Are you ready for God's word today?
Whoo!
Me too.
Grab your Bibles, everybody, and turn with me to Numbers chapter 13.
And we've been in a series of messages we called Unstuck.
And we're talking about sometimes in life we feel stuck.
I feel like it's almost like our whole country got stuck after COVID hit.
And it's almost like we're all like, you know, it's almost like we're preparing for the next thing.
It's like there's this sense of foreboding that's over all people where we have this expectation that,
okay, something bad's about to happen or, you know, just try to survive.
And it's like we're living in reaction to the world instead of living in response to the gospel.
And the gospel is always about advancing.
God is always moving forward.
He has a plan.
He is working His plan.
And even when it doesn't look like it to us, God is still working His plan.
And we are working with Him.
We are co-laborers.
And so we're supposed to move forward.
Christ leads us in victory.
And I just want to remind us as we step into this year, hey, let's move forward.
Let's move forward in our calling, in our purpose, in our relationships, even in our health, in our spiritual growth.
Let's move forward in all of these areas because really that is the provision of the gospel,
that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us and gives life to our mortal bodies.
Why?
So we can be who God says we are and do what God says we can do, and we can live the life God created us for.
Amen?
Come on.
You were made for more.
Right?
You were made for more.
Maybe that's your slogan this year.
Even if your life is great today, listen, you were still made for more.
Amen?
Amen.
And so we're in Numbers chapter 13.
Let me give you the history so everybody's on the same page.
Probably everyone in here remembers Numbers chapter 13.
But Moses, remember Moses, he leads God's people out of Egypt.
They cross the Red Sea.
They enter into the wilderness, if you will, and they finally come to the Promised Land.
They made it through the wilderness just like Madonna.
Everybody just made it through the wilderness.
I made it through.
Anyways, they make it through the wilderness, and they come to the Promised Land, and then God is like,
Joshua, lead the people.
Take the Promised Land.
This is over 400 years ago.
I promised this land to Abraham.
You guys go.
And then they have a vote and come up with a plan to send 12 spies, one for each tribe.
So Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, had 12 sons.
That is the 12 tribes of Israel.
And so they say, let's send a representative from each tribe into the Promised Land,
into Canaan, to explore it just to see what it's like, right?
Now, time out.
Here's the first problem.
The first problem is when we assume that we need information that God already knows,
but we need our information in order to decide if we're going to agree with God or not.
This is a problem.
When we come up with a strategy that doesn't come from the Lord,
sometimes we come up with information we didn't even need to know.
Because God's promise of taking the land was not contingent upon any intel
that these spies were going to gain.
Come on, somebody.
The spies were not going into the land to get information for God.
He already had it all.
They went into the land and got information for them that discouraged them.
What was it?
The psalmist said, whose report will you believe?
And then rhetorically he says, I will believe the report of the Lord.
Come on, somebody.
When my report contradicts my promise, I'll stay with my promise.
So they go in and they get the report.
There are giants in the land, and they come back, and there's a bit of a hubbub.
And then we know the story.
They end up staying or not going into the promised land,
which leaves them stuck in the wilderness for, we know, 40 years.
And so I want to read.
I want to show you something that maybe you've never seen, maybe you have,
as to why they stayed stuck.
So let's stand as we read God's word together.
We're going to start at verse 25, numbers 13.
It says, And they returned from spying out the land after 40 days.
Now, the Bible uses 40 days.
It could have been exactly 40 days, but sometimes the Bible used the word 40
or used the number 40 days, and it's more than 40 days.
That's just kind of a biblical rounding thing.
They had to cover 350 linear miles north and south, and so it could be done in 40 days,
but it may have taken more than 40 days.
But the Bible can sometimes use round numbers, but that doesn't make it inaccurate.
You understand what I'm saying?
Verse 26, we do the same thing, right?
So, you know, it's like, how many people are there?
I don't know, about 100.
You know, OK, well, that doesn't mean we were lying.
It just means we were giving an accurate report.
Now, they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron
and all the congregation of the children of Israel and in the wilderness of Peran and Kadesh,
and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation
and showed them the fruit of the land, and they told him and said,
We went to the land where you sent us, and truly it flows with milk and honey.
And I just have to believe some peanut butter.
If you got milk and honey, it seems logical what follows is peanut butter, right?
