True Spirituality - How to Come to Grips with the Real You, Part 2

How do you come to grips with the real you?

I mean down deep. How do you discover who am I really, and where do I belong, and why did God put me on this planet, and am I going to discover it and actually do it? If those are questions that nag in the back of your mind, don't miss today's broadcast.

We're going to address it. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip serves as our Bible teacher on this daily international discipleship program. I'm Dave Druey, and we're currently in the middle of Chip's series, True Spirituality, Becoming a Romans 12 Christian.

So if you've missed any of the previous programs, let me suggest you catch up at livingontheedge.org or via the Chip Ingram app. Now if you have a Bible, open it now to Romans chapter 12, and let's join Chip for part two of his message, How to Come to Grips with the Real You. Romans chapter 12 verses three through eight is actually going to help you discover, I mean the tipping point of discovering who you are, where you belong, and what you're supposed to do. Verse three will tell us in just a minute who you are, verses four and five will say where you belong, and verses six through eight will be the beginning of you getting really clear on your role and what you're supposed to do. But I want to tell you kind of a follow-up story because it's one thing to say, okay, everyone's desperately insecure, what do you do with that? Must have been 10, 15 years later, and I'm on this journey, in fact on a three by five card I wrote shortly after that. It's just my desire cards to renew my mind.

Lord, I long to be more authentic in every relationship by your power and your grace. And I was invited to, I found out later, a very exclusive dinner, it's called the National Religious Broadcasters, and they had probably the top maybe 20 or 30 communicators in America with their wives, and these people put on this dinner. And I had no idea, you know, like we're on 10 stations, or I don't know, it was not like, I mean it was like Chuck Swindoll's on every station has written 25 or 30 books, and he's sort of the voice of America and still going strong. And so I come to this dinner with my wife, it is like, it made when I was intimidated before seem like, you know, just baby steps.

And so of all things, there's, you know, they go around and they have a little name plate and, you know, and so I sit down and the name plate next to me is Chuck Swindoll. And I'm going, oh, no. And so, you know, I have time and I'm sitting there and I, you know, for me too, I'm from California, and you know, I got a tie on and a coat and I'm totally uncomfortable just in how I'm dressed and, you know, it's real fancy and it's in real fancy place. And, you know, he sits down, I sit down, I'm sitting there thinking, what am I going to do?

Because, I mean, I'm not thinking I'm insecure, I'm feeling very insecure. And so I go through my mind about like, how should I do this? Maybe I'll take that, hey, Chuck, how's it going, man? Nah, I don't think that'll work. How about the real, excuse me, Dr. Swindoll, how's the ministry going?

Nah, I don't think that'll work. I mean, I was literally, you know, don't you all do this? Like, what am I going to do in this situation? And I remembered this. Everyone's desperately insecure.

I can't really believe he is, but I'm thinking the Bible's true. So I just thought, I'm going to keep applying what I've been learning. And I tapped him on the shoulder, he turned, said, excuse me, Mr. Swindoll, this is my first time here. And I just have to tell you, I'm way over my head, this is very intimidating, we're not on very many stations, I don't not only know how to act, I don't know how to do this whole broadcasting thing.

Could you give me a couple tips? And I'll never forget, he pulled back his chair, put his arm around me like this, we got back, Chip, call me Chuck. And for the next half hour, he began to explain the journey. And then for the next six or seven years, I went to that dinner, Chip, come here. And he would kind of say, well, tell me what's happening, and then he would coach me.

And why? I could have posed, I could have said, do you understand? We were all on one station, we're on seven stations now. What do you think?

Oh yeah, worldwide. Well, that's pretty good, you know. But do you understand what happens when you take off your mask and you're just real and you're honest with where you're really at? Do you know what it is?

Do you know who's coming out? The most attractive person on the planet that God made. The real you. Now look in your notes, because here's what I want, I want to take you on a journey to the beginning points of discovering who you really are, where you really belong. And then what you're supposed to do. God's answer to the dysfunctional pattern of hiding and shame and fear and denial is this.

Who are you? Verse three, for by the grace of God given to me, I say to everyone among you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. If you have that pen, pull it out, underline the word think, then when you get to then you ought, underline the word ought, but rather think, underline the word think, and then underline sober judgment. So you have think, ought, think, and sober judgment.

