Image and Reality- Living the Truth of God’s Declaration
Who are you? Who do you want others to think you are?
Is there a gap between reality and image?
Our society is much into image-making. Political candidates employ smart people to do nothing but create and enhance a positive public perception. These men and women are called ’spin-meisters.’ because they work hard to put the most favorable spin on every news story before it goes public.
Bev and I are blessed with 4 kids. The teen-age years are a trip as any parent can tell you. I found it painful, yet humorous, watching them try on different images as they experimented with their identity. Hair styles went from long to short, from spiky to shorn. One day their clothes would be preppie, the next they would have on the baggy blue jeans. I tried not worry too much about these phases, realizing that it was a way to project an image. By the way, it isn’t just kids who do this. Many men and women work just as hard to look a part, to fit in, to find acceptance in a certain group.
What is troublesome about image-making is the PHONINESS of the process.
So often our calculation is to create an impression that is far different from the reality.
Is that political candidate really a caring person or is that photo of him hugging a resident of a nursing home just a photo-op that some consultant cooked up to enhance his image?
Is that kid really into violent, Gothic music or is he just trying to look tough because he feels so insecure?
Is she really a blond or is it Clairol?
Is he truly a committed Christian, or is he just talking a language he learned from another?
As a result of all the image-making that goes on around us, we crave AUTHENTICITY. We want to know people who are real, whose word can be trusted, whose private lives are the same as their public persona.
Some of you are probably wondering if this is a psychology lecture or a Biblical message. The truth is that your self image is important. How we live, flows out of what we think!
Jesus stated the principle -- Luke 6:43-45 No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.
From the Word of God, we learn that our struggles with self-image, our temptations to project a phony
image, our desires to mask and hide our true selves are not primarily psychological, nor sociological. We have a spiritual problem, a need for restoration and healing. We innately sense that we are sinners (that is, those who miss the plans and purposes of God) but we are proud so we cover and hide our sins. Our first parents did it! In the Genesis account we discover Adam and Eve hiding in the Garden from God.
Why? Because they had disobeyed God, corrupting their conscience. Some of the saddest words of the Bible are found in Genesis 3 where we read: 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
God didn’t abandon us to these lonely hopeless dungeons or leave us to cower behind our carefully crafted masks. He pursues us and in His richly merciful love provides for the restoration of our self-image by changing us from the Inside Out! In Ephesians 2, we read:
"It’s a wonder God didn’t lose His temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, He embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive with Christ. He did this all on His own, with no help from us! Then He picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. Now God has us right where He wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus." - the Message
In our text today, we learn what He declares to be our true identity now that we are released from the grasp of the evil one and restored to our Father’s family.
As we discover what God declares about his children, our minds are transformed. Guilt falls away, shame loses its stranglehold on our souls, and we emerge as beautiful, authentic people. Our self-image can be shaped around reality instead of fantasy. The Truth of God overcomes the lie of the Accuser, freeing us to live differently.
1 Peter 2:9-10 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Our Heavenly Father tells us about the family heritage, our identity as a Church and as individuals within the Church, with four sweeping statements.
"We are a chosen people."
"We are a royal priesthood."
"We are citizens of a holy nation."
"We are his treasure, a people belonging to Him."
A Chosen People
Some 1600 years prior to the time when Peter wrote these inspired words, God had sworn an agreement with Abraham that his descendants would be blessed. He clarified the agreement through Moses saying to the Jewish people: Exodus 19:5 "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine."
Today, through Christ, you and I are invited to become part of the Chosen People. Our race, our sex, our national heritage is of NO CONSEQUENCE. The Spirit of God prompts us, calls to us quietly, but urgently and we have only to accept the invitation in faith.
Everyone of us can then honestly say, "I’m God’s special kid! He chose me!"
That will give your self-image a kickstart. No more feeling left out. No more trying to get attention. You’re part of a Select People.
A Royal Priesthood
For modern Americans, this descriptive phrase has little impact because we have no royalty and priests are not the socially powerful, elite group they once were. Engage your mind, and hear what the Spirit is actually saying. God has given us a place that previously we could have had ONLY IF we were born into the right families.
