Spiritual Warfare: The Battle for Freedom in Christ
How to Find Self-Worth in Christ, Part 2
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Note to reader: These sermons on Ephesians are not my typical verse-by-verse exposition. Most were preached in 1990 in a series on “Spiritual Warfare: The Battle for Freedom in Christ.” I used Ephesians as a springboard for this series but referred to many other passages as well. Some of the sermons in the series are stand-alone messages preached at various times and various places. The early sermons from 30-35 years ago are not well footnoted, as I never expected them to be published.
Introduction: Last Lord’s Day we began a two-part sermon in our series on Spiritual Warfare, entitled “How to Find Self-Worth in Christ.” We started by talking about some of the common symptoms of low self-esteem, primarily so that we would recognize the breadth of this problem. Probably all of us struggle with our self-esteem at some point or another, and some do so constantly.
Then we focused on the biblical foundation of true self-worth, namely that God created us, made us unique, loves us, gifted us, and lives in us. If that is true of every believer in Jesus Christ, and the Bible says it is, then why should terms like “worthless” and “inferior” and “hopeless” even be in our vocabularies? The problem is that we can know certain things to be true without translating them into our daily existence. And that is why we began to speak of our need to willfully cooperate with God in recognizing and accepting our self-worth.
Willfully cooperate with God in recognizing and accepting our self-worth.
Listed in your outline are seven practical and biblical ways in which we can experience growth in this area. We stopped last week, in the interest of time, after the first two, namely, “Be patient,” because it takes time to reprogram the mind, and “Change what you can but accept what you can’t change.” We move today to the third item on the list.
Learn to compensate for inabilities and limitations. (1 Cor. 15:9-10) Compensation means counter-balancing your weaknesses by capitalizing on your strengths. Listen to 1 Cor. 15:9,10: “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect (not in vain). No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” Paul’s background was not an asset to ministry. So, he worked harder to overcome the handicap.
One wise person said, “I refuse to be drowned in a sea of inferiority. I can achieve adequacy through success if I work hard at it. Therefore, I will pour all my energy into basketball, painting, sewing, graduate school, gardening, or something else useful.” May I give you a personal illustration? We moved to St. Louis in 1946. The Cardinals won the World Series that year, and though I was only two years old, I got hooked on baseball. By the time I was in fifth grade I was such a good player that my little league coach let me play right field whenever our team was ten runs ahead or behind (right field’s the little league graveyard, in case you didn’t know). I went through a whole season with only one hit, and that was really an error, but the score keeper felt sorry for me. I got discouraged with baseball, but my parents redirected my attention to math and history and language. My dad never let me think that academic pursuit was less manly than baseball. And now at my age, when baseball players are long-retired, I’m still using my skills and will continue to do so for a long time.
The name of Dr. Dobson’s excellent book, Hide or Seek, is related to this issue of compensation for limitations. Are we going to “hide” under our inferiorities or “seek” areas of strength in which to excel. Sometimes I hear people say, “But I can’t do anything well.” And to that I answer with a reverent, “Hogwash.” God says you can do something well, for He sovereignly bestowed gifts to each person in His Church. A fourth practical suggestion is …
Develop a “no-knock” policy. (James 3:9) In other words, cease your self-criticism. Accept blame when it’s legitimate and don’t be a phony or a hypocrite, but by the same token, don’t go out of your way to point out your faults to others; it’s usually just a way of getting attention anyway. You put yourself down hoping the other person will give you a compliment. Right? For example, I might say to Brad on Monday, “Boy I really blew that sermon yesterday,” hoping Brad would respond, “Oh, no, I think you did a great job.” I tried that once but when I told Brad I had blown it, he said, “You got that right!” So, I don’t do that anymore.
The fact is while most of your true friends scarcely notice your failures or your undesirable physical characteristics, the more you babble about them, the more likely they are to notice them. Since the listener is always formulating his impression of you, he will eventually see you and treat you according to the evidence you provide. So quit knocking yourself.