You underlined ought because in the original language it's how you ought to think, but as they translated it for just a smoother reading, they omitted that word. The same root word, think, think, think, and sober judgment is all the same root word. The word sober judgment gives us the best idea. It's don't think of yourself like someone who's drunk. When a person's drunk, what do they do?

There's an external influence that gets inside of them that cause them to look at life in a way that's not accurate. So he says, don't be drunk by the world system, don't be drunk by what everybody would think, don't be drunk by what your family tells you. You need to have a sober self-assessment. You need to think accurately about yourself.

That's the first command. You need to come to the point where physically, relationally, spiritually, emotionally, your soul, you can look in the actual mirror and say I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. And come to the point where these are my strengths, these are my weaknesses, God given, this is how he's given me, but where you think accurately about yourself.

Notice, don't think too highly of yourself, don't think too lonely of yourself, but to think of a sober or accurate judgment. And then this little phrase, notice it says, according to the measure of faith that God's given you. Newell in his commentary on Romans really puts it well. He says faith in this situation is not a subjective faith. In other words, it's not faith in Christ, it's the faith. He says it's the standard by which we're to evaluate ourselves.

This objective faith is the biblical view of ourself. It's who you are in Christ. It's how God has gifted you. It's understanding his plan for you.

It's like the first three chapters of Ephesians. You need to see yourself as loved, adopted, sealed by the Spirit. You have a purpose, you're his workmanship.

Everything you need, you possess in Christ. You're a son, you're a daughter, you're forgiven, you're loved. That's who you are. Most of us don't think that way about ourselves. That's why the world has such pools on us. I'll be accepted, I'll be significant if I look like that or if I act like that or if I make so much money or if people think this or if my kids do that.

And it's a losing proposition. First and foremost, we need to think accurately about ourself because this is who God says that we are. We all know people think too highly of themselves, right?

It's called arrogance or pride. And you know, they kind of strut in. Have you seen my new shoes? You know, I was at Nordstrom's the other day. Or, you know, I just hate it when it's just, it's so busy this time of year in Cabo. You know, the Lexus dealership gave me such a hard time.

I am just absolutely frustrated with, you know, I think I'm going to go with the Bentley next time. Now, it doesn't take long for us. And by the way, those are our mild, funny illustrations. Believe me, we figured out how to do that spiritually with verses and posing just as well.

But that would be too convicting, so I didn't want to go there. But we've all been around people that write the superiority and everything in you goes, I don't want to be around that person. They think too highly of themselves. See, actually, they're a scared little boy or a scared little girl that's afraid you won't like them and they've learned that's how to hide.

And then there's other people that, you know, they think too lowly of themselves. God could never use me. I'm worthless. I don't have any good. I know the Bible says there's gifts, but I know, you know, like he went through the whole human race and he got to me and goes, oh, I ran out.

I don't have any gifts. I don't have any value. If you knew where I came from, there's no hope for me. Now, get this. If you think too highly of yourself or too lowly of yourself, who are you thinking about? You. See, humility isn't thinking too high or too low. Humility isn't thinking of yourself at all.

The Apostle Paul would say, consider others as more important than yourself. It reminds me, I haven't done a lot of this, but if you've ever gone bowling, sometimes I go bowling, not very often, like once every three or four years. And, you know, those guys on TV, they make it curve. So, you know, I'm going to try and make it curve. And I've done research on this. I can curve it into the left gutter.

And just this is an experiment. How many pins, if you curve it into the left gutter, do you get? Zero. Well, then I try and overcompensate and I try and throw to the right. And if it goes in the right gutter, how many pins do you get? See, it doesn't matter if you think too high or if you think too low. You miss.

Those are gutter balls. God commands. By the way, this is a command. He commands you and He commands me to think accurately, clearly, biblically about who you really are. It starts with understanding that command, and then it takes a journey and a process of renewing your mind, because people and the media and the world has been telling you who you are your whole life, and you've got to break out of that. And you say, well, why is that so important?

Because if you don't understand who you are, you'll never understand where you belong. Notice the very next verse, verses four and five. It says, just as each of us has one body, speaking of the physical body, and many members, like eyes and hands and feet, et cetera, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we are many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

Now, in your notes, right above just as, I want you to write the word for, F-O-R. There's a little preposition in Greek that when it comes, it means reason. And again, to smooth out translation sometimes, just as sounds good, but the reason, he's saying the reason you must understand who you are and think accurately about you is for, just as the human body has many parts and all don't have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and you fit. And if you didn't know you were an eye, you would know where you fit.