Peter’s original readers knew full well that being a part of royalty was not something you studied for at college. Being a priest was not a career choice. To be a king you had to be born into the royal family. To be a priest you had to be a descendant of Levi or a descendant of Aaron. In ancient Israel being a priest was a position that rivaled being a king! A priest had special access to the holy places. A priest went before God to pray for ordinary people. A priest had the power to offer or withhold forgiveness. But this position was out of reach for most people regardless of their desire or devotion.
God says that "YOU are a royal Priest." To become a Christian through faith opens privileges to us that are beyond our wildest dreams. He invites us into the Holiest Places. He shares with us the secrets of His heart. He privileges us with the power of prayer and the joy of standing between Heaven and Earth’s residents as intercessors. He assures us that our destiny is not determined by our natural birth but rather by the second birth by which we become sons and daughters of the King of kings!
If you’re having a little trouble thinking that through, let me put it into today’s terms. Think of the privileges accorded to the CEO of a multi-national company or the prestige given to the President of the USA. Imagine having those privileges and opportunities suddenly handed to you. THAT’S WHAT GOD HAS DONE!
Is your self-image improving at this moment?
Has someone walked all over you for a long time?
Has your spouse treated you like garbage and made you feel mean and small?
Did your Dad make you feel like a fool most of the time?
God says... "let’s erase those old tapes. Here’s the truth about you since you’ve come to Christ... You’re my chosen one, a privileged and powerful person who knows Me and make me known to others."
Let’s continue..... You’re a holy nation!
The word, ’holy,’ means to be selected for a special purpose; to be separate.
The word, ’nation,’ is translated from the NT Greek word, ethnos. It meant a multitude, a horde, a swarm. It was a term used by Jews for Gentiles as a kind of put-down. "The godless horde." But now the Word turns the meaning, ’Multitude of saints’ becomes a term of honor. We are God’s group, the insiders! Those once dismissed as riffraff are selected by God and set apart for His unique service.
You’re a people belonging to God.
The King James Authorized Version says it in most memorable form: 1 Peter 2:9 Ye are... a peculiar people! I’ve known some pretty weird Christians in my lifetime who fulfilled this part of the verse quite well. They were odd all right. But that’s not what God is saying. It isn’t about being strange and weird. The meaning of the English word has shifted over 400 years. It once meant, a unique characteristic or to be owned by one.
And, in fact, that is the sense in which the Bible speaks to our identity: We are, through Christ, God’s OWN, His treasure. He delights in us.
______________________
Typically, people who have the inside track develop an elitist sense. Power and privilege leads all too often to arrogance, superiority, and a desperate attempt to hang onto the position. Did you watch the fascinating developments in Serbia this week? Slobodan Milosevic, the president who had ruled that nation for 13 years, refused to bend to the will of the Serbian people. He wanted to protect his power, his privileges, his wealth. News source report that Milosevic’s friends and family hold extensive wealth that they have been able to amass because of their position in that nation. President Milosevic pushed Yugoslavia to the brink of civil war just to hold onto power.
God invests great power and privilege in us.
Chosen People, Royal Priests, Selected and Treasured People with Access to His Courts....
what are you going to do with that? Are you going to become selfish, elitist?
Are we going to allow our church to become a ’bless me’ club that excludes others, or that raises high walls that others have to scale to gain access?
OR
are we going to do what God plans for us?
Look at the final phrase of v.9 1 Peter 2:9
. . . that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Acts 1:8 says it a little differently, but the emphasis is the same..... you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses..." We are the living demonstration of God’s love and grace. What people see in us should cause them to hunger for the Lord.
Peter wrote to us, just a couple of verses down the page, that with our privilege comes responsibility... 1 Peter 2:11-12 11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
How’s your self-image?
Are you a broken down, defeated Believer who is just hanging on to Jesus hoping for Heaven?
Take another look at God’s evaluation of your potential! Begin to believe what He says and obliterate the lies that the Enemy whispers into your soul. Let the Truth transform you from the inside out.
Thank God for the Presence of His Spirit in you this week.
Thank Him for granting you the privilege of being HIS TREASURED POSSESSION, HIS PRIEST on behalf of your family, your neighborhood, our community, and ultimately the world.
Live out the destiny that your Father has purposed for you.
To God be the Glory. Amen
copyright 2000 Jerry D. Scott
email questions or comments to Jerry
33 Brass Castle Road -- Washington, NJ 07882
Copyright © 2000 Washington Assembly of God
Last modified: February 01, 2001