Now there is some controversy today on this no-knock issue. Kitty Dukakis opens her new book with these words, “I’m Kitty Dukakis, and I’m a drug addict and an alcoholic.” I know she learned in Alcoholics Anonymous that she would never get well if she wasn’t honest about her addiction, and that’s true. In fact, I see a parallel in the spiritual realm, namely that no one will ever find spiritual healing from Jesus Christ unless he first admits that he is a hopeless sinner. I guess what bothers me is that Kitty Dukakis is in recovery but she still says of herself, “I’m Kitty Dukakis, and I’m a drug addict and an alcoholic.” At the very least I would like to hear her say, “I was … or I am a recovering ….”
Ellen Goodman wrote about the Dukakis book in the St. Louis Post Dispatch Tuesday,
“What happens when those who wrestle with problems of self-esteem are required to wear such a label? Reading Dukakis’ book, I wondered whether she wasn’t also searching for identity in addiction, a name to her pain. I wondered whether her attempts to speak and work and even write about addiction weren’t part of another deeper search: for something meaningful to do with her life.”
Perhaps Mrs. Dukakis has not yet found real healing and therefore honesty dictates that she calls herself what she is. But I hate to hear Christians say of themselves, “I’m a divorcee,” “I’m an adulterer,” “I’m a failure,” “I’m washed up.” The point is not that we should be less than honest about our past; the point is that the past is past. How we ought to speak about our mistakes is this way: “I suffered a divorce,” or “I have had a life-long struggle with lust,” or “I’ve had some major failures, but I’m a child of God.” Isn’t that how the Scriptures look at us?
Turn to 1 Cor. 6, beginning in verse 9. I’ve commented on this passage more than once, but it is so crucial that I don’t apologize for going back to it again:
“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were.”
Paul would never have tolerated someone standing up in the church and saying, “I’m Aristobolus and I’m a drunkard,” or “I’m Julia and I’m a prostitute,” but he has no problem admitting that some in the church were those things. In fact, he immediately adds, “And that is what some of you were. Butyou were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God.” Again, I return to the concept I introduced three weeks ago that we cannot behave consistently in a manner that is inconsistent with how we perceive ourselves. If we see our basic identity as that of a sinner, even a sinner saved by grace, we will behave in a manner consistent with what a sinner does. On the other hand, if we perceive ourselves as a saint, albeit a saint who occasionally sins, I believe our lives will be much more consistent with saintliness.
Develop a No-Knock policy, both in respect to other people and in respect to yourself.
A fifth practical suggestion is to …
Concentrate on the present and future. (Phil. 3:13). An almost universal tendency of people with low self-esteem is to live in the past. They concentrate upon some particularly traumatic event or some ugly thing that was said to them, and they feed on it. Idle moments are spent rehearsing it in their minds and in the process, they dig a deeper and deeper hole for themselves. Paul said in Phil. 3:13: “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having attained, but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” You can’t press on if you’re living in the past.
My son Eddie was weaned on Bill Gaither’s children’s records. One of the special songs we nearly wore out was “I am a Promise.” It’s a children’s song, but a lot of adults should listen to it. I’d sing it, but a very realistic self-appraisal tells me not to. The words go like this:
“I am a promise.
I am a possibility.
I am a promise with a capital P.
I can be anything, anything God wants me to be.
You are a promise.
You are a possibility.
You are a promise with a capital P.
You are a great big bundle of Potentiality.
If you’ll listen, you’ll hear God’s voice.
And if you’re trying, He’ll help you make the right choice.
You’re a promise to be anything He wants you to be.
You know something?
It doesn’t matter what your name is.
Where you live, who your daddy is.
Or how big you are, or what you look like.
Hey, what do you look like?
Short, tall, are you fat, skinny?
Got holes in your tennis shoes, and freckles on your nose?
It doesn’t matter one bit.
You can be exactly what God wants you to be.