And this is the fruit.
And by the way, they had fruit, which is jelly, so there had to be peanut butter.
Anyways, verse 28, Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong.
The cities are fortified and very large.
Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there.
That's giants, essentially.
Anak's descendants were giants.
In fact, they have archaeological evidence that there were giants about this time.
They have two skeletons that were discovered.
This is about 1440 B.C.
So in the 12th century, these skeletons both date to the 12th century.
It's two female skeletons, and they're both seven foot tall.
That's a big girl.
That's like if Shaq was a woman, y'all.
That's a scary thing.
That's like, don't make her mad.
If she asked if these pants make her butt look big, you say, No.
No.
Praise the Lord.
So the Amalekites dwell in the land of the south, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Cellulites.
All of those people are there.
The Canaanites, they're all there along the banks of the Jordan.
Verse 30, Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.
Oh, that's a good word.
Somebody, you may need to underline that.
You are well able to overcome it.
Because who is on your side?
And if God is on your side, the other side doesn't even matter.
Are you with me?
You're well able to overcome it.
The men who had gone up with him said, We're not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.
And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying,
The land through which we have gone espies is a land that devours its inhabitants.
And all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature.
And there we saw the giants, the descendants of Anak that came from the giants.
And we, now this is the part I want you to see.
And we were like grasshoppers in our own sight.
And so we were in their sight.
Today I want to talk to you about a right view of you.
A right view of you.
Let's pray together.
Father, thank you so much for your word.
God, I thank you for this church, Lord.
They are truly changing the world.
God, today they have gathered to hear you.
And Lord, I know that you will speak.
I ask now, God, as we open your word and we open our hearts,
Holy Spirit, speak words of life that bring encouragement and strength and deliverance and salvation and healing and hope.
All the things that you do when we gather with you.
Lord, we are listening now.
Give us ears to hear what the Holy Spirit would say to us in Jesus' name.
And everybody said, Amen.
You can be seated today.
A right view of you.
So here they come to this land that was promised over 400 years ago to Abraham.
According to God, it's their possession.
According to God, it belongs to them.
I'm sure for generations they had talked about this day.
This group of people obviously were not around.
All they had ever known was slavery.
But I'm sure they had heard from ancestors and ancestors, you know, one day God's going to deliver us.
In fact, we know they had cried out to the Lord for deliverance because he tells that to Moses.
And I'm sure they had heard the stories because the way history was taught in those days was not through writing things down.
It was taught orally.
They shared.
So I'm sure they had heard the stories of Moses.
They had heard the story, not of Moses, of Abraham, everybody.
And they had heard the story of this promised land.
And so here they are now.
God, think about what God's done.
I mean, God delivered them from Egypt, which seemed like it would never happen, I'm sure, to them.
And God brought them to the Red Sea, which seemed an impossible situation where they believed they were all going to die.
And then God parted the Red Sea and God destroyed the Egyptian army.
God brings them through the wilderness.
He feeds them.
He gives them water.
I mean, he takes care of them.
And now here they are on the verge of this land that God has promised to them.
This is the moment, right?
Like this is this is the culmination.
And then what's interesting is they don't actually go into the land.
They don't go into the land.
They don't take possession of what was promised to them.
They don't step into the destiny they were destined for.
They don't really step into the calling, the purpose, the provision that God has for their life.
And it wasn't that God wasn't good.
And it wasn't because God hadn't promised.
And it wasn't because God wasn't powerful.
I think the Red Sea kind of proved that one.
The reason that they didn't step into God's plan for their life, God's purpose for their life,
God's provision for their life, God's promise for their life comes down to this verse.
It was how they saw themselves.
It wasn't even how they saw God.
It was how they saw.
This is what they said.
They said, we are like grasshoppers.
I don't know why that strikes me, but every time I hear that, I hear it in an Asian accent.
Ah, grasshopper.
And I'm not being racist.
I have an Asian daughter.
OK, so don't send me that email.
OK, don't send me that email.
I don't need that business.
OK?
That's what I'm saying.
It's grasshopper.
Thank you.
Thank you, June.
But I just see them standing there and they're like, we are like grasshopper.
This sermon's gone off the rails.
Anyways, but the reason they didn't go into the promised land, listen to me.
The reason they didn't go was not because God wasn't powerful or good.
