Overcoming a Warped Self-Image

Mirrors are very powerful things. You can kind of think something about yourself and walk into the bathroom and go, “Oh my. It’s not exactly what I thought.” Or the lighting, I’ve learned, I have to travel a lot and the lighting in the bathrooms in airplanes is extraordinarily revealing. It is not soft light. You can go in there to brush your teeth and age ten years or just see what you’ve never seen before.

But there are not just physical mirrors that are powerful. There are mirrors that we all have, it’s the mirrors of a little boy looking up when he does something and it’s a mom’s disapproval. She didn’t even say anything.

It’s the mirror of going to school early on and thinking, “Wow, don’t you really look cool,” and you realize about three minutes later you don’t not only look cool but people are laughing at you.

It’s the mirrors of disapproval from your spouse. It’s the mirror of a boss who says, “You don’t measure up.” It’s the mirror of someone who says, “You’re dumb. You’re lazy. You’ll never amount to anything.”

It’s the mirrors of the media that say that if you don’t have this perfect body and this perfect way that you really aren’t acceptable.

And there are all kind of mirrors that, over time, have told you this is who you are. Now what I want to tell you is how you think about yourself, and who you really are, can be drastically different.

And I want to encourage you, by the fact that all of us have had some warped mirrors in our past. All of us have insecurities and some fears of relating to others. We all have warped mirrors.

We experience distortions that affect our lives, our relationships because of mirrors past and present.

One author put it this way, it was very insightful. He says, “We are not what we think we are, we are not even what others think we are. We are what we think others think we are.”

We’re going to talk about overcoming a warped self-image and a self-image is the mental picture or concept of one’s self as a person. It’s your own idea of who you are, your sense of worth. It’s the composite picture of all those mirrors that have come together over time.

And you get stuck here. You get stuck here. I mean we had a whole movement.

Unfortunately, the self-esteem movement was built on we wanted everyone to feel good about themselves based on almost nothing.

But what I want to do is I want to spend some time and we’re going to look at the problem. And here’s the outline in your mind: We’re going to talk about how did you, how did I, how do we as people develop our self-image? How do those mirrors come together where you have a picture, a composite picture in your mind of who you think you are?

Then what I want to do is show you, briefly, what’s the impact of that if it’s inaccurate? And then we’re going to get to the really good news where God’s going to say, “There is a mirror that’s accurate.

Now, what you know from all the research is that the most powerful influence in your life about your self-perception is your parents, your family of origin – your mom, your dad, or lack thereof.

The second most powerful thing we learn over time is that authority and role models as well as peers over time. People that you look up to, people that have leverage. It can be an older brother and sister, it can be a sports hero, it can be a pastor. We all have people in our lives that we look up to and so what they think carries more. Our peers, there is a season, especially in the teenage years where what our peers think.

And then you have the media sending you messages all the time, all the time telling you, you know, “This is how you need to look, this is what you need to drive, this is what’s cool, this is what’s out, this is what’s in. This is the kind of school you need to go to, these kind of people are really wonderful, these kind of people are not very wonderful.”

You need to be so tall, you need to be so skinny, you need to own this, you need to do that.

And then all the while, God has given us a conscience and the conscience inside of us is built to say, “This is right and this is wrong.” But your conscience gets trained and so your conscience gets educated and trained so some people have an overdeveloped conscience where they feel very guilty about things that God says are not wrong.

And so, they live with overwhelming guilt and shame. Often early on this comes from, you know, family of origin background or from an ultra-legalistic view of life. On the other hand, some people’s conscience, it’s underdeveloped and they can use people, abuse people, not even feel bad about it. But your conscience and the condemnation, lack of condemnation, if it’s not accurately attuned to Scripture, it sends you messages as well.

All this together then you have a world system that’s very interesting and the world system basically says it’s about your appearance, your performance, and your status.

So, the world is going to tell you that how you look, what you can do, and who do you know? Right? I mean isn’t that? So for example, if you would take, I only brought one. Often I bring five or six magazines and so I decided not to bring some of the usual ones.

