Remember Who You Are, In Jesus,

And Don’t Let This Toxic Culture Label You!

If you listen to any news outlet today, any pundit, any college professor or teacher, any politician, or even many pastors today, you will be hopelessly labeled by some real or perceived brokenness in your life! Today’s favorite labels today deal with various forms of sexuality, gender, racial identity, nationalism, political and economic philosophy, age, belief systems, and on and on… This just leads to terrible division, mistrust, and downright hatred for those who don’t represent our labels and agendas enough to satisfy us! And of course, with the ease of the Internet and social media, we can all righteously “virtue signal” to “our side” how right we are, and how wrong, stupid, and evil “they” are!

What most people don’t realize today is that this is nothing new! Since humanity’s fall in the Garden of Eden, sin has broken and destroyed us mentally, emotionally, physically, sexually, and has torn our very souls apart, leaving us broken and wandering aimlessly trying to recover the essence of true humanity that God created us for in the Garden before we sinned and rebelled. SIN is thinking and acting in ways that are less than God intended for us when he created us in His image originally. Sin literally means to “miss the mark”, such as when an archer misses their target. We ALL sin in thought, action, and motives, and the Bible tells us we can’t just overcome it by self-improvement and trying harder! We are ALL broken by sin, and only God can ultimately fix that brokenness!

To escape the never ending labels and accusations of human brokenness that we all struggle with, we need to let God rescue us from sin and give us his power to overcome and change! There are 3 major components to recognize if we want to go from brokenness, division, and hopelessness to new life and a brand new humanity!

 1) We are ALL “spiritual zombies!” – we are literally walking around spiritually dead because of our sins!

¹  As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ²  in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. – Ephesians 2:1-3 (NIV)
 

As much as we like to think of ourselves as better than others and on the “right side” of many moral arguments, Paul says in God’s view, we are ALL hopelessly lost, actually following the ways of Satan, and have no ability to really get back to what we were meant to be as human beings originally! After all, a “dead person” has no power to make himself come alive!

Bummer!  Pretty bad news, huh?

2) BUT… GOD! These are the 2 most hopeful words in scripture, because God did something to rescue and save us!

⁴  BUT because of his great love for us, GOD, who is rich in mercy, ⁵  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷  in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– ⁹  not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  – Ephesians 2:4-10 (NIV)

Because we are hopeless and spiritually dead, God, in his mercy and grace (a free gift), made us alive through the death and resurrection of Jesus! He died in our place, took our punishment, and now we are forgiven by God for all our sins, and God now looks on as though we had never sinned! Jesus took on our sinful nature on the cross, and in exchange, we are able to take on his sinless nature through faith in him!

No notice… this is all GOD, not you and your best effort! Stop any pride, or arrogance or tooting your own horn! Your degrees, your accomplishments, your good looks and charm have no ability to save you; only God can do that! All that God asks of you and I is that we accept this free gift of salvation by FAITH, or trust, in Jesus. That means more than mere intellectual assent! It means trusting your life now, and forever, into the hands of Jesus!  And when we do that, it leads to a life-changing future! 

3) When we surrender our lives to Jesus, his gives us his POWER to change and become new creations ourselves! God softens our hearts and changes us from the inside out, slowly taking away our desire to sin and giving us His power to resist sin, and help us want to live his way!

So, what about the division, hatred, and labeling today? In every generation, including when the New Testament was written, people hated and mistrusted each other, just like today. In those times, there were divisions like the elite and rich Pharisees and Sadducees verses the poor and uneducated, men verses women (who were treated liked the husband’s property in the Roman Empire), Romans verses everybody else, Jews verses the Gentiles (anybody who was not a Jew), and free workers verses slaves (which were often more like hired servants at that time). It was said that Jewish men felt so superior to everyone else that they would begin the day by praying “Thank you, Lord, that I am not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman”!

That sounds like a prayer many would say about other groups today, doesn’t it? And today, many groups want to win elections, control money and power, and pass laws that justify their views, and shame or cancel the views of those that disagree. And because with many of our sinful habits we don’t have the desire or power to change, we just want to change society to believe that particular sinful behavior is now declared normal and good, and then we can now celebrate it!

But that’s not how God changes us, and he wants us all to overcome our sins and live again like we were created to live before sin wrecked our lives! When Jesus softened and healed the broken hearts of these various factions, they looked at each other differently! When Jesus’ love became dominant in their hearts, their differences no longer mattered, and they repented of their own sins, and for gave each other, and worked together to build each other into a new humanity that God desires for us all to join! Paul describes this in Ephesians 2:

¹⁴  For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵  by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶  and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷  He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸  For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. ¹⁹  Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, ²⁰  built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.  –Ephesians 2:14-22 (NIV)

When these groups that had always hated and mistrusted each other began to love and forgive each other, and sacrifice for each other, it changed their culture and drew many others to Jesus and a new life that can last for eternity!

And it can happen today again!

Remember, God doesn’t change people through government, or new laws, or secular education programs.

God changes people when they come to him with humble, contrite, and broken hearts!

When you come to God with your brokenness and want to change and trust your life to Jesus, and live his way (repent), he will graciously forgive all your sins and give you His power to become a new person!

Then you can see others the way Jesus sees them, and learn to love those you may have hated before!

Today, we hear many stories of spiritual revival around the world!

Revival happens when people humble themselves before God, repent of their hardened hearts, and seek God’s forgiveness and power to change and love God and others with tender hearts.

As I write this, I sense I need to repent and soften my heart towards some people and groups today.

Maybe you feel that way too!

Whenever we humble ourselves before God, it opens up the door to God’s fresh power from His Spirit to blow through us and change us, and in turn change the world around us!

I want that power for me, and I want that power for you as well!

I’m going to close by sharing a beautiful prayer from Ephesians 3 were Paul prayed for that life changing power to come again on his people! I’m praying this for me, and for you, and I look forward to what God may do in, and with, our lives as we surrender again to Him!

Ephesians 3:14-21 (NIV)
¹⁴  For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵  from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸  may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 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, ²¹  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.