It was because of the way they saw themselves.
How do you see your self?
Psychologists tell us that our lives are moving in the direction of our most dominant thoughts.
The Word of God tells us that it will be very hard to rise above how you think about yourself.
As a man thinks in his heart.
This is why he also says, Solomon says, guard your heart.
Why?
Because out of it flows all the issues of life, meaning however I feel about me and however I see me is more than likely going to shape how I live.
Beliefs become thoughts and thoughts become a way of living.
So ultimately if I'm going to step into my promise, if I'm not going to end up stuck in the wilderness,
because there are a lot of people stuck today, maybe not in this room, but in our culture,
a lot of people stuck today simply because of how they see themselves.
They are stuck relationally.
They are stuck emotionally.
Some of them are stuck vocationally because of how they, because when they look in the mirror, come on somebody,
they see a grasshopper in a giant world.
I almost called this message grasshopper thinking in the giant world.
But the reality is how I see me.
How I see me.
So we've got to talk about this idea of identity and this idea of really our self-image, if you will, because what we see,
again, Paul tells us everything in the Old Testament is for an example to us and what we see is a group of people,
literally millions of people that did not inherit their promise and it wasn't because it wasn't promised that God wasn't gracious,
God wasn't good, and God wasn't powerful.
And many times, let's just face it, when we're not seeing the goodness of God and the provision of God in our life,
we're usually blaming God and laying the blame at His strength, His power, His nature.
Maybe God doesn't love me.
Maybe God can't do it.
Maybe God won't do it.
But the reason they didn't experience the provision and power and promise of God wasn't anything to do with God.
It had to simply do with how they saw themselves.
And because they had a wrong view of them, they didn't step into what God prepared for them.
So I just have two things I want you to write down.
Hopefully you're taking notes.
If you're not taking notes, write these down.
If you don't have paper, use your neighbor's arm.
If you're both single, it might be a great time to write a phone number.
But the point is, write this down.
Number one, everybody, write this down.
You all need to act right today.
I'm up here trying to preach.
You are out of control.
Write this down.
I am not made in my image.
I am made in God's image.
I put the points, both points that I have today are in, I use first-person pronouns,
because I don't want you to write down, you are.
I want you to make it personal.
I am.
I am not made in my image.
I am made in God's image.
To me, this is why the enemy works so hard to either keep us disconnected from God
or to keep us from ever connecting to God.
Right?
This is why he works so diligently to keep people from having a relationship with God
or being connected to God, because ultimately I'm made in God's image.
And listen, in a culture, we're in a culture now where more and more people are disconnected from God.
You know, God isn't real.
You know, all the atheistic claims and all the views of naturalism that just seem to be so prevalent in our culture today.
And because of that, more and more, we're getting farther and farther away from God.
And what I see in our culture today especially is so many people trying to figure out who they are.
And the problem is they keep trying to create an identity in their image.
They keep looking to themselves to try to determine who they are.
And I understand the, you know, kind of the philosophy of that, that why I have to go inside and look inside to see who I am.
The problem is, well, that may make sense to culture.
That doesn't make sense to God.
And that's not the way that we were made.
You weren't made in your image and you weren't made in your likeness.
What's really cool about the way we're made, if you read, like Dr. Henry Cloud has a book that explains this.
And he's a renowned psychologist, Christian psychologist.
But what they will tell you is when you're determining your self-image,
the way we actually build our self-image or discover our self-image or determine our self-image is not actually by looking at us.
It's by looking at the image of what he would call the other.
Meaning in simplest terms, when a baby cries and a caregiver comes to give care,
then in the reflection of having a need and receiving care in the reflection of the other,
the baby learns I'm cared for.
I'm safe and secure.
I'm valuable.
Right. I'm loved.
And so actually what speaks to our self-image, think about this, the way we're made, this is psychology,
is the image of the other.
Because of the other, it begins to tell me who I am.
Well, what happens when I have a bad other?
Right. Maybe I have a less than perfect parent or maybe I didn't have the privilege of having parents or whatever the case may be.
You know, because then I have some other things like what if there's abuse?
What if there's abandonment?
What if there's some of these big things that we deal with in our culture?
Right.
Neglect. What happens when neglect?
Well, when neglect, there is no other.
Which one does it tell me?
What does it tell me? It tells me maybe I'm not a person.
