You are Wanted, Part 1

What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.

There is a secret law of your soul that you will gravitate towards your image of God. And that’s why getting a high, holy, clear, loving, accurate picture of Him is the greatest thing you can do for every area of your life.

But the second most important thing is that you can see God accurately, but He longs for you to see yourself the way He sees you.

Let’s do a little experiment.

I want you to just think of a picture of yourself now coming to your mind and I want you to describe yourself just in your heart of hearts: how would you describe yourself? What are the three or four words that depict you, that you think are accurate?

Is it loving? Caring? Warm? Approachable? Smart? Or is it lonely? Inadequate? Angry? Are there old labels of too tall? Too skinny? Too fat? Loser? Never amount to anything?

As honest as you can, how do you actually see yourself? Not how you wish you did. Father, we ask now, in the name of Your Son and by the power of Your Spirit, that You will activate the gifts, our minds, and our hearts that we could hear from You today and that as we walk out of this building, by a supernatural unction of your Spirit, that You’ll take the written Word and make it the living Word and allow us, at least in some measure, Lord, in a significant measure, to see ourselves the way You long for us to see ourselves. I pray that in Jesus’ name, amen.

If you pull out your notes, what we have just talked about is something psychologists call our self-image. If you want a definition of that, it’s the mental picture of conception of one’s self. It’s a person’s idea of your self-worth. It’s the composite pictures of all the mirrors.

There are all kinds of things – your parents have the biggest impact on that. Authority figures. People in authority. When you are a teenager, your peers begin to greatly influence you. Culture. Media. In other words, there are all these mirrors that have told you, over time, who you are.

I have some cards that we are going to look at a little bit later, and they are cards that I would say, unequivocally, not only transformed my wife’s life and my life, but it saved our marriage.

It’s a very personal series to me. My wife came from a horrendous home background and experienced rejection that I won’t go into. She never heard her father say, “I love you.” She never got a hug that she can ever remember. And that was just the beginning.

After that, like most young girls who aren’t loved well by their father, they look for it other places that built tragedy and lots of pain in her life. And then she came to know Jesus. And God loved her. And I met her a couple years later. And then a year or so after that, we got married and eighteen months into our marriage, I’m thinking, I don’t think this is going to work. She couldn’t receive love.

She was beautiful, smart, loving, caring, and passionate in her relationship with God, but when she looked in the mirror, she saw someone that was unworthy of love, who was a loser, who was rejected, who was absolutely unfit for anyone to care for her and so, she couldn’t receive my love or other people’s. And I will tell you what, sitting in a counselor’s office trying to figure that one out was painful.

By God’s grace, we had a counselor that wasn’t just good in psychology, but he was a theologian. He was a retired senior pastor, and he saw beyond all the psychological issues and saw that my wife had such a warped view of herself, she needed to see herself the way God saw her.

And so, he had her begin to write down misbeliefs that she had. A misbelief like, “I need other people’s approval in order to be happy.” And then at the bottom, stop sign. And then the truth, “I want people’s approval of me, but I don’t need it. With God’s approval, I am no longer compelled to earn love and acceptance. I am free to be me.” And then he gave her a passage about belonging and she read it over.

For two years, we would read over these cards. Because you’ll notice on your notes, there are some very dysfunctional and ugly things that happen when you have a warped view of yourself.

One, it builds a sense of rejection. We all deal with rejection. Some of you, it’s a huge issue; some, a smaller issue. But because we do, we become people pleasers at all cost. Some people that are overly sensitive to criticism, it’s like, “Boy, don’t you reject me too.”

For others, you withdraw to avoid. You know what? You just don’t risk. You don’t engage in certain things or certain activities because you don’t want to get hurt.

Some of your greatest success, some of your achievements, some of the reason you get up earlier and you work harder and you have made it and you have achieved and everyone thinks it’s so great – behind all of that is a scared person that you always have to, because your whole value is based on what you do and how you appear.

As we were reviewing all those cards, I thought I was being a loving, kind husband, helping my wife come through these deep issues. But when I read those cards, what I realized was I had all the same issues.

So, here’s what I want you to know. We are going to go on a journey. I am going to share some of those cards with you. Because what we are going to do is we are going to take the lies that we believe about ourselves and we are going to replace them with: this is how and who God sees you.

Open your notes, because we have a command here. Romans 12, verse 3 says, “For through the grace of God given to me, I say to every man among you, not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think as to have sound judgment as God has allotted to each man a measure of faith.”

In other words, we are commanded not to think too high, not to think too low, but we are to think about ourselves the way God sees us. This is who you are in Christ. That’s the big concept. God sees you through the lens of the forgiveness and the blood of His Son. So, are you ready for this? He loves you just as much as He loves Jesus. That’s what the Bible teaches.

