Sincerely God......

This last week at Youth Group we had an great time. Here is the sermon notes from what we talked about if you couldn't make it.

Sincerely God. Week 1

Performance

Dear loved one,

I’m writing you to let you know how much you mean to me, and I’m hoping you start to see yourself the way I see you.  There is a lie out there that says your self worth equals your performance plus others opinions. I want you to know thats a lie!  If your thinking that you need to meet certain standards in your life in order for you to be valuable, then let me free you from that.  If you fear failure, let me help you.  Your worth is not found in your ability to meet standards well.  I have given you peace in this area by justifying you based on what my son Jesus was like.  You are fully pleasing to me just as you are. I mean this.

Sincerely, God

What if you were able to receive in the clearest form possible a letter from God expressing His deepest most truthful thoughts about you.

What if you could really know how God saw you.

So he asked me how does God see me?

We know how we see ourself,  we know how we see other people. But is that the same way that God sees you?

Colossians 1:21-22 

And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and free from accusation

If you are a Christ follower God sees you Holy, Blameless, and free from all accusations from  the enemy!

Colossians 3:12

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;

Add that to the list..... Your Holy and free from all accusation, without blemish, dearly loved, chosen by God

Hebrews 10:14

For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

So you can add perfect to the list

So if God was making a list of how He saw you this would be the list.  Holy and free from all accusation, without blemish, dearly loved, chosen, righteous, and perfect.

That should blow you away that this is how God sees you.

You might say well Derek this is not how I see myself or others.

Today most of us see ourself in two different realms.

1. Performance- Your ability to do things well
2. Approval- approval you get from other people

These come together to form you... me..... My self worth, who you are cane become wrapped up in these two categories

There is such a huge lie out there right now a lie from the pit of hell. It’s that your self worth is defined by your performance + others people opinion of you.... And it is a LIE!!!!!

The performance part is what I bought into when I became a Christ Follower. That I had to meet certain standards in my life in order to be valuable to God. I had to measure up in order for me to feel good about myself.

If I didn’t measure up and if I fell short somehow then my whole self worth was in the tank.

I don’t know where your at in this but the fear of failure for me got pretty out of control. I couldn’t stand failing to measure up because that meant I wasn’t performing well and if I wasn’t performing well then God was not happy with me. 

And it was this downward spiral that leads you to view yourself and others in a way that does not line up to God’s word.

This tends to be exhausting.

I’m not sure where you are at in this area..... But here are some some statements and you read I want you to rate on a scale of 1-10 rate if you struggle with it all.

This will indicate wether you have bought into this lie...

1) Because of fear I often avoid participating in certain activities

1. When I scenes that I may fail I become nervous and anxious 
2. I worry
3. I unexplained anxiety 
4. I’m a perfectionist
5. I’m compelled to justify my mistakes
6. there are certain areas I feel that I must succeed 
7. I become depressed when I fail
8. I’m self critical

if you scored higher then a 5 honestly... then the performance trap has sunk it’s teeth into you!

I struggled with this for a while, do you?.... I think I struggled with it I think from the begining. Being the Black sheep of the family

I thought that if I always measured up to God then I would never feel out of place or rejected by Him.

Eventually when you live life that way you become exhausted and you find yourself questioning your faith, not reading your bible, not attending youth group, hanging out with a different crowd. etc..

So in reading the scriptures we see a entirely different truth and realize that it’s completely different from what the world demands from us. Our whole culture and world revolves around the performance factor....

If you......

Look a certain way, talk a certain way, dress a certain way, if you achieve some high status in life then you are considered valuable and important in others eyes!!!!!

How liberating is it to come to the realization that God is on a whole other level, he has the remedy to crack this awful deceiving formula called performance.!!!

Let’s look at a very important word in this remedy. 

Justification

Justification is this..... You being justified before God. 

Colossians 1:21-22 

And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and free from accusation

Once you were separated or a enemy of God but now through the work of Christ your relationship is now ok and intact

Before being Justified through Christ the banner on our life was sin/separated. 

Now this banner defined you.... this is who you are..... you are a sinner separated from God!

Now through what Christ did on the cross and resurrected from the dead. He kicked sin out and when you become a Christ follower Jesus come inn and wrecks your life in a good way!!1

He takes this banner of sin and separation and places a new reality... a new banner onto us Forgiven, Holy, Righteous, Chosen, Loved, and Blameless!!!

Jesus died to justify us before God and taking away our sin..

Justification doesn’t stop there. 

Jesus had a banner of His own. Ours said sinner, His said Righteousness.

This is who He was. This was His identity

So justification is about trading banners. Jesus giving us His righteousness, it’s transfered to you.

2 Corinthians 5: 21

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

God made Jesus our sin as we transfered our banner to Jesus and He died with that sin. And after His resurrection His righteousness came back with Him and now we get to wear that and it’s declared over us!!

The moment you step into a relationship with God you exchange banners!!!! And from that moment on you are declared free and righteous!!!! God declare you righteous, that is how we can pray to him, and that is how we can live for him. God has been doing this from day one. He spoke in the begining and formed the world out of nothing. He spoke and it happened.

The same goes today, we serve the same God, he declares you righteous and it is so. He took nothing and made it into something.

This is our God, none of us deserve this but tonight if you are a Christ follower this is spoken over you and it’s not because of your performance.

Justification does not give you the excuse to live how you want to with no respect for consequence, a true understanding of what Justification is will cause you to live for His Kingdom and not YOURS!!!!

Where Are You? 

Are You Separated From God?

Are you caught up in the Performance Trap?

Right Now God is Calling us to Clothe ourselves in His Righteousness through Justification!!!