This is Vogue magazine, you have two beautiful women on each side and then you have a guy whose full-time job is to create abs.

No one gets a body like this without a lot of money, surgery, and you’re full-time job is in the gym. And yet, so I walk out and I’ve only got three small kids I’m taking care of as a woman, or I’m a seventeen year old and I look at Seventeen, or Us, and what I’m told is, “Guys, that’s acceptable.” This is one percent of the gene pool with a lot of money, and a lot of time, and touched up pictures.

But you’re fed that every commercial, every billboard, every magazine. And then if they really want to sell you something, if you’re a woman, they have someone who looks like this. This does not exist. No one can be this beautiful. I mean this is hours of makeup. There is a fan blowing. I mean, the cheekbones have been raised by the computer. I mean, no one can actually look this beautiful, in this kind of light. But just so the guys don’t feel out of it, “Does that man look absolutely fantastic? Is this man sexy or not, huh? He is a hunk! And if you wear this cologne the women will come after you.”

And then page, after page, after page in this magazine is of people who, if you only look like them then you’d be a somebody. All I want you to see is you are living in a system that rewards maybe one or two percent of the entire population, that focuses on things you can’t control, and tells you resounding messages from the day you were born, “You’re unacceptable, you don’t measure up, you’re unwanted, you’re not significant, and you’re not secure.”

And even as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose Spirit dwells in us, left to ourselves with our minds not renewed, and without a sensitivity to block some of those messages, we can love God, think things are going exactly the way we think we think He wants us to go and we can spend our time and our energy and our money performing and seeking status and doing all the kind of things that those messages say to fill holes in your hearts of a warped self-image.

Because there are deep holes in what you think about yourself and who I think about myself and we are searching for significance and security and acceptance in how we look, what we can do or perform, and the status that we achieve. And we achieve status by our wealth, by our notoriety, by our education, by the people that we know and then what we can do is we can take all of those and baptize them and bring them into the Christian community and then we know really cool, Christian people and it’s by how much of the Bible that we know and it’s, right?

The impact of a warped self-image is insecurity and inferiority. It produces a performance orientation. Anybody know any fellow Christians that are workaholics? Why? Well, why would you be driven to work, work, work, go, go, go, achieve, achieve, achieve, why? Because that’s your worth.

For others it produces withdrawal. I mean how many times, as a woman, how many times are you going to see this and realize, “You know what? I don’t think I can ever compete with that. I don’t have a full-time chef. I don’t have a full-time trainer. I don’t have people that can give me surgeries when I start to sag.” And you just withdraw and you just say, “I just can’t go there. I quit. I give up.” And in the Christian community we’re not immune to any of this. And so, our responses are denial, often our responses are we compensate, we do things like give stuff to our kids to make us feel like we’re successful. We have addictive behavior.

Now, as Christians often it’s the same as the world, it might be prescription drugs or alcohol but often it’s, you know what? It’s eating, it’s going to the refrigerator, it’s ministry, it’s people pleasing, it’s co-dependency. There is a lot of unhealth and dysfunction that become respectable, Christian sins but you know what? You don’t experience the power of God, you don’t experience the love of God, and we reproduce the dysfunction in our own children and grandchildren.

And so we have these unfulfilled longings for significance and unconditional acceptance that results in people that are very, very unhappy. Now here’s the thing. Here’s the thing, here’s the irony of God. I don’t know the three people on the front of that magazine. I don’t know their names, and I purposefully didn’t go with the big stars and I could name, we could say, “Well, who are the people that are the big baseball stars, football stars, basketball stars, and whatever reality show is coming,” and whatever names are gonna change in five years, it’ll be different names.

All I can tell you, the one percent of the gene pool that’s making ten, to twelve, to twenty million dollars a year, who are the most beautiful people of the year, have the most prestigious jobs, and whether that’s entertainment, or whether that’s business, or whether that’s CEOs you just look at the pattern of suicide, divorce, relational fallout, misery, unhappiness, and addictions. So, what we all consciously or unconsciously are chasing, the one percent that have it, tell us it produces no happiness. It produces no peace.