Abuse, there's the wrong other.
What does it tell me?
I'm the wrong person.
Abandonment tells me there's something wrong with me because everybody leaves me.
And what you need to understand, listen, Jesus calls Satan the father of what?
The father of lies.
So he can't tell you the truth.
But you need to understand because we come into this world separated from God,
Satan comes to be your surrogate father.
And he loves to speak false identity over you.
And he will use your vulnerable moments, your hurts and your wounds and your traumas
to try to sneak in a little bit about this false self, this false identity that isn't you.
And now listen, now you're not being created in the image of God,
you're being created in the image of broken people.
And it's what?
It's what he does.
So what we need, we need a right view of ourselves.
That's why, that's why when the Bible says you're created in the image of God,
do you know what that means?
He's the other.
He's the perfect father.
He's the one that his eye is always on you and his ear is always attentive.
He is the one that is near the brokenhearted.
He is the one that says call to me and I'll show up.
He is the other.
And I, through seeing the other, I can reflect who I am.
This is how I come to a self-image.
I wasn't created, listen, I wasn't created by image.
You know, one of the things that we confuse in our culture too,
we confuse self-esteem and self-image.
Because self-esteem is how I feel.
Self-image is how I see.
This is the self-esteem, the feelings I have about me,
self-image, the picture I see of me.
And these aren't the same.
And we have a lot of people trying to love themselves into some kind of
self-esteem and their identity is being built on your wrong emotions or your
emotions, which are many times wrong.
And do you see, do you see the pitfall in that?
You do not want an identity that is built on your emotions.
Because your emotions may not even be right.
Emotions do not tell you the truth.
They tell you the truth about how you feel.
And those are two different things.
Like we need emotions, but don't let them drive the bus.
Right?
It's okay that they're back there somewhere.
We need them, but don't give them the steering wheel.
There are many people this kind of in our culture, love yourself, love yourself.
Listen, even psychologists tell you, you can't love yourself into identity.
Because you can't get identity from you and you can't get identity from your
self-love.
Identity formation comes from receiving love, not conjuring up self-love.
Every psychologist tell you that, any of them that are good.
And so the reality is, is not that we need more self-esteem, although I'm not
against feeling good about yourself.
The reality is we need a right view of ourselves.
The reality is we need the right self-image.
We were created in the image of God.
What does that even mean?
Well, it must mean God's good looking, because look at me.
Your laughter is hurting me, but that's okay.
No, I'm just kidding.
But you see, what does that mean?
Because God, we know God is incorporeal.
Corporeal would mean to have a body.
Incorporal means to not have a body.
So God doesn't have a body.
Now scripture gives him, scripture is written in what they call
anthropomorphic language, which means that they assign and ascribe to God
characteristics and even physical attributes that he can't have because
he's not a physical being.
In other words, the scripture say the eye of the Lord is on you, or the ear of
the Lord, or the arm of the Lord is strong, or the hands of God, you know.
And that's all to help us relate to God, is to help us understand God, and those
express true things about God, but God doesn't actually have a hand, and he
doesn't actually have an arm, and he doesn't actually have an ear, and we're
created in God's image, so what does that mean?
Well, I think more it's in the ontological sense, meaning the how we exist
sense of how we're created.
We have rationality, we have consciousness, we have morality.
These are characteristics and things that we have that God also has.
We're personal, and he's personal.
If you want the nerdy theology, there are four different views of what they call
the imago de, you know, I don't know, some words are so easy and some words just
don't work for me, right?
Yeah.
But anyways, the imago de just means the image of God, that's all it means.
It's a teaching of the Bible, it's a teaching of scripture, it's a doctrine.
And under that, you know, even theologians kind of have differing opinions about
exactly what that means.
Like they have the substantial view, it just means we have a mind and we have a
spirit, and so substantially we are like God.
And then there's the functional view.
The functional view says we have an assignment from God in that we can do
what God, kind of like God rules over the universe, and so he says to Adam and
Eve, you guys rule over creation, have dominion, so in that sense he gave us a
function that is similar to him.
And then there's the relational view, that God is personal and we can be
personal, or we are persons, and so we can have relationships.
And then really there's the composite view, which is the view I hold, which is
that really it's like D, all of the above, because they all, there are parts of
all of those that make sense.
