You Are Empowered

Let's dig into this message, "Your True Self." Tell you a true story. Back in the 1950s, there was a very famous plastic surgeon here in the United States, and his name was Dr. Maxwell Maltz, which is a very cool name, I might add. But Dr. Maltz wrote a best-selling book in the mid-50s talking about how cosmetic surgery can change your life. Excuse me. He said that wasn't a comment on his theory, but I just had something in my throat. But he said, "Yeah, plastic surgery can change your life because it can make you feel better about yourself, and that's going to change your self-esteem. It's also going to change all your opportunities in life. People will like you more, and so everybody come and get cosmetic surgery." And it was a best-seller.

About eight years later, he wrote a second book and took it all back because he talked about a phenomenon that he had seen in his practice time and time and time again. Patient after patient, after appearance-altering cosmetic surgery, would come up to him and say, "Well, I want my money back because I don't look any different." Even though the before and after pictures were completely like almost unrecognizable in some cases, they would look in the mirror and they'd say, "But look, my nose is exactly the same." And he would show them pictures. "No, no, it's not." And they would look at the pictures and look at the reflection and say, "No, you didn't change anything. And my cheekbones, they're exactly the same as before. And my chin is exactly the same. You have altered a thing." No matter what their friends and family said, no matter what their doctor said, no matter what the photograph said, no matter what the mirror said.

And slowly it dawned on him. The issue was not what was actually in the mirror. The issue was what they saw when they looked in the mirror. And he's actually the one who coined the word self-image. Say self-image out loud with me. Self-image. We are so used to that phrase these days that we think it just kind of like dropped from the sky. But he coined this to describe this phenomenon, where cosmetic surgery patients would be so convinced that they hadn't been altered at all, that they would begin a cycle of almost unending surgeries. To achieve a goal they felt they never achieved. And as they became more and more unrecognizable, they stayed convinced they looked exactly the same as before. So he said clearly the problem was not the actual image; the problem, as he put it, was their self-image.

Well listen, I'm not a doctor, obviously. I'm a pastor, but I can tell you that his patients are not alone, far from it. In fact, let me ask you, what do you see when you look in the mirror? And I'm not just talking about your physical appearance. When you look in a mirror, do you see somebody who's confident and who is generally loved and liked? Do you see somebody who has a lot of capability? Do you see somebody who absolutely positively has a destiny? Somebody who clearly has the power to overcome whatever obstacles or temptations they may face? Or do you see somebody who is incompetent, who lacks the necessary capabilities, who is looked down on by others? Do you see somebody who is insecure, unqualified, and unliked?

Again, in my experience as a pastor and in my personal experience as a human being, those kinds of feelings are very, very common. What do you see when you look in the mirror? Now to complicate matters, as Chip Ingram pointed out, the author of the book, Discovering Your True Self, when he spoke here two weeks ago, when it comes to self-esteem, we are all looking into warped mirrors. That makes it much, much harder to figure out who you really are and see yourself as you really are. You remember the fun house mirrors in the fun house right down at the boardwalk? Well, we're all kind of looking into warped mirrors.

Your image of yourself is what you see reflected back at you from the authorities in your life. For example, your warped mirror might be your family of origin. It could be that a parent or a brother or a sister or an authority figure of some kind in your life just made you feel like you were never quite good enough. And when that image gets reflected back to you, even if it's warped, you start to think that's what you look like. Like, you know, your head's this small and your legs are this tall because that's what you see in that mirror.

Or maybe your warped mirror is the religion that you grew up with. I mean, in some ways that's even worse because now it's not a parent; it's a God that doesn't really like you, that doesn't really accept you unless you behave perfectly. And when you blow it in any way, man, you're on the outs with that God. And so you're constantly walking around under a cloud of guilt and shame and feeling either like, "I got to work harder to try to please that unpleasable heavenly Father," or you just give up on the whole thing and walk away like, "I don't need that." And that is a big-time warped mirror that we can look into and see reflected back at us a lot of distortions.

Or for many of us, it's just our modern-day culture. You know, here's something interesting. These days, we live in a culture that at least superficially emphasizes acceptance and tolerance and diversity, and all those are wonderful things. However, suicidal ideation has never been higher. Mental health issues have never been more prominent. Depression has never been worse. Self-esteem has never been lower. How can that be when we live in a culture that's all about acceptance? How can that be? Could it be because the cultural goalposts keep moving and you never kind of know how to win? You're never quite sure if something you're thinking or saying or doing is the right thing or the wrong thing or the cool thing or the uncool thing.