If you don't have a sober self-assessment of you, you don't know where you fit. If you ask the average person, what are your top three strengths? What are your top three weaknesses?

Oh, three, I got nine. But here's what he's saying. Imagine these fingers coming out like this are your strengths. God gives you strengths that build your confidence and allow you to understand you have a unique contribution to help other people. Now, we live in a world where we're not even supposed to have any weaknesses, and so we sort of avoid, lie, deny, pretend. But God gave you weaknesses to create dependency and humility, so there's interdependency, so other people's strengths meet your weaknesses, so they do for you and in you what you couldn't do, so you need people.

You know what that creates? Interdependency or humility, and it creates beauty. Your assignment is I want you to really think and pray about what are your top three strengths. Not what people think, what you think, what does God say?

Maybe go to a few close people that know you well that will be honest. Some of us want to write strengths because we think it would make us a somebody. But what are your strengths? That's a journey. And then actually write down what do you think your top three weaknesses are.

And when you get those, what you understand is instead of all this energy of covering them and acting like you don't have them, you just realize those are invitations by the God who made you to let people come into your life and love you in ways that you desperately needed. I had two kids in college at one time, two kids in Christian schools, and at that little window of time, I remember reading the paper, Santa Cruz was the most expensive place to live in America. More than Manhattan, more than San Francisco, and it was just crazy, and just trying to make it was just very difficult. And so when something broke down in our house, calling the repairman wasn't an option. I didn't have any money to call the repairman. And there was an elder in our church, a very godly man, a retired school teacher, but he was a shop teacher.

He could fix anything. And so when the dryer would go out, and we bought a really older home that had lots of repair, and when it rained, the rain came in through one window, and every time the dishwasher, I didn't know why my wife had upset her so much, but we just put a towel under the dishwasher so it would catch the water, take out the dishes that seemed to work fine to me, but she really didn't think that was a good plan. And so Dick would come over, and on my day off, about 60% of my day offs, Dick and I, that's what I call it, Dick and I would fix things. Which meant I drove to Home Depot with Dick, I bought the parts, and then I would kneel down next to Dick and hand him the tools and ask a few questions, and finally he said, Chip, you're never going to understand this anyway, but it's okay. I learned more about being a man of God.

He had grown kids, he was about 20 years older than me, about how to be a dad, and how to be a pastor from Dick than probably anybody in that church. Why? Because I had a need. I mean, I can't fix anything. I mean, I literally, I can't fix anything.

I mean, the iPad came out, I can hardly get around an iPad, I'm so un-technical, I mean, you can fall off a truck and use one of those. But that need created a relationship. What would happen if you came to grips with the real you, took off your mask of projection and holograms, and recognized that God would want to bring people into your life, and what if you would take away your false humility and realize some of you are really good at some things, instead of going, well, you know, I don't want to say anything like I'm good at that because they might think I'm trying to, they might think you're just trying to love them. I'll tell you what, it's God's design. It's powerful, it's beautiful, it's amazing. What I just described can't happen unless you're relationally connected and people know you, and you open up, and you take those baby steps of trust.

Being in a small group will not make you deep in relationship, but it's the container in which happens most often where you really share your life and your heart. And so who are you? You need to think accurately about yourself the way God sees you.

Why? Because you have a role to fulfill. You have a role to fulfill. And you can't know what that role is unless you know who you really are. And third, then you say, well, what role is it?

Where do I fit? Show me, God. He's going to say, I've deposited in you a primary spiritual gift.

Are you ready? A primary spiritual gift so that you can know, you can do a lot of different things, but I want you to take the lion's share of your energy in the body of Christ and focus here. Look what he says in verses six through eight.

What are you supposed to do? He says we have different gifts according to what? According to the grace given to us.

So what they are, if we're given by God, there's no room for pride. Then he says if a man's gift is prophecy, let him use it in the proportion of his faith. If it's serving in his service, if it's teaching in his teaching, if it's encouraging or counseling, let him encourage. If it's giving or contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously. If it's leadership, let him do it diligently.