So, what I want you to understand here too is that’s not just psychological stuff. There is an enemy to your soul called Satan who led a third of the angels, who are now called demons, and His primary MO is lies. You don’t need to have stuff move in your house, you don’t need to have, you know, visual manifestations of demonic activity. You don’t need to be in places where it’s overseas where it’s bizarre or where demonic activity is occurring.

I will tell you what. As long as we believe lies, given to us gently about performance, status, significance, and success that you need to look like that, or perform like that, or own that, you know what? He’ll be glad to stay undercover and let us chase the wrong things and ruin our lives, trying to fill these holes in our warped self-image.

So, there is a spiritual battle going on. When we’re going to talk about making some of the changes, and renewing your mind, and getting a new focus, and seeing how God sees you I just want to warn you it won’t be just, you know, some new thinking.

There is going to be resistance to you, disciplining yourself to learn who you really are in Christ. There will be some discipline to say, “You know something? There are certain things that I can’t watch anymore. There are certain people that maybe I shouldn’t hang out with because it always drives me to these same places of comparison, these same places of condemnation, these same places of I don’t measure up, I’m unworthy.” Now, the great thing is is that God has some amazing good news, awesome good news, powerful good news. He’s going to say that, “I want you to see yourself the way I see you.”

Notice, at the very top of your notes it’s Romans chapter 12 verse 3. What does God say about self-image? He says that you’re not inferior, He says you’re not worthless, you’re not insignificant. He says, “I made you exactly the way I made you.

You are unique, you’re valuable, you’re loved, you’re accepted if you’re in Jesus Christ, and here’s the deal.” Here’s His command: “For through the grace of God given to me,” the apostle Paul would write, “I say to every man, every person among you, not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think but to think as to have sound judgment as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

I’d like you, in your notes, underline the word “think” every time it comes up. He’s just told you to offer your body as a living sacrifice, verse 1. He said stop being conformed to the pattern of this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind so you could experience God’s will, that it’s good, acceptable, and perfect.

Now what He says is, you need to have a right view of yourself. Don’t think too high of yourself, don’t think too low of yourself, think, think, think. And then that word “sober judgment.” The word for “sober,” same root word as “think.” All significant life-change begins in your thinking. Not your behavior. Not even in your attitudes. Not even emotions or trying hard.

“As a man thinks in his heart so he is.” “The mind set on the flesh is death; the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” “Set your mind,” Colossians 3, “on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth” - where Christ is.

Chapter 4 of Ephesians, what’s he say? “Take off the old man, have your mind renewed, put on the new man.” Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. He says think accurately about yourself.

The opposite word, this word for “sober” is used. The opposite of it is people that are drunk, they’re intoxicated. When you’re drunk or intoxicated what is true of you? You have a warped perception. “Hey! You know what? It’s only four stories down. Hey! Watch me! I can go on this ledge!” Duh. Dumb. Perception.

See, when you’re drunk your mind is influenced in a way where reality is blurred. And what God is saying is, for some of us, “Your self-image has been warped and it’s been warped by the spiritual, emotional media, and family alcohol, so that when you think about who you really are - it’s wrong.” It’s not true. And He says, “I want you to think accurately about yourself according to the measure of faith.”

And this isn’t, this is not a subjective faith. Here he’s talking about the objective faith, the truth of Scripture. And so here is the mirror. I’m going to share some stories about where we’ve been and the transformation in our lives. I can tell you I had never opened the Bible until I was eighteen years old.

And when I began to deal with, and my wife and I began to deal with, the lies that we believed about my performance is who I am, or you have to look a certain way… One, is in this life I don’t think you ever fully get over it - but when you renew your mind with God’s Word, and you begin to see yourself the way God sees you, and you first think it, and then you believe it, and then you feel it, amazing things happen. Transformation occurs.