It is true substantially, I am like God, just what I said, I'm rational and I'm
moral, well I'm rational in some days, and I'm moral and I have a spirit and I
have a mind and I have emotions, right?
And then also I'm relational, I have a relationship with God, a relationship with
people, and then functionally, like I believe God called us and purposed us,
right, to expand his kingdom and to work with him.
And so what does it mean that we're in the image of God?
This is the great thing, this is what I want you to understand.
Everything I read, because this is going to help somebody, everything I read has
nothing to do with your physical appearance.
Well I didn't read it, everything I just told you.
Everything I just told you, listen to me, your identity has very little to do with
how you look.
And in our culture, it seems how we look has a lot to do with our self-image, but
I want you to understand when it comes to God, the reflection of the other, he's
the other, and your identity is the fact that you can have good relationships and
you can be personal.
Your identity in the image of God means that you have a sound mind, not a sick
mind.
In the image of God means that you're created on purpose for a purpose.
That's what it means to be created in the image of God, not the color of your
hair, not the number on a scale, right?
Not the size of your bicep, right?
I don't measure mine, it's too depressing.
But it's because God has made me for relationships and God has given me
rationality and consciousness and God has given me purpose.
That's what it means to be in the image of God and I need to understand that he is
the one from which my identity is derived, not the mirror, not the scale,
not the culture, not my past experiences, not wounds and hurts and traumas.
No, I was made in his image, not in my image.
In fact, look at how God thinks about you.
I love this.
In Psalm 139, David kind of talks about the omniscience of God, that he knows
everything and the omnipresence of God, the fact that he's everywhere and then he
kind of brings those together to talk about how God sees him.
It's incredible to me.
Psalm 139, 13, for you created me in my inmost being.
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Come on somebody, you are fearfully and wonderfully.
That means carefully, intrinsically, with great intentionality, yet marvelous
and wonderful are you.
Are you with me?
That's what he's saying about you.
And he said this I know full well.
He said, look at this, your works are wonderful and that I know.
Come on somebody, the next time you look in a mirror, just look in that mirror
and say, God, your works are so good.
Are you with me?
Say, God, you did a good job.
You know what I'm saying?
Now I will admit men are better at this than women.
We just are.
I don't know what it is.
We can have furniture disease where our chest is dropped into our drawers.
We're getting a little squishy and all that, yet we can walk by a mirror and just,
oh yeah, I still got it.
You know, I don't know, you know, and then we exhale and everything blows up again.
And I don't know why we are, but I'm just saying, listen to me, according to the Bible,
when you look in that mirror, say, God, you did good.
Ephesians 3 says, I'm a masterpiece.
You understand?
Said, my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret.
I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me.
Look at this, all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
God, you have a plan for me.
You have a purpose for me.
Do you understand when God has a plan for you,
the nature of trust and faith he is placing, investing in you?
Have you ever thought about this?
God's best plan to save the world after Jesus was the church.
That is how highly God thinks of you.
Like, I think self-awareness is wonderful.
Don't get me wrong.
We've all been around people who don't have self-awareness, and that's rough, right?
Because they don't know, and you're just like, bless them, Jesus.
You know, they don't get it.
They're always doing weird things.
They're very awkward, you know, and they say the wrong things.
They hurt people's feelings.
I mean, they're just not self-aware.
I think self-awareness is good.
A right view of me is good.
Romans 12 verse 3, Paul talks about to the Gentiles, he said,
have a view of you that's consistent with faith.
In other words, he's like, don't think of yourself better than you really are.
The reason he's talking to Gentiles who have come to Christ,
because Israel hardened their heart.
And so this is in his, his really, I mean, it's like his magnus, you know, opus to the Romans.
I mean, it's incredible everything that he packs in the book of Romans.
But he's saying, hey, have a right view of you.
So I'm all about self-awareness.
Are you, are you right?
But he says, don't think of yourself better than you are,
but be honest in your evaluations.
And then he says, according to your faith.
So let me say it this way.
God's like, be self-aware, but factor me in.
Here's what I'm saying.
Self-awareness is good.
God awareness is great because God will not let you be proud,
but God will not also, he will also not let you degrade yourself.
Are you with me?
Like he is not going to let you think of yourself too high,
but he is not going to let you think of yourself too low.
Come on somebody.
We need some God awareness.
