WINNING WITH THE HAND YOU’RE
DEALT
Creating A Positive ID – Part 3
06-30-13 Sermon
“Thank
you for making me so wonderfully complex!” Psalm 139:14 (NLT)
“A person who fears God deals
responsibly with all of reality, not just a piece of it.” Eccles.
7:18 (MSG)
FIVE
FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE MY IDENTITY
“Life
is like a hand of poker. You have to play the cards you’re dealt.”
1. MY______________________________________________________________________
2. MY______________________________________________________________________
3. MY______________________________________________________________________
4.
MY______________________________________________________________________
5.
MY______________________________________________________________________
FIVE WINNING CHOICES
1. I Can Choose_______________________________________________________
“You
made my body, Lord; now give me sense to heed your laws.” Psalm 119:73 (LB)
2. I Can Choose _______________________________________________________
“Let love be your highest goal.” 1
Cor. 14:1a (NLT)
“I
pray that Christ will live in your hearts by faith and that your life will be strong
in love and
be built on love.” Eph. 3:17 (