A lot of the pull, a lot of the temptation, a lot of the addiction, a lot of the stuff that you deal with all of a sudden it loses its hold because you break it. “You’ll know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
So, here’s the truth we want to talk about. Where do you get an accurate view of yourself? The first six verses of Ephesians give us an amazingly accurate view of ourselves.

The apostle Paul is going to start by telling you who you really are. This is the mirror he wants you to hear. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God to the saints,” just that word means those that are set apart, believers, “who are at Ephesus who are faithful in Christ Jesus,” and we skip over this but listen, “grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

It’s the, yes, it’s an introduction, yes, it’s a preamble. But the very first words out of his mouth are, “Grace to you.” Grace. What you don’t deserve, acceptance, love, concern. Grace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. And peace! And this word is, it’s the shalom of God. It isn’t just peace like the absence of conflict, it’s not just an emotional peace. This is the well-being, the wholeness of God.

He says, “God’s unmerited, the One who spoke and billions of galaxies came into existence, and out of His mouth spoke life and truth, out of His mouth comes to you grace, blessing, and love and acceptance, and the shalom and the wholeness and the peace of God.”

And then the thesis of this entire first chapter is in verse 3. He said, “Blessed be,” it’s a prayer, “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And it’s, think, “Blessed, thank you, wow!” And then he says why, “Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”

And then what he’s going to do actually the next thirteen, fourteen verses the apostle Paul goes nuts. It’s one long sentence. And he just starts talking about, “Oh Father, I want to bless You for all the spiritual blessings that we already possess. You did this, You did this, You did this, You did this, You did this.” And we’re going to walk all the way through it. And you’re going to see who you are.

Here’s what’s weird. If, in fact, your DNA, and we all learned this from CSI, if it really is unique and God gave it only to you, I think we could go on record by mere logical deduction that the most attractive thing that you could ever be would be just you. That looks like you. Not like her. And not like him.

That how you process information, that what your gifts are, and in His sovereignty, since we know He works all things together for the good, even in a fallen world, that who you are and where you’re at right now the real you showing up would be the absolute most freeing and attractive person to your friends, your kids, your mate, your pastor, your boss, and your neighbors.

And a lot of us, we don’t have a clue of who we are. We really don’t. And that’s why later in this same chapter he will say, “Let love be,” NIV says, “sincere.” New American Standard says, “Let love be without hypocrisy.” And the Greek word there is, literally it’s, “Let love be without a mask. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good.”

See, you never have real community, you never have intimacy, you never get tight with people, until the real you shows up.

So, he says, “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love, giving preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”

There is this amazing thing that God wants for us in community. But if I go into that with this warped self-image, I will just manipulate and work all those things in my Christian small group to get people to accept me.

So, this is the journey where we’re going to talk about how God thinks about you, and then we’re going to start a journey of the hard work of getting that from an intellectual stage into your heart, into your life.

And you’ll sit with friends or even with your mate and you’ll experience acceptance because the real you is showing up.

And he says, “So what are these spiritual blessings?” He gives three. “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundations of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him,” number one. Circle the words, “He chose us.” So, that’s a spiritual blessing.

Second, “In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons, through Jesus Christ Himself according to the kind intention of His will,” or, “for His good pleasure.”

And third, it’s a purpose clause, “…to the praise,” or, “for the purpose of praising the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the beloved,” speaking of Christ.

And so, there are three very clear things he’s saying and here’s something that’s maybe a little new moment for you is these verses actually were not put in Scripture for people to argue about. This comes as a shock.

So, I want you to circle, “He chose us,” and then I want you to circle, “He predestines us.” And the word “chose” here, it means, “to pick out,” it means, “to elect.” It’s like in the Old Testament God says, “I chose Israel.”

Well, He chose Israel not because He didn’t care about the other nations. He chose Israel to make them an example so all could hear and all would respond. But notice He chose us, before the foundations of the earth. That we would be holy, that we would be set apart. He chose us for Himself.

