I grew up in the church. My dad was a pastor. I can remember people in those churches he pastored who attended services every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, who knew their Bible, who taught classes, who gave money, who led committees, but who were also mean as snakes.
Critical.
Harsh.
Judgmental.
Hard to get along with.
Unforgiving.
Angry.
Impatient. You’d see them coming and you’d want to go the other way. What is sad is this:
No one ever expected them to change.
And this creates a credibility problem for us. We have lost lots and lots of credibility with people outside the faith. What they see is that our lives have not really and truly changed. “What you are speaks so loudly that I can’t hear what you say.”
This is not OK. We must change. We must become more loving, more joyful, more peaceful people.
This past week, I went online and typed in “Changing your life.” I wanted to se what people were saying about our focus at CVCC during February. I found a new book that will be released in April written by a guy with my last name, Barry Duncan. Here’s his book:
What’s Right With You: Debunking Dysfunction and Changing Your Life
The ad said, “In a sea of self-help books that continually focus on everything that’s wrong with you, Barry Duncan’s newest book is a breath of fresh air, showing readers how to tap into their inner resilience and use what’s right with them to change their lives.”
Evidently the book encourages you to utilize your inherent strengths and resources. Chapter titles are:
Honor Your Heroic Self
Never Underestimate Your Own Ideas
Empower Yourself
Sounds like self-help at its best. Listen, if you would like to grow, to change, to morph into a person who is more loving and joyful and peaceful, then you have to come to grips with how change happens.
You can try to change God’s way or you can change the world’s way. You can change with the help of God or you can try to change with the help of self. You can try an inside-out kind of change or an outside-in kind of change.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
II Corinthians 3:18 (ESV)
The part of the verse we are focusing on today is “beholding the glory of the Lord.” It’s the key to change!
Reasons why people don’t change:
A hardened mind
Their minds were hardened. (II Corinthians 3:14a, ESV)
A darkened heart
A veil lies over their hearts. (II Corinthians 3:15b, ESV)
Some of us don’t get it and can’t see it. Maybe you’re hard-headed and dark-hearted. If you can’t see the beauty of Christ, then you need to know that you have an enemy who works to keep you distracted, to keep you from seeing.
The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.
II Corinthians 4:4 (ESV)
This is why we need the work of the Spirit in our minds and hearts. When the light of God shines in my heart and my mind becomes soften to receive the word of God, then these are signs of what Jesus spoke about when He said, “You must be born again” (John 3: 7).
We sometimes sing a song around here, “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see You. I want to see You; to see You high and lifted up, shining in the light of Your glory.” It’s a good song. It’s a better prayer.
Steps toward true change:
A turning from the world
A turning to the Lord
It’s a law of life that we become like who we gaze at. LeBron James.
Today’s focus is the phrase “beholding the glory of the Lord.”
How do I stay turned toward the Lord
so God’s Spirit can change me from the inside out?
1. Cleansing.
Strive for… the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Hebrews 12:14 (ESV)
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Matthew 5:8 (NIV)
How do I stay turned toward the Lord so God’s Spirit can change me from the inside out? Cleansing.
2. Ignoring.
You are going to behold - look at something. You choose whether to look at…
The worst.
The bad.
The good.
I like what John Piper says. Even when we see the good, we must see beyond it and we say to ourselves, “Not this, but the Maker of this, is the Desire of your soul.”
The Lord is telling us today to practice some planned neglect. Neglect the worst, the bad, the good for the best. The Lord is telling us today to disregard lesser things, to close our eyes to dimmer things, to fail to notice minor things, to look away from distracting things. Why? He wants us to focus on…
The best.
We can choose to look at something more valuable, more beautiful, more inspiring than what we are currently looking at.
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
Colossians 3:1-2 (NASB)
Where are you looking? What is getting most of your attention? Self? Things? House? Cars? Movies? TV? Work? Ministry?
We are all tempted to look in all the wrong places. But God says…
Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you.
Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ--that’s where the action is.
Colossians 3:2 (Msg)
When I look at all the wrong places for my source of joy and satisfaction, I will always end up starved, let-down, disappointed.
I recently saw the film Ray. It’s a well-made film about the late Ray Charles. Evidently, Ray’s roots were in the church.
In one scene Ray is alone in a hotel room. He is playing Gospel records and reading the Braille Bible. There’s a knock at the door. A man asks, “What are you doing?’ Ray answers, “I’m doing church.” But did he really see Christ?