And the way God sees David, he talks about, he goes on to say, he said,
how precious are your thoughts?
How vast the sum, when I count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
In other words, like God, you're thinking all these wonderful things.
Maybe you just need to hear this today.
God thinks really good things about you all the time.
God thinks good things about you all the time.
Maybe you just need to write that on your mirror.
Today, God is thinking good things about me.
I may be thinking bad things about me, but God is thinking good things about me.
Listen, if we're really going to be conformed to the image of Christ,
we cannot afford to have one thought about us that God does not have about us.
And God's thinking good things.
I could read more scripture.
I don't have time.
First Peter talks about where his chosen people, his royal priesthood,
a holy nation, his possession.
It kind of reiterates some things we see from Deuteronomy,
where God's people were his possession and also his treasure,
that God sees you as his very own and his treasure.
Psalm 17, 8 says, we're the apple of his eye, meaning that center part of the eye
that's so precious, and that's why it's so protected.
And then Jeremiah 31 says that he's loved us with an everlasting love,
and he's faithful to us, meaning that we are worthy of love,
and we are worthy of someone being faithful to us.
Somebody needs to hear that.
You are worthy of someone being faithful to you.
And if someone is unfaithful to you, that doesn't say anything about you.
It just says some things about them.
Are you with me?
And so I'm made in God's image, not mine, and so what follows?
This is the second thing.
Write this down.
So what follows from that then?
What follows?
I'm made in God's image.
I'm not made in my image.
So number two, I can't know me without knowing him.
I can't know him.
I can't know me without knowing him.
Colossians 3, 10, look at what Paul says.
He says, and having put on a new self, come on, a right view of you,
having put on a new self, look at this, which is being renewed in what?
In what?
Knowledge.
In other words, the knowledge of God.
He's saying if you want to put on, if you want to have the right view of you,
if you want to put on a new self, then you have to have the knowledge of him,
the knowledge that you are in the image of your Creator.
And so ultimately, I can't know me without knowing him.
This is why God, one of the functions, if you will, of the Holy Spirit,
this is why the Holy Spirit is so, it's why you need a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not weird.
He is God.
And if you were in a place where they talked about the people,
the Holy Spirit, and they're all weird, now listen,
I understand there are weird people who have the Holy Spirit.
I understand.
There are also boring people that have the Holy Spirit, you know.
And so the Holy Spirit is not weird, and he is not boring.
The Holy Spirit is God, and he is a person, and he is with us,
and he is in us, and one of his functions is that the Holy Spirit reveals God to us.
Like the Holy Spirit helps me know God.
Paul talks about this, 2 Corinthians, or 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 2.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, he talks about how we can't really know the mind of God,
but the Holy Spirit knows the mind of God,
but we have the Holy Spirit so we can know the things of God.
So he's saying, hey, the Holy Spirit helps us, right?
The Holy Spirit reveals God to us, but you know what else?
The Holy Spirit reveals us to us.
I'm going to give you two ways he does it.
I'm going to give you two verses so you know I'm not making this stuff up, everybody.
But the Holy Spirit reveals us to us in two ways.
The first one is he confronts who we are not,
and the second one is he champions who we are, or he communicates who we are.
So let's look at this.
Number one, he confronts who we are not.
John 16, this is Jesus talking, this is the upper room discourse
before he goes to the cross, before he's arrested,
the night that he was betrayed.
Verse eight, it says, and when he comes, talking about the Holy Spirit,
Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit,
he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
Well, what does that mean, Jesus?
Well, luckily he continues to expound on it.
He says, now concerning sin because they do not believe in me.
So he's talking about now this is the conviction of the world, right?
So he convicts the world of sin.
And then he says, concerning righteousness because I go to the Father.
Now he's talking about the believers.
So he convicts the world of sin, but check this,
he convicts the believer of righteousness, right?
And then he goes on to talk about the enemy who is already judged
and essentially damned, right?
But listen, he convicts the unbeliever of sin.
He convicts the believer of righteousness.
In other words, when a believer falls short of who we really are in Christ,
he doesn't come with condemnation.
He comes to say, oh, you dropped below the line, let's ascend.
In other words, lovingly, this is what he says,
that outburst you just had, that is not actually who you are.
And I know who you are because I'm in you
and I'm in you to help you be who you're supposed to be.