You know the real meaning of this text? The real meaning of this text is not, “Well, is God completely sovereign or do we have a free will?” Answer is yes, both. Here, you know why this is written? God wants you to know, “I chose you. I want you. I want you. I care about you. I died for you. I want to have a relationship with you. I want to hold you, I want to hug you, I want to heal you, I want to love you. I chose you, and I chose you for a purpose that you would reveal my glory so that you would be holy, you’d be set apart, you’d be pure, you’d be blameless.” The word is used of sacrifices in the Old Testament that had to be without defect. He chose you for Himself because He has a purpose for your life but God chose you. You are wanted.

You may have had parents that haven’t wanted you, you may have had a mate who walked out on you, you may have kids who have rejected you, you may have had people in church that have talked about you, you may have had all kind of experience of rejection.

But here’s what God says, “You can live with those warped, little mirror-y messages forever and let them define you or you can start saying, ‘I’m wanted! I’m wanted by the person who created everything, who knows everything, and He wants me because He chose me.’”

The second thing he says is the word “predestined” just means, it literally has the idea of understanding clearly. He predestined or prearranged, knowing… that He wanted to adopt you. There are two words in the New Testament for, one is for a child that is young and one is for a son. And he says, “He predestined to adopt you as His son or His daughter.” How? “Through Christ.” Why? His pleasure.

You’re a daughter, you’re a son. Everything that’s available to Jesus is available to you.

The way Jesus talked to people, the way He loved people, the way He accepted people and whether you’re the religious person who didn’t get it like Nicodemus, or whether you’re the person that’s been through all the pains and the five husbands like the woman at the well, Jesus says, “I adopted you into My family the moment you put your faith in Christ and I’m going to do for you what I did for her.

“You’re accepted. I don’t look at your past, I don’t look at what you’ve been through, I look at you through the shed blood of the forgiveness and the redemption. You matter to Me. I don’t care who has rejected you ever. I accept you. I don’t accept you if, I don’t accept you because, I don’t accept you because how you look, I don’t accept you because of what you’ve done. I don’t care how many businesses you’ve started, I don’t care if you won a beauty contest, I accept the real you. Before the foundations of the earth, before you did anything, I wanted you, and I adopted you to be in My family, and I purposed that you would have significance because your joy would be to, by your life and your words, to declare who I really am, what’s it like to be loved, the praises of the glory of God.” That’s who you are.

Now, if you’ve never put your faith in Christ this is not true of you. But just, I just want you to notice what it says: Blessed be the God and Father who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, in Christ.” So, you have to be in Christ.

The moment a person understands that you’ve sinned and violated the truth of God’s holy character and you turn from your sin, the Bible calls that repentance, and in the empty hands of faith trust and believe that when Jesus died upon the cross He died for you, in your place. And when He rose from the dead He proved that it was true and there are new life and resurrection and opportunity and you can receive that as a gift.

And literally, the Scripture says you’re taken out of the kingdom of darkness and you’re placed in the kingdom of light. And then, actually, the Spirit of God enters your body, you’re sealed with the Holy Spirit, He deposits spiritual gifts, you’re adopted into His family, you have an inheritance, you have assurance of heaven, He lives inside of you, and He’s going to live out His life through you. And so, if you’re in Christ He says, “I want you because I chose you. If you’re in Christ, I accept you. And if you’re in Christ you are significant because I have a plan for you.”

I want to give you some real practical ways about moving this truth from ideas to reality. As I do if you are in Christ, this is what God’s mirror says about you: You are, write the word, “wanted.” Chosen. Every minute, of every day, by One who knows every aspect of your life – past, present, and future.

Now, what I know is getting that from here to here is the real test. You are wanted. Could I ask you before we go on, where do you feel unwanted? Who makes you feel unwanted? What situations or environments make you feel unwanted? What people in your past have wounded you and made you feel like you weren’t worthy of being wanted?

See, those are deeply planted in your psyche and in your soul, and you unconsciously respond to those trying to get people to want you. And it’s frustrating. And it doesn’t work. Or if it does work it’s almost worse because then they like this person you’re pretending to be.