Ray had lots of pain from his past. Ray had to deal with blindness and the death of his brother. Maybe all that perceived injustice is why he seemed to hold God at arm’s length. We do a lot of different things to deal with the pain from our past. Some of us are like Ray, trying to look for ways to numb the ache.
Ray Charles looked in lots of places to try to deal with that pain. Drugs.
Sex. Work. Success.
It left him empty. If we don’t learn to ignore the worst, the bad, and even the good, we’ll find ourselves just as empty and dissatisfied. We’ve got to learn to ignore all the temptations to look in all the wrong places for our satisfaction.
How do I stay turned toward the Lord so God’s Spirit can change me from the inside out? Cleansing. Ignoring.
3. Finding.
“Too many people buy a telescope as if it were a TV, expecting it to show pictures all by itself. It’s more like a piano, which gives back only as much value as the work you put into it.”
I will cut through all the clutter until I find Jesus!
We don’t change because we make resolutions and keep them. We don’t change because we apply what I call “self-help, pop-theology.” If I am a rule-oriented, list-keeping. dos-and-don’ts-following person, then I really won’t change… not God’s way.
God’s way to transform us is not us trying hard. It’s by beholding.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
II Corinthians 3:18
I’ve been thinking this way recently: If Jesus is presented to you in His glory in every one of my teachings, then you who truly know Him will change from one degree of glory to the next. I pray that every children’s teacher, youth leader, and community group leader here will keep this in mind. All of us are desperately dependent on seeing the glory of Jesus Christ. It’s looking at the Lord that changes us.
My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You.
Job 42:5 (NIV)
When you really see Jesus, you won’t be bored. You will see beauty. Look at the Jesus of the Bible. Keep your eyes open and fill them with the full picture of Christ. You’ll never be disappointed by looking at Him.
Lift up your eyes on high and see…
Isaiah 40:26 (ESV)
How do I stay turned toward the Lord so God’s Spirit can change me from the inside out? Cleansing. Ignoring. Finding.
4. Focusing.
I was talking with Jeff Ziolkowski about his telescope. I asked what this little knob did. He said, “That’s for fine tuning. Since the earth is spinning on its axis, then very slight adjustments constantly need to be made if you want to stay focused on something in the night sky.”
Jesus doesn’t change. But we are on this earth. Even the best of us – the people who are most committed to beholding his glory – will need to fine-tune our looking over and over again.
If… you seek the LORD your God, you will find Him if you look for Him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deuteronomy 4:29 (NIV)
“When looking through the telescope, focus and refocus with care. A good observer is always fiddling with the focus, trying to get it just a hair sharper.”
How do I stay turned toward the Lord so God’s Spirit can change me from the inside out? Cleansing. Ignoring. Finding. Focusing.
5. Lingering.
“Don’t expect to see everything right away . The first look always shows less than what you will eventually see with continued scrutiny. Wringing everything possible out of very distant views means learning new visual skills that involve active, concentrated effort. You’ll discover that seeing the details of an object in the sky builds up rather slowly. First one detail is noticed and fixed, and you think there’s nothing more to be seen. But after a few minutes another detail becomes evident, then another.”
Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always.
Psalm 105:4 (NIV)
I have set the LORD always before me… Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices…
In Your presence there is fullness of joy.
Psalm 16:8a, 9a, 11b (ESV)
How do I stay turned toward the Lord so God’s Spirit can change me from the inside out? Cleansing. Ignoring. Finding. Focusing. Lingering.
* * *
A point to ponder: We become like what we behold.
A verse to remember: Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. (Psalm 34:5, NIV)
A question to consider: This week, how will I give less attention to lesser things and more attention to the Supreme One, Jesus Christ?
* * *
My greatest sin is not this or that particular evil thing I do. It’s what I don’t do. My greatest sin is my continual separation from Jesus, my continual failure to see Him, my failure to gaze on His beauty.
I exchange
His brightness for my darkness.
His majesty for my misery.
His holiness for my filthiness.
His righteousness for my wickedness.
In Christ Jesus,
the enslaved find freedom,
the guilty find pardon,
the foolish find wisdom.
In Jesus is
strength for the weak,
wealth for the poor,
fullness for the empty.
I am under the care of Christ, the One who is
too wise to make a mistake,
too loving to be unkind,
too powerful to let me down.
Change me, Jesus, until I am perfected into Your image, Your glory, Your joy.