I am a promise.
I am a possibility.
I am a promise with a capital P.
I can be anything, anything God wants me to be.”
Brett, a fifth grader, turned in this theme when he was asked to write what he was thankful for on Thanksgiving Day:
“I’m glad I’m not a turkey! I’m thankful that I’m me and you’re you. I’m glad I’m getting smart in school. I’m glad I’m here and not there. I’m glad I’m a person and not a dog or cat.… I’m glad I go to this school. I’m glad I have nice friends to play with. I’m glad I have a brother to talk to at home. I’m just thankful I’m me!
Brett had learned to concentrate on the present and the future.
Discipline yourself to do things that will result in increasing self-worth. (2 Peter 1:5-9). Visit the sick, bake something for a neighbor, use your car to transport someone, help an older person trim his trees. A person’s own needs and problems seem less threatening when he is busy helping someone else handle theirs. In fact, a busy person is often less inclined toward low self-esteem than an idle person. Quit your self-centeredness, for that’s invariably a factor in the vicious cycle of inferiority.
There’s an important clue as to why this works in 2 Peter 1:3-9:
“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.”
Please note several important facts here. Everything we need for life and godliness is available to the believer. God allows us to participate in His divine nature, so that we can escape the corruption and deception Satan is wreaking upon the world. But God also expects us to make every effort to develop the characteristics of His nature that we inherit through salvation. That is why I have called this section, “Willfully cooperate with God in recognizing and accepting our self-worth.” It’s as though God is saying to us that we have been given His nature, and if we determine to live according to His nature, we will experience even more of His nature. Finally, I offer this suggestion:
Realize that inner qualities are more important than outer ones. (1 Sam. 16:7) In 1 Samuel 16:7 the prophet Samuel is in the process of choosing the king of Israel from among the sons of Jesse. When Samuel wrongly thought he had his man, the Lord said, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Oh, that we might take that to heart and learn to look beyond the outer layer! If only we would worry as much about what God thinks of the inner person as we do about what other people think of the outer! If only we were as faithful in our quiet time as we are in putting on our makeup, combing our hair, and choosing our clothes! Someone has well said, “While in the race to save our face, why not conquer inner space?”
Now there’s one more practical step I’d like to mention, and that is, “Don’t forget to be thankful that you’re not as bad off as some.” I didn’t put it in the outline because I don’t have a verse for it and because most of us don’t like to hear it. It reminds us too much of when our mothers would tell us to eat everything on our plates because of all the starving children in Asia. And we felt like offering to pay the postage if she’d care to mail it to them. Nevertheless, it appears to me that there is much to think about on this point.
At no point do I want to convey the notion that achieving a high view of our value and worth as individuals is just a self-help effort. I do not believe it’s possible to build self-worth all by yourself, any more than it’s possible to save yourself. In fact, there may be a valuable parallel there. Salvation is of God. It is by grace, not of works, but we are not left out of the process. Salvation is by grace through faith. Self-worth is also of God. It is also by grace, not of works, but again we are not left out of the process. Self-worth is by grace through faith. We must accept what God says about us as true and then act upon it.
The problem with so much of the preaching on self-esteem today (and I’m thinking primarily of Robert Schuler, because he has made it such an emphasis in his ministry) is that sin is minimized or neglected entirely. I believe sin must be acknowledged and repented of before anyone can build on the foundation of true self-worth that we examined last Sunday. But even when one has acknowledged his sin and received God’s forgiveness, the power to appropriate the truth about our personal identity in Christ is not automatic.
To find out what that power is, and where it comes from, I want you to turn in your Bibles with me to Eph. 3:7-21? As we read this passage, please notice the incredible balance found here between true humility and godly self-confidence. Further, notice to whom Paul gives the credit, but notice also the high position he acknowledges for the individual believer in God’s plan. And most importantly, look for the word “power,” which appears four times in this passage. What is this power and where does it come from?