When the Corinthians, and we know the Corinthian church was pretty screwed up, everybody,
like if you're having a bad day, let's just talk about them.
Like, I mean, they're, like, they got temple prostitutes at church,
they're getting drunk on the communion wine, they're acting crazy.
And you would think Paul would write to them and say,
you bunch of fill in the blank, right?
But instead, you know what he does?
He says, let me remind you that you're not your own.
You were bought with a price.
Let me remind you who you are.
I don't need to tell you what you're doing is wrong.
I need to remind you who you are because identity trumps condemnation any day of the week.
And that's what he does in our lives.
Listen, listen, in our lives, it's true when we sin,
you know, the Holy Spirit will come and say, wait a second, that's not you.
And I know who you are, and that's not you.
But also when we have a self-deprecating thought, right,
and we're thinking bad about ourselves and we're being hard on ourselves,
he comes and says, wait a second, wait a second, time out here, that's not actually you.
And I know who you are, and I'm here to help you understand who you are, and that isn't you.
One of the greatest things the Holy Spirit can do in our lives is tell us who we're not
because we've got so many, so many times wrong thoughts about us
and wrong beliefs about us that didn't come from God.
And the Holy Spirit says, wait a second, that's not from me.
That didn't come from me.
That's not you.
And so I'm here to tell you who you're not.
And then the next thing the Holy Spirit does, watch this, he tells us who we are.
So he tells us who we're not, but then he tells us who we are.
2 Corinthians 3, 17, for the Lord is the Spirit,
and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Do you know what freedom is? Do you know why we talk about freedom as a church?
Do you know why we have a discipleship class based on freedom called live free?
Do you know why we do that? Because freedom is not about not doing bad stuff.
Freedom is about being free to fully be who God created you to be.
It's not about not sinning, and it's not about not drinking,
and it's not about not looking at porn, although none of those things are good for you, right?
It's about being free to be the son and daughter of God that he destined you to be.
That's what freedom is.
So Paul's saying, yeah, that's a good word.
And Paul's saying, he's saying wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom.
So what does that mean? Where the Spirit of the Lord is,
he's going to help you be free to be who God created you to be.
So all of us who've had the veil removed, that's the law, can see and reflect.
Remember, ooh, do you see that word reflect?
What did we talk about? My self-image is a reflection of God's image.
There it is right there. The psychologist got it right, everybody.
See and reflect the glory of the Lord, and the Lord who is the Spirit makes us more and more like him
as we are changed into his glorious image.
So what does the Holy Spirit do? He tells me who I'm not.
He says, oh, that's not you. That's not you. Nope, that's not you.
And then you know what else he does? He tells you who you are.
You are loved. You are chosen. You are royal.
You're God's treasure. You're God's people. You're God's possession.
You are worthy of care. You are worthy of someone being faithful to you, right?
You are the head and not the tail. You're above and not beneath, right?
You're blessed in the city. You're blessed in the—you can go through it all,
but the Holy Spirit tells me who I am.
He gives me a right view of me.
I'm telling you, church, if you want to move forward, so many times we get stuck in the ways we think,
and many times those are the ways we think about ourselves.
We don't take a promotion because we think someone else should take that promotion,
or we don't take a promotion because we think, well, I really can't rise to that.
I don't know that I could do that. Well, what if I fail, right?
We don't get in relationships because we're scared that they're going to turn out to be like somebody else.
We don't get in relationships because we're scared we might be rejected,
and the list goes on and on and on.
We don't get close friends because we think, well, if they really knew me, they might not like me.
The list goes on, and we stay stuck because of—not because God isn't faithful,
not because God isn't good, not because God isn't powerful.
We stay stuck because not even how we see God, we stay stuck because of how we see us.
And I feel like today God wants to give us and you, he wants you to have a new view of you.
Amen. Can you give Jesus praise?
Are you with us?
Are you with us in the purpose for which God made and created and redeemed you for?
We love to connect people to purpose.
We thank you for giving us this opportunity.
And if you're ever at Longview or you are at Longview, I'd love to invite you to join us in person each weekend.
Listen, I pray God that you're going to be with us.
I pray God that you're going to be with us.
I'd love to invite you to join us in person each weekend. Listen, I pray God's best for your life.
I believe if you follow Jesus, your best is ahead.