If it's showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. Now, we could go through and we have on the back of your notes, there's your divine design and we can help you learn and discover what those gifts are and discover what yours are. The point of this passage is not explaining the gifts.

What's the point? If you're gifted to teach, no trick question, what are you supposed to do? Teach. If you're gifted to counsel and encourage, what are you supposed to do? Counsel and encourage.

Come on. If you're gifted to lead, do it diligently, right? The point is there's a lot of things you could do. You are gifted and you have a unique something to bring to the body of Christ. This is how you make a matrix of where to spend your time in life and energy and priorities.

You don't have to be on every committee and help everything in the community and everything everywhere all the time. You need to have a matrix of these are my strengths, these are my weaknesses, primary spiritual gift, these are my priorities, this is the season of life that I'm in. Okay, Lord, line me up. And when you do that, you discover more and more who you are and you will discover that you deeply belong and you'll be doing what he made you to do. And so the practice here, put very simply, is to discover and deploy your spiritual gifts. Discover and deploy your spiritual gifts. You answer these questions by thinking accurately about yourself, getting relationally connected, discovering and deploying your spiritual gifts. And as you turn to the last page, I just want to remind you, sometimes you can dig down into these questions.

I just want to remind you, remember what Jesus said? True spirituality. Don't get caught up in the Rs or surrender to God, separate from the world, sober self-assessment.

Those are great, but all those are what? Those are just a profile so that you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. You love others as the way you're learning to begin to appreciate and love you. And you'll never love you until you begin to remember and grasp how God sees you, not how you see yourself, not how your mom saw you, not how your dad who wasn't around did or didn't see you, not how your peers see you. And so there's three things I want you never to forget, okay? You can look up the verses.

These are ones if I was you, I would memorize. In fact, I have. I want you to never, ever forget who you really are. God uniquely created you. You are eternally valuable. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. This passage will go on and talk about when you were in your mother's womb, you were being fashioned in the embryo by the creator of the world because he had a plan for you and he made you special just the way you are and he not only loves you, are you ready for this? God likes you.

I meet people all the time that are convinced, I think God loves me, I just don't think he likes me. He's proud of you, he sings over you. The second thing never forget is that God placed you in his family. You are unconditionally accepted. Ephesians 3, Paul prays.

I pray that you might grasp beyond understanding the height and depth and length and breadth and know the love of Christ. He loves you. He loves you regardless of where you've been. He's regardless of what's happened to you. He loves you even no matter what's happened because of Christ's work on the cross, his death that paid and covered your sin.

If you're a follower of Jesus, he's redeemed you and he loves you and he takes your sins as far as the east is from the west. You're the object of his affection. If no one else cares about you, he does. And third, never forget that God gifted you to fulfill his purpose. You are irreplaceably significant. You're significant. You're his workmanship created in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2 says.

Unto a good work that no one can uniquely do just like you. When you think accurately about yourself and it is hard work, it'll change you, it'll change your marriage. If you're a parent, it'll change your parenting. These are the kind of things that you do with your kids. These are the kind of things with all the pressures that you renew their mind, that you have bedtime and sit around the table.

These are the kind of things you do with a roommate realizing that you need to be the right person, not find the right person. And when you get an accurate view of yourself, you're the most beautiful, attractive, winsome person on the face of the earth because there's no one like you. Chip will be right back with his application for this message, How to Come to Grips with the Real You, from his series, True Spirituality, Becoming a Romans 12 Christian. This six-part series sheds light on how to move your relationship with God from a performance-oriented existence to a loving, grace-filled life. In these messages, Chip describes the profile of an authentic follower of Jesus and provides practical steps for how we can get there. Now, for those who don't know, True Spirituality is the core discipleship teaching here at Living on the Edge. And because of that, we have a ton of great resources to help you get plugged in with this series, whether that's the study guides, the DVDs or CDs of Chip's teaching, the book, or our free MP3s. For a limited time, all of these helpful resources are discounted. So order your True Spirituality resources today by going to livingontheedge.org.

App listeners, tap Special Offers. Well, Chip, in the last year to 18 months, we've all been through a lot. Some have made it through way better than others. Now, as you think about it, is there a common thread that sustained believers? I mean, something that's allowed them to not only survive, but actually thrive through this difficult time?