And so you're constantly walking around like somebody growing up in an abusive family where you feel like you're walking on eggshells or you're avoiding the landmines because you never know when some crowd is gonna just kind of blow up unexpectedly and you're gonna be on the outs or canceled or judged or however you want to put it. Or maybe it's just your own mind for reasons that remain obscure to you even though you didn't get it from your religion or you don't believe it when culture tells you lies and your family of origin was great. Still, you walk around with a sense of insecurity, never thinking like you're good enough or people really love you or if they really knew me, they wouldn't like me.

If you can relate to any of that, if you get what we're gonna talk about this morning, you are going to leave fundamentally changed, more confident, more joyful, because we're going to look into the mirror of God's word, which is the only undistorted mirror that you can look into and see your true self. I am so excited about what we're gonna be talking about this morning because it's sort of the end of the first phase, the first chapter of the book of Ephesians.

Let's do a quick recap. The book of Ephesians, which we're going through verse by verse here, is possibly my favorite book of the Bible, and I fully recognize I say that every single time we study any book of the Bible, but I love this one. It's one of my favorites for sure. Why? Because it's so uplifting about who you are in Christ. Just kind of a quick recap, it was written by the Apostle Paul, one of the people who was involved in the formation of early Christianity, one of the first disciples of Jesus Christ. But here, crucially, it was written from a Roman prison.

And by the way, at the time he's writing this, he's been in prison for about five years total between Caesarea and Rome and on a prison ship. Five years of being in chains, and he writes from prison to Christians in the city of Ephesus. That's why it's called Ephesians, and it's written somewhere in the 60s AD. That's important because Nero is now Caesar, and Christians are starting to be oppressed. Now we know from history that in a couple of years it's gonna end, or at least the next phase is gonna be Christians burned at the stake and fed to the lions and blamed. They're the scapegoats for all the evils of society for a few years. This is heading that direction.

So they're already being marginalized, they're already being blamed and ostracized, they're losing jobs, they no longer have the favor they used to have. And so his theme to them is their identity in Christ. He does not tell them, "You need to fight back against people that are pushing you around. You know what? Those people are evil." He goes a totally different direction. He builds them up about their identity in Christ, which no emperor or no other authority can ever, ever, ever take away.

So what has he done so far? Well, let's just kind of do a review of where we've been the last three weeks. We just looked at the first 14 verses of Ephesians chapter one, and Paul just launches right out of the gate with, "I just want to tell you what is true of you. If you are in Christ, then all these things are true of you right now. You don't have to earn them, you don't have to wait for them, you don't have to beg for them. This is who you are. Here's the mirror. This is who you, this is how God sees you." And let's see these say these things out loud together. All right, here we go. "I am blessed. I am chosen. I am secure. I am redeemed and forgiven. I am a child of God. I am holy and blameless in his sight. I am part of his eternal plan." Amen?

Paul's not writing this on vacation in Hawaii, remember. Paul's writing this in a Roman prison in chains. And yet his eyes, his mind, his heart, are able to see this reality beyond his circumstances. So man, he's just been layering all this positive stuff on these Ephesians and then suddenly puts on the brakes and stops. And now you might be thinking, "Oh yeah, I know what happens next." He puts on the brakes and stops and now he's getting to all the commands and all the do-nothing. No, he does something funny. He stops. He's going to get back to all the things that are true of you in Christ. But he stops to pray. To pray what?

He's like, "Oh, I'm telling you guys all these things, but I'm worried that you're not getting it. I'm worried it's all going over your head. I'm worried it's all just word salad." And so here's what he says. He says, and starting in verse 15, this is the section we're going to look at this morning from 15 through 23, the end of the chapter. He says, "For this reason," for what reason? Because of all these things that we've just looked at, all these things that are true of you in Christ. "For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers." Wait, remembering what? What is he praying for them?

Watch this. He says, "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ," don't miss this now, "the glorious Father may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation that you may know Him better." Stop there. That's kind of esoteric, that you may know God better. What does he mean by that? Well, he gets very specific in the next verse, and this is the key to understanding the book of Ephesians. This is the key to living the Christian life. This is the key to living life with more joy and confidence.