So, where do we get this accurate view of God? [view of ourselves?] We could go a lot of places, but I would say the book of Ephesians is probably the best that I know of.

And so, he opens it up; very common beginning. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to the saints,” that means just the holy, set-apart people that have trusted Christ, “who are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

So, there’s this general opening. Now, here’s what you need to get. The structure of this passage – I’d encourage you maybe to follow along in your Bible or your phone, whatever you use. Verse 3 all the way through verse 14 is one, long sentence. I think it’s the longest one in the New Testament.

And what happens is verse 3 is the thesis. He makes this amazing, amazing statement and all the rest of the verses in all these prepositional phrases, he is going to wind us through a journey to say: all these spiritual blessings – and I think he just went off. I think the Holy Spirit just captured him and he goes, “Here’s all that we have!”

And he just started going, “We are chosen, we are adopted, we are redeemed, we have an inheritance, we have been sealed.”

But here’s where he starts, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with” – what? “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”

In other words, now that you’re a part of God’s family, every spiritual blessing He has given to them – here’s our phrase again – in Christ.

Now, I need to make a quick disclaimer here. Everything I am going to talk about from here on is written to those that are in Christ. If you happen to be visiting or if you’re checking out Christianity, I’m going to talk about: this is how God sees those who are in Christ. This isn’t true of the whole world.

Now, what I will tell you is is that He is pursuing you and He wants you and He loves you and you need to hear, if you would like to join His family, this is the relationship He wants for you. But this is not how God feels about everyone.

The fact of the matter is is that we were all rebels. We were all hostile to God. And until we understood that we needed forgiveness and we turned to Him and received forgiveness through Christ, these things aren’t true.

But notice what He says about those of you that understood and humbled yourself and realized: I need help. He says, “Just,” what’s the spiritual blessing? Verse 4, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved.”

As you look at that, you notice there are a few key words. One, every spiritual blessing begins with this – it’s – He chooses you. In other words, you might write in your notes: God wants me.

Some of you know someone that you want to date or you want to marry. Some of you are looking for someone to fill a position and you want this kind of person. This word is used negatively: the FBI has a top ten list that they really want and they are pursuing.

If you want them, what do you do? Your pursue them. Here’s what I want you to know; this is an amazing thing. God wants you. He wants you for Himself.

I remember as a kid – I grew up in the suburbs so it was lawn, driveway, lawn, driveway, lawn, driveway. This is a touchdown, this is a touchdown. And the big kids would play. And it was tackle. Stupid, I know.

And I was always three or four years younger. And I was small and I was skinny. And so, they would pick up sides and I would get down to the last two guys and it was just, “Choose me! Choose me! Choose me! I’m a stupid, young kid. I’ll dive on the concrete! I’ll make you laugh! I’ll try and tackle the big guys. I’ll do whatever you want. I just want to belong. I just want to be on the team.”

And that desire is in you and me, just the teams change, don’t they? I want to be on that team, I want to be in that fraternity. I want to be in the group that lives in that section of town. I want to have…I want to be in the group whose kids go to that college. I want to be someone that, when they look at me at the gym, I have that kind of body. I want to belong; I want to be wanted.

Do you realize so much of our lives is doing crazy things to want to belong to other people that, honestly, they don’t care too much about us? And God says, I want you.

I want you, I love you, and here are the implications. This wasn’t written for people to debate. This was written for people to know that the awesome God who spoke the galaxies into existence sent God the Son and He died in your place. And when He did, you cannot just be forgiven, but He wants you and whosoever will.

The Scripture says God is not willing or desiring that any should perish, but all would come to a knowledge of the truth. And he says, Ephesians, I chose you just like I chose Israel, and I chose Israel not to reject other nations. I chose them so they would be a light to share it with other people.

Now, let’s ask ourselves what it means to get an accurate view of God that I am chosen, number one; and that I am adopted.

What does God say about those who are in Christ? Number one, we are chosen by Him. Literally, we are picked out personally for Himself.

Notice, it’s unearned. It’s not based on what you do. It’s eternal; from the foundations of the earth. But here’s the core truth: you are wanted by God. Think of all the things we do to be wanted. We want to be attractive. We all got up and we dressed. You thought about: what are you going to wear?

We want to be wanted. Our lives often are just filled with: if I can do this, or, if I could achieve this, or, if I looked like this, or, if I could have that, or, if I achieve that, then I would be more acceptable and then I would be wanted.