Dave, it's actually very simple. There's many, many, many Christians that are very sincere, and they're in. I mean, they're in. They love God. They've prayed to receive Christ. They're in the Bible now and then. They're trying to be a good person.

They're kinder than the average person. But here's the deal. They're not all in. They haven't made that big shift from, Lord, I love you, and sort of on my terms, to that Romans 12 one moment of full surrender. And what I can tell you is it is a scary moment, but it is that moment of surrender, of going all in, that allows the power of God to give perseverance and perspective and answers to prayer. Well, Chip, that sounds like something we know could be, but, you know, unless we know how, it's hard to take that step. Now, what are we doing to help people who are ready to say, Okay, Lord, I'm ready to follow you.

No matter what, I'm all in. Dave, we've actually developed something that has been one of the most exciting things I've ever done in my life. It's called Daily Discipleship with Chip. And right now, we're going through True Spirituality, Romans 12. And it's not a Bible study. It's not me teaching at people. It's me meeting one-on-one individually and mentoring people. It's walking through the barriers to surrender and how to study the Bible. And I speak never more than 10 minutes. And then I give them 10 minutes with a very clear outline to do some digging on their own.

And it's just for 17 days. At the end of it, what I see is people develop a habit. People walk with God on their own. And what I have seen is people learn to go from in to all in because their view of God gets bigger.

They can trust Him more. Life changed. Things that were barriers for years, whether addictions or struggles or relationship issues, over and over and over, I watch God melt those away.

Dave, maybe you could take a minute, and why don't you tell them how they can get connected? Be glad to, Chip. Well, we're so excited to share with you this new Daily Discipleship with Chip, True Spirituality, based in Romans chapter 12. Our heart behind this video series is to really help you dive into God's Word and discover how to more intentionally live out your faith. For 17 days, you and Chip will walk through what true spirituality looks like and how you can put these truths into practice. If you're looking for the next step along your faith journey, let me encourage you to be a part of Daily Discipleship with Chip, True Spirituality. You can sign up for this study right now. And when you do, we'll send you our friend Lance Witt's devotional based on Romans 12, called Leave Ordinary Behind at No Cost.

Sign up now while this offer lasts by going to livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. App listeners, just tap Discipleship. As we close today's program, I want to make a connection for you. I mean, I do have to tell you that it is really exciting to watch people go on this journey and begin to discover who God really made them. And I will mention, not by way of advertisement, but by way of really help and resource, when people get to this part where we talk about, so what is your primary spiritual gift, over and over and over. I see this blank look and maybe I took a couple tests and I don't really know what my gift is or how to find it. We have a resource called Your Divine Design and we would love to help you go through that and discover who God made you to be. But along with your primary spiritual gift, what I have to tell you that is most exciting is the connection between being separate from the world and serving in love and having a sober self-assessment. This is the aha that I've done with multiple, multiple groups is when people discover, oh, this is who God made me. And when they get that little 3x5 card I talked about and they say, these are my strengths and that's wonderful.

And you know, yes, I do have weaknesses, so God has people in my life. They invite people into their world like never before. And the other thing is you don't have to pose.

You know, a lot of our conformity to the world and we've got to look this way and act that way and drive this kind of a car and have a purse that has this design on it and drop names and tell people this and that, all that is about we don't really know who we are and so we're trying to project this stuff. You get a sober self-assessment. I'm telling you, it not just frees you to be you, but a lot of the temptations, a lot of the world that pulled on you, you're thinking to yourself, you know something, I don't need that anymore because the most beautiful person in the world, the most attractive person in the world is the one that God made. So can I encourage you, thank God today for how He made you and look in the mirror and literally go ahead, do it out loud with no one around and look in the mirror and say, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Thank you, Lord Jesus. Well, the resource Chip just mentioned is called Your Divine Design, how to discover, develop and deploy your spiritual gifts. As a Living on the Edge listener, you know we're committed to helping Christians really live like Christians and Your Divine Design helps you take one of the most important steps in your spiritual growth, understanding your spiritual gifts. You'll learn how to recognize spiritual gifts, why you need to develop those gifts and how you can start using them. Now, if you're ready to experience a greater sense of purpose and joy in your life, Your Divine Design is for you. You'll find this resource on our website at livingontheedge.org. Well, be sure to join us again next time when Chip continues his series, True Spirituality. Until then, this is Dave Drouie saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.