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.” (Tractatus VII, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/170207.htm)
You will languish if you decide to be a people pleaser instead of a God
pleaser.
It’s only in being a God pleaser that you grow into the Real
You.
Counterfeit Me Number Four:
“The Me I’m Afraid God Wants Me To Be”
(Ortberg, p. 27-28)
I did a whole series on this a few years back called “Who Told You That?”
We get the strangest ideas about what God wants from us and how to
get God to bless us.
When I was a youth pastor on of my students couldn’t commit to being a
disciple because of fear that God wanted them to be a missionary
instead of playing college sports.
What God wants from you is your love.
The blessing that God gives is a sense of His presence.
You’re going to languish if you try to become an American Success
story thinking that its God’s blessings.
Its been my experience that the greatest blessings come when I am
suffering because suffering drives me to seek God’s face which
results in a greater intimacy with God and a sense of His
abiding presence in the valley of the shadow of
death.
But too many of us think that if we do good,
God is going to bless us with the things we want.
So we focus on trying hard at keeping the rules.
We try harder practicing the spiritual disciplines.
We try our hardest to sort of super spiritual person.
The result is exhaustion. Not blessing.
The reason why I tell you to practice the spiritual disciplines,
The seven habits of a disciple, is so that you have an encounter
with God, not to be healed, have a financial
breakthrough, find someone to marry…
We don’t follow rules to get blessed,
The scriptural guidelines for holy living are practiced because
we love.
Four counterfeit me’s
1. The me I pretend to be
2. The me I think I should be
3. The me others want me to be
4. The me I’m afraid God wants me to be.
Create a languishing self.
There is a medical term for this—FTT:
Failure To Thrive (Ortberg, p. 28-29)
We often hear it in connection with infants who are not
developing like they should, they are not growing.
Too many Christians suffer with Spiritual FTT,
They are discouraged, irritated, exhausted, bewildered, cranky, and
demanding.
They’ve stalled out on their spiritual journey.
They’re all out of love.
Life is about love,
We flourish when we live a life of love.
A life of love is establishing and growing right relationships first with
God who then empowers you to do the same with Others, the
Earth and your Self.
Those who are living their lives to the full are those who have
established and are growing right relationships,
these folks are the righteous.
Psalms 92:12-15 (NIV)
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, "The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him."
The righteous will flourish.
“God made you to flourish…” (Ortberg, p. 14)
“Flourishing is God’s gift and plan, and when you flourish you are in
harmony with God, other people, creation and yourself.” (Ortberg, p. 14-15)
“Flourishing is not measured by outward signs such as income, possessions,
attractiveness, health,
rather flourish is becoming the person God created you to be.” (Ortberg, p 15)
“Flourishing means moving towards God’s best version of you.” (Ortberg, p. 15)
The righteous bear fruit even in old age.
Fruit refers to the good works you do.
Remember you don’t do good works to get a blessing from God,
Good works do not earn you God’s favor.
You do good works because love compels you to do
them.
What are good works?
A good work is when you see a need, hear a cry and don’t delay to be
part of the solution.
A good work is practicing the seven habits of a disciple.
A good work is giving of your means to support a ministry.
You don’t give $1000 to get $10,000 back.
You give because you want to help, laying up treasure in
heaven, not seeking a return on your investment.
The psalmist mentions another good work,
Even in old age your testimony is fresh and green proclaiming the
goodness and faithfulness of God.
To me that means you’re still growing, still learning,
Still becoming and still have an important work to
do, no matter what your age.
Fruit also refers to your interior life, your characteristics, your attitudes, your
propensities.
The Apostle Paul describes the flourishing life this way:
Galatians 5:22-23 (MSG)
But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
The righteous are living their life to the full experiencing community.
Its in community, in relationship with others that you are loved.
Where you are accepted, belong and held accountable,
You start doing the things that God created you to do,
And the result is meaning and purpose for your life.
“When you flourish you become more you.” (Ortberg p. 16)
The you that is fearfully and wonderfully made.
The you who was intended to bear the image of God.
Are you languishing or flourishing?
Again we are not talking about what Christians usually mean when they say God is
blessing them.
Christians tend to be too worldly in their understanding of blessing.
Blessing too often refers to getting the things you want.
You can have riches and health,
A good marriage, a promising future,
And still be languishing spiritually.
Are you languishing or flourishing?
Next couple of weeks I want to speak with you about flourishing.
How you can become the person God created you to be.
How to discover the Real You.
But for today if you think you might be languishing,
I’ve got good news.
Before you leave here today God can turn that all around for you.
If you think you’re stalled out on your spiritual journey do what David did.
Ask God to examine you.
Psalms 139:23-24 (NIV)
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
God wants you to flourish,
He’ll answer that request and begin to help you to become the Real You,
The person He always intended for you to be.