I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
The words that really stand out to me in this passage are the words “freedom,” “confidence,” and “power.” Isn’t that what we need—freedom from our prison houses of inferiority, failure, compulsiveness, addiction, and guilt; confidence to approach God and to become all that He wants us to be; and the power to experience victory in the spiritual battle?
Joyfully draw upon the Holy Spirit as the source of power. (Eph. 3:7-21)
I want to arrange my thoughts on this passage around the four uses of the word “power.”
Power for serving (7) “I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.” We talked last Sunday about the fact that every believer is gifted, not just the apostles. But even a spiritual gift needs power to be effective. I believe I have been given the gift of teaching, but there are times when there is power in my teaching and there are times when there isn’t. And the difference is not always determined by how much time I spend in preparation. There have been times when the press of duties left me with inadequate preparation, and yet the impact was greater than when I was so prepared that I thought I would really “knock ’em dead.” I think the reason is that it is easy to rely on one’s own strength and to exercise a gift in one’s own power, maybe especially when well prepared. On the other hand, when we feel inadequate, we are more willing to lean on the Holy Spirit.
Power for living (16). Verse 16 reads, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” The source of power here is clearly the Holy Spirit, the place where it is manifest is our inner being, and the reason why we need the power is so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.
When we think about power, too often we think of political power, earning power, muscle power, or economic power. But our greatest need is for power in our inner being. We need power for living, coping, dealing with temptation, witnessing, loving, etc.
Power for understanding (17-19) is the third kind of power mentioned in Eph. 3. Look at it in verse 17bff:
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Power to grasp the love of Christ. Last Sunday we sang the song, “Oh the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.” Listen to the words:
“Oh the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus,
Vast, unmeasured, boundless free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, Is the current of Thy love,
Leading onward, leading homeward, to Thy glorious rest above!”
Friends, according to Paul this love of Jesus surpasses knowledge. You can’t learn it in Seminary or at BSF. It doesn’t automatically come to you as you get old. It is only understood by the power of the Holy Spirit. But once we understand it, we can be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. I don’t know all that means, but I know it’s incredible.
Power for becoming (20). Verse 20: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” This 20th verse is surely one of the most remarkable in all the Bible. It tells us that God is
Able to do what we ask.
Able to do all we ask.
Able to do all we ask or even imagine.
Able to do more than all we ask or imagine.
Able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
How? By his power that is at work within us, namely the power of the Holy Spirit. We tend to view this verse as a promise for prayer, and it is probably that all right. But I think it is more than that. The focus of the preceding verses is not on our prayer lives so much as it is on our becoming all God wants us to be. If we are going to become practically what we are positionally, namely children of God and joint-heirs with Christ, it will only be by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Having seen that the power to believe and behave in a manner consistent with our identity in Christ comes from the Holy Spirit, our next concern must be how to live by the Spirit (walking in Him, led by Him, filled with Him). Join us next week as we continue our pursuit of victory in spiritual warfare.
Conclusion: The story is told of a back country woodsman who came into town for supplies. He needed several items, including a new axe. On the counter of the general store was advertised a new chain saw, guaranteed to cut down twice as many trees in one day as any other. He eagerly purchased the saw. A week later he was back in the store. In rather descriptive terms he demanded his money back. When asked why, he said that before he was chopping down ten trees a day with his axe, but now with much more effort he was lucky if he could fell one or two.
The store owner looked the machine over very carefully. He checked the chain and the spark plug and the oil reservoir. He could find nothing wrong with it, so he flipped the switch and pulled the cord to start it. As it roared to life, the woodsman jumped back in surprise and exclaimed, “What’s that noise?”
He reminds us of a lot of ourselves. We have a great resource of power but we’re knocking ourselves out doing it all on our own. May God help us to joyfully draw upon the Holy Spirit as thesource of power.
DATE: September 30, 1990
Tags:
Self-worth
Alcoholics Anonymous
Spiritual power
Above and beyond