Can I just ask you something? What if that got solved? What if, in your heart of hearts, instead of needing and having and wanting to be wanted? I don’t really think this is right, but I don’t think he’ll love me if we don’t go to bed. You know what? I don’t think this is really right, but if I don’t let him on the traveling team or her on the traveling team, I know it’s messing up our family but I want him to really feel accepted by his friends. I don’t think that is a really good group for my daughter. I don’t think that’s really the right place, but I don’t want to be too hard, because she might feel rejected and miss out because her…

What if we taught our kids and what if all of us said: You know what? We all desire to be in. We all desire to belong. We all desire to be wanted. But what if we didn’t need it anymore? What if you were so wanted and so loved and so secure by the One who made you and the One who died for you and the One who you will spend eternity with forever and ever and ever, that you had a freedom to say, “I don’t have to work seventy-two hours. I don’t have to keep up with everybody at work. My kids don’t have to all get into these schools or those schools. If they do, it’s great. I don’t have to put pressure on them, because my value, my okay inside my soul – it’s not what other people think.” It really isn’t.

And, yet, this disease is in all of us, correct? So, the big question is: how do you break it? I think he goes on and tells us. He says you’re not only chosen, but you’re adopted by Him. That means complete in all the rights and privileges of being a part of His family. It’s irrevocable. Once you’re adopted into His family, you’re a part of His family.

And the core truth is you are accepted by God and you are His child. Now, let me give you a picture that will help you with this, because right now, your body language and your eyes are telling me, I’m leaning forward and I’d like to get this, but I don’t have it yet.

I have a friend who grew up in an orphanage. His name is Billy. He was in the orphanage until he was eight years old and everybody that he grew up in this orphanage with is people would come in, “I want this one. I want this one.” Billy kept – he’s left out, left out, left out, left out.

By the time you’re eight, most all of your cute, little friends are gone. And finally one day, a family walked in and looked at him and said, “We want you.” And so, Billy was adopted. His name was legally changed. They didn’t have any children, so he had a bedroom all by himself.

The family came in, he tells the story, that they came in the first few nights and he was sleeping on the floor. And they said, “What are you doing? We have this nice bed. We’ve got all these new things for you.” And he goes, “I have never slept in a bed. I am unworthy to sleep in that bed.” Hmm. And then they looked in the closet and there was food stuffed in the closet. Billy, when they weren’t looking, went to the refrigerator, he got food, and he hoarded it, and he stuck it – why? Because that’s what he has always done.

He didn’t feel loved, he didn’t feel worthy, he couldn’t receive love, and so His greed and His fear of rejection or not having, even though he was legally adopted and had a mom and dad who loved him, and his name was officially changed and he was deeply loved, he kept living like an orphan.

Can I ask you a really penetrating question? And if you can let the denial drift off just for a moment, how many of you are living like spiritual orphans? You are loved by God, but you are looking for it everywhere else. You are loved by God and He has a great plan and you are putting Him on hold and your whole life and your energy is about gaining approval and acceptance and love somewhere else.

Well, Billy grew up. He became one of my professors. And he has been dealing with this issue his whole life, even to adulthood, to the point that all those things about pleasing people, all those things about fearing rejection until God did a great work in his life. And then, at one point, he decided God called him to plant a church and he would take a risk. It used to be called South Hills. And Billy’s name is Bill Lawrence. Bill Lawrence taught me to preach. Bill Lawrence figured out: he’s adopted. He is loved by a Father. He is cared for deeply.

He didn’t have to – when he went to school, he got this degree, that degree, that degree, that degree. He just kept running after: what will make me acceptable? Until even after being a pastor for ten years, he had a breaking moment. And he began to understand what it means to be adopted by a loving, caring Father that is in a reality in your heart.

What does it really mean to be adopted? When we hear the words that I have just shared, they make some sense to us, but they make a lot more sense to the people who got this.

That word adopted to us is, now, it means a lot to me. I adopted two boys. If you have adopted kids or if you are adopted, I will tell you, this passage means a lot more to you. But if you were in Ephesus and you were hearing this read, adoption, you would think the Roman law. The only people that get adopted are adults. They didn’t adopt children.

And the people that got adopted would be if my wife and I couldn’t have children and we don’t have any heirs, we would find the smartest, best, most wonderful person who was an adult in their, probably, mid-twenties or thirties and we would adopt them. And according to Roman law, their past life vanished. Even if they had any debts, it vanished. Their name was changed and they became officially part of our family. In other words, they earned it. They are such a wonderful person, they would be adopted.

And these Christians are reading this and saying, “That’s what a wealthy person in Rome would do. But God of the universe adopted us unworthy people? He did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves?” Can you imagine this sense of, Wow! I must be valuable! I must be really important. I must be lovable. And that’s what happened to them.