I'll never forget when this happened to me. I was a dry, bone dry, spiritually pastor up at Lake Tahoe, the church I was at before I came here. And all my joy was gone, and it was all about just doing the duties that I had as a pastor. And I was getting mean and judgmental, and I felt guilty because I didn't have any joy. And I was a pastor, and I knew all the stuff. Jesus Christ died for my sins, my sins are forgiven. I kind of knew all the theology, but it hadn't really gone from here to here. You know what I mean? From here to here.

And then I was studying a book of the Bible, Galatians, and all of a sudden it was like the scales dropped from my eyes, and I saw the grace of God in all the pages, and I saw that all the things that God lavishes on us for free in Christ. And I turned around and I was crying and laughing, and I told my wife, "It's like a switch was flipped, and I saw the whole world has gone from black and white to color. It's like I got born again, again." And I've never been the same since. Why? Someone must have been praying this for me. Paul says, "I pray." Pray what? "That the eyes of your heart might be enlightened." So he's praying for enlightenment. For what?

In order that you may know, and this doesn't just mean knowledge. When he uses this word, it means experience. It's like you can know, you know, Driscoll's Strawberries. Driscoll's is the number one company here in Santa Cruz County with earnings of over $1 billion annually. You can know that or you can taste a strawberry and know, right? This is that kind of know in order that you may know what. Well, he talks specifically about three things, and here's the outline for my sermon today. That you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe. He's praying that from here to here, you get the hope you have, the riches you have, and the power that you have. Say hope, riches, and power out loud with me. Hope, riches, power. Say it again. Hope, riches, power.

Number one, he says, "I pray that you know I have hope." And when Paul says hope, he doesn't mean, "Well, I hope it works. I hope the warriors do better in the next game than they did last night." That was weird. But he says, "When he says, 'I pray that you have hope,'" he means certainty, "that we as Christians know for sure that one day God is going to, as the last book of the Bible says, one day all disease, all sorrow, all tears, all grief, all pain, will all cease. And Jesus will say, as Mark said last weekend, 'Behold, I make all things new.'" Amen?

Ever notice how Jesus does not say, "Behold, I make all new things." That wouldn't really be hope. We die and he makes all new things. No, he makes all things new. The hope is, "I will see." I know because I have this hope that I'm going to see my mom again, "Unaffected by the ravages of Alzheimer's." And I'll see my dad restored from cancer and my stepdad restored from heart disease. And you'll see that person you are thinking of right now. When I have that hope, it means that the headlines don't have to devastate me. It means that losses don't have to permanently spiral me into despair. And you know, so he's saying this to the Ephesians because he's like, "I know things look bad, but you guys, you got hope." Amen? Say, "I have hope." "I have hope."

And he says, "Secondly, I pray that you realize I am rich." Say that out loud with me. "I am rich." He's like, "You guys, I know there's a lot of blessings been taken away from you, but open your eyes to all the blessings you have." So I love Disney. My family, they all love Disney, right? We're all Disney fanatics. I was just reading a Walt Disney biography, and there were all kinds of fascinating facts in there. But here's one of them. So Walt Disney Pictures was started by Walt Disney. He was the visionary. His brother Roy was the business guy, and a man named Ubb Iwerks was a master animator. And the way they arranged the company back then, they were the only three employees. So Walt got a third of the stock. Roy got a third of the stock, and Ubb got a third of Disney stock. One third of Disney stock.

So around 1930, Ubb Iwerks gets lured away by another animation company over in New York, right before Disney Pictures really hits it big. And Ubb, I know you're starting to go, "Oh no, yes." Ubb sells his one third stock in Disney. You want to know for how much? $2,920. Now to be fair, that was a lot of money in 1930. He actually bought a house with this. So, you know, it wasn't like pennies, but in his lifetime, had he kept this one third of Disney stock, you want to know how much it would have been worth? $750 million. And today, it would be worth over $1 billion. I put that in for a placeholder because I thought, "I'm going to look up the exact valuation of a third of Disney stock this morning." So I looked it up before church. Today, it would be worth over $50 billion. The spectacular sum! What is the moral of that story?

Don't undervalue your assets! Right? You know, we all have been blessed in so many ways. And I'm not just talking about being blessed that most of us get to live here in Santa Cruz County. We have the redwoods and the palm trees and the beaches and the hills and mountains. And so spectacular, especially this spring. Flowers everywhere. If it would ever stop raining, we'd have a chance to enjoy that. And I'm talking about your identity in Christ. All these things that Paul's been talking about so far. You never notice how everyone's... Christians, if we really believed all the stuff the Bible tells us, we would be the most joyful people, like at all times. And the most forgiving people. And the nicest people. We're not. All the time. Why? I'm convinced it's because for most of us Christians, what we're told over and over again is because when we accept Jesus Christ, we're forgiven of our sins. Full stop. And that's true, but that's like one tenth of one... one hundredth of the gospel.

