Being Remade In His Image
One of the conversations we need to have, on our journey to Becoming Real (our Fall Series), is about the modern idea of the “self.”
Did you know that depending on translation, the Bible uses the word “self” 115-175 times?!
But the Hebraic and Jewish ideas are radically different than what we mean when we say “myself”!
Watch last Sunday’s sermon “Peter Encounters Jesus - Part 1” from our Fall series Becoming Real.
In American Culture, we take for granted the idea of the self, it’s written into our constitution, our conversations, and inherent in our American dreams.
But the modern concept of the self is radically individualized (not interdependent on others), and self-made (choice driven), one who commands their own destiny (defined by our own will).
This is what scholars call “Humanism.” And though it sounds like humanism is about becoming better humans, it is not!
Humanism is actually a name reference to a rigid value system created by Scottish Philosopher David Hume who pioneered this model of the self, back in the 1700’s!
Hume conceived of the soul, as created by God, as an illusion (thus divorcing the self from God and incurring great skepticism about God’s involvement in His world).
Instead, Hume taught that we are a sum of experiences and memory that are always in flux, or fluid. Only when the self is loosed from the traditions, cultural definitions and external impeding forces, can you really be yourself, your true self.
This influences what it might mean for the modern self to “become real.” That a person must be stripped of all impeding forces and come to a deep knowing, almost a crisis of who they are, apart from all other influences. (This is where we get much of the deconstruction that has been popularized in the last decade.)
Some of you are asking, “Okay, why does this matter whether we have a self or not? Isn’t this just language? Does this really matter to Jesus?”
And yes, it does, because Jesus redefines us. He reshaped the core identity of many of the people He encountered—but He wasn’t doing it to just free them to be unrestrained from the shackles of the past, but to redefine them in light of who He designed them to be.
There is intention, relationship, power and unending life at the center of Jesus’ reality—the Kingdom of God.
It can be all too easy to think that “becoming real” is merely an exercise of the self, for the self, with God as a distant participant.
But Jesus laid His own life down to return us to His Father, the one who made us, the one who gave us a “self.”
He paid the biggest price to save and heal and bring wholeness to our “self.”
Not just to be free from others false designs for your life, but to enter into Jesus’ kind of life.
Paul says, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”
The self, in Christianity, is the rediscovery of our life in Jesus, of living out of the abundance of His love and life flowing through us.
It’s being remade in the image of the one who made us.
And instead of glorifying the self, we become captured by Jesus.
We keep our eyes on Him.
And, ironically, off our “self.”
Then we see that, “your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Jesus alone is holding you, died for you, and can truly give you the identity that comes from a love relationship with Him.
And as He becomes our treasure, we will find more and more of our true life, our true self, in the embrace of Jesus.
See you Sunday,
Pastor Dave
PS. If this is speaking to you. Or if you know someone who is thinking about faith like this—invite them and come to our Kick Off this Saturday for The Journey from 9:30-11am in the Sanctuary.
We’ll enjoy intentional spiritual conversations about the life of faith, so we can grow in the Lord together this fall!