But every single minute, of every day, when the thought comes to you that, “I’m unworthy,” or, “I’m not wanted,” you could begin to say, “Jesus wants me. God wants me.

His thoughts are more important than anyone’s thoughts. And He knows everything about me. He knows what I did in high school, He knows what I did on that business trip, He knows attitudes I’ve had, He knows bitterness I’ve had, He knows the secret aspects and in, He wants me. He wants me. He chose me.”He chose me because of something in Him. He loves me and He chooses whosoever would believe.

Second, you’re accepted because you’re adopted eternally into God’s family with all the rights and privileges and blessings given to His children.

And so, I would just ask you, who makes you feel unaccepted? What situations make you feel rejected? What family relationships, or in-laws, or traumatic experiences have seared your soul with, “You’re not accepted, you’re not worthy, you’re not lovable.” The truth is everyone in this room, you’ve had them. Some a lot more than others.

Or for some of you - there are two extreme groups in this room and I don’t say this like I have some prophetic gift. It’s just life - I would say, there are some of you that have been super successful, and you got to the end of the big rainbow and you have the house, and you got the money, you’ve been successful, you’ve done this, you’ve done that, you got the extra house, this, your kids got in good schools. And there is just something desperately empty when you’re very quiet and very alone. It didn’t deliver, even as a Christian.

And there are other people here that you’ve been sexually abused, you’ve been through horrendous things, you’ve been through a marriage or two, you’ve had an abortion or two, and your life has just hit the skids in the most painful ways and you’re trying to hold it together.

And out of those two groups what I will tell you is, these people find it’s empty and they realize that in brokenness there is healing, and these people get broken not because they choose it but because it just happens. And because they don’t have any other choice they come, because there is nowhere else to go. And what they learn, that in brokenness there is healing.

And God just takes regular people like us and says, “Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, I’ll give you rest.”

The final thing we learn here is significance, and since you’re called to reflect His eternal holy and blamelessness in a fallen world and declare and speak well of the grace freely available to all in Jesus, you are significant. You matter.

My wife and I understood these, we were two years, three years out of seminary, we were, had a first church run and I, my workaholism kicked in and she didn’t want to tell anybody about where she’d been and the struggle, and so she kept her past and her hurts over here, and I just figured out how you could work eighty or ninety hours and some people had mega churches, this was a mini church.

Now, what I will tell you is for two or three years, I don’t want to exaggerate so I’ll say two years, my wife realized all these things we’re talking about were lies and there was a little book by William Backus called Telling Yourself the Truth. And then in our counseling, we learned multiple lies that we believed, and so she would write down all the lies that she believed on a card, and at the bottom write the word, “stop.” And then flip it over, and we had a verse, and so before I went to work for two years we would sit on the couch together and she would read it out loud, say, “Stop,” flip it over and read the truth.

And she renewed her mind. “I am worthy. I am worthy outside of my physical appearance. I am accepted and loved, I’m beloved in Christ.” And, you know, every aspect, and she read over those cards. And I was being the good husband because I thought, you know, “My wife has these deep issues and I need to help her.”

And what I realized was, I just had more acceptable dysfunctional sins that produced this driven, workaholic pastor who got rewarded for trying to gain people’s love and approval for what I did. And it was in that journey of renewing my mind, I mean, every morning, that by the grace of God I got free. And I got where I could say, “You know, it’s okay to be insecure. It’s okay if everyone doesn’t like me. God does. It’s okay if I don’t please everyone. You know what? I’m going to be honest. I want to. But it’s okay if they don’t.”

I don’t have to measure my performance by how big the church is or how small it is or whether I do this or whether I do that. I don’t have to cow down to powerful people. You know what? Beneath all that stuff that they’re showing, they got struggles just like me. I need to love them.

And I want to tell you that you can go on a journey and say, “God, I want to declare war on my warped self-image and I want to begin to renew my mind and believe that I am wanted, accepted, and significant in Jesus Christ.”