All the rest of this is also part of the gospel package. So is it any wonder that Christians walk around with one tenth of one one hundredth of the joy they ought to have when they're only focused on one tenth of one one hundredth of the gospel? You know? I don't even know if that statistic makes sense mathematically. Math, not my strong suit. But you know what I'm trying to get at. We understand a fraction of gospel truth. And so we have a fraction of the joy. And this is why Paul's saying, "I pray that your eyes would be enlightened so that you walk around astonished at all times of the riches that God just lavishes on you freely. That you have a guarantee that everything that ever happens to you, God is going to use for his glory and he's going to work out all things for good. That doesn't mean all things are good. That doesn't mean every little thing, you know, has a positive outcome, but in the long run, he will bring good out of everything. That's an absolute guarantee if your eyes are open to it. And that's just one of the list. Realize the riches you've got. Say, "I am rich again." I am rich. Say, "I have hope." I have hope.

And then the third thing Paul talks about, and this is the one that he really doubles down on. And this is the one that you are going to resist. Because most people in my experience, they hear this one and they go, "No, no, no, no, that's not true. That's not true." The third one is this, "I have power." Say that out loud with me. "I have power." And Paul says, "Oh, I pray that your eyes are open to his incomparably great power for us who what, who earn it, who go on a question, prove that we deserve it." No, to us who just believe. He says, "You know that same power, the power that's in you is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead." Now, Paul does something interesting here. It's kind of a writing technique. Look at how he writes about this. He adds adverbs and adjectives so that he intensifies his subject.

Let me show you what I mean. He's already talked to us about God's power. That's already infinite. But he's like, "Man, I really want you to get it. It's God's power, but let me just intensify it. God's great power." And it's not just God's great power. It's God's incomparably great power. And it's not just his incomparably great power. It's his mighty incomparably great power. And it's not just his mighty incomparably great power. It's his mighty incomparably great power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. You think he's trying to make a point? He's saying, "That is the power you have. You have all the power you need to overcome any temptation. You have all the power you need to face any darkness. You have all the power you need to overcome any obstacle you face in life." You know who really understands this? I was talking to somebody between services about this. Alcoholics. Addicts. People in 12-step recovery. They understand that in their own strength, they are powerless to overcome their self-destructive tendencies. They know because they tried and tried and tried. But they know they have the power of God. And that higher power is enough.

That's what they rely on. That's what they focus on. This man I was talking to between services, he said, "Today I'm sober 29 years." Yeah, amazing. And he started to cry in joy as he said, "Sometimes I wish everybody had the problem that I had, the challenge I had because I understand the gospel with such heart now because I understand I was lost. But now God has not only saved me but given me the power to live a sober life and to be filled with the Spirit. I pray that the eyes of everyone's heart would be enlightened that you may know this." Now watch this. Paul is starting this riff. He says, "And he raised Christ from the dead, and then he seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms far above." So Christ is seated in the heavenlies. And here again, Paul does this word trick where he keeps layering stuff.

"Far above all rule like Caesar, Nero, oh, and authority, oh, and power, oh, and dominion, and every name that has ever been invoked, oh, and not only in the present age but also in the age to come. Past, present, future, Jesus Christ is above every Caesar, every Pharaoh, every God, every goddess, every spirit that ever was, that ever is, that is ever to come." Amen? So why is Paul making this point? So the city of Ephesus to this day is astonishingly beautiful even in ruins. I mean, look at the size of these people. This is the facade of their library. Their stadium, which still survives, seated 30,000 people, just an astonishingly beautiful city. There's a lot of interesting things about Ephesus though. Ephesus was dominated by a culture of belief in the occult. They believed in the power of evil spirits that could be just around every corner, around every stone.

And to protect yourself from the evil spirits, you had to pay sorcerers, magicians, to drive them out for you. So it was a big business. Archaeologists have found things like this. This was a magician's kit that was found near Exodus. It had things like this disk, which was a quote unquote magical disk, and it's full of in code the names of different gods, goddesses, and spirits. Everything else in the kit too was inscribed with the names of different spirits like this stone. It has written down magical spells and the supposed names of all of these spirits. So why did they have toolkits like this? Well, it's because they believe that if they could say the secret name of these spirits, if they could invoke their name, they wouldn't have part of their power. You know? So you'd invoke the name of the god of the ocean to have safety on a voyage over the ocean, that sort of thing, or invoke the name of the demon of cancer to drive out the cancer. That's what they believed.

And even in the book of Acts, in Acts 19, it says that Paul runs into a guy named Sceva, who is a sorcerer there. He calls himself a high priest of the occult. He has seven sons, apprentices, and they are practicing this kind of sorcery. Ephesians was full of this. Because only the expert sorcerers knew how to use all this stuff. Invoke all of these names, right? Supposedly. So do you see what Paul is saying when he says, "You know, Jesus is above every name that can ever be invoked?" Well, Paul is saying, "You don't need any of that stuff anymore because Jesus, who loves you and came into your life by faith, and you don't have to pay anybody for it. Jesus has power that goes far above any of those names written on some stone." This is the power you have in your life right now. Amen? Do you realize that? Has that gone from here to here?

That is what Paul is praying for. You see, listen, I see my identity, right? Which is Paul is talking about. Why is he talking about this so much? Because identity, watch this, is tied to capability. If you believe all these things are true of your identity, it's going to increase your sense of capability, and you're going to go out in the world and reflect the glory and the love of Jesus Christ. And that's how Paul wraps it up. Look at this big conclusion. He says, "And God placed all things under his feet, and appointed him Jesus to be head over everything." Not head over the church, which he is, but that's not the point Paul is making here. He appointed him to be head over everything for the church. The one who is above all loves us above all. You let that sink in.

And then what happens is you become, as Paul puts it poetically, his body. The fullness of him who fills everything in every way. We become the fullness of Jesus to the world, the manifestation of Jesus Christ's character to the world. So in Ephesus, there was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the temple of Diana. It was huge today. Only one sad pillar remains in a marsh. But in its day, it was more than twice as big as the Parthenon in Athens. This wonder of the world is where the worshipers of Artemis got to go in Ephesus, and the Christians who lived right next door had nothing. But what Paul is saying in this verse to these poor persecuted believers is, you are more beautiful than the most beautiful building.

When you manifest these riches that you know you have in Christ to those around you, when you know how infinitely graced you are, then what happens? You respond with grace. You respond with giving. You respond with forgiving because you're operating out of an abundance of grace. And the beauty of Jesus is what draws people to Christ. You probably know we are coordinating with the sister church in Syria. These are Arab Christian brothers and sisters. And we're responding to all the needs in the earthquake there in Syria. When the people there in Syria who historically have been reluctant to hear about the gospel of Jesus see the beauty of the church of Jesus Christ, just loving them with no strings attached. That's the fullness and the beauty of Jesus made manifest to the world.

The fullness of him who fills everything in every way. You know, what does the world need today? When you look at all the stuff that's going on, a lot of Christians will say, "What the world needs is to learn how to behave. What the world needs is to stop being bad." Now, you know what the world needs? The world needs Christians to have our eyes opened to see all this. Because then what happens? We operate out of a place of relaxed joy and the beauty of Jesus that people see in us. Not the anger of self-righteous men and women, but the beauty of Jesus draws people to him. And that's how the world gets changed. But you have to see, not in some fun house mirror, you have to see, this is how God sees you, so that is who you are. That's who you are. And you have to keep reminding yourself of this.

Every week in the series, we've been putting suggestions in your notes. You can put on a, for example, a three by five card. Like this week, we have the Misbelief. There's no hope for the world. There's no hope for me. I can't change. I got to try to earn the blessings of a hard to please God. A lot of Christians feel about like that. That's a lie. It's a fun house mirror. Instead, write the truth. Like on the back of the card, you can write, "I have certain hope God will work all things together for good. And for all creation, I have all the riches of Jesus Christ today. The resurrection power of God is at work in me right now." Amen. One final line. Paul says, "This is all true simply for us who believe." It's our faith in Christ, just our reception of his free gift that activates all of this in us so that we can see our true selves.

Lord, thank you so much for all these things that are true of us in Jesus Christ. And my prayer is that the eyes of everyone here would be opened in these moments. And that if anybody has not yet received Christ, they would say, "I don't understand, but it's beautiful. And so Jesus, I receive you today as my Lord, as my Savior, as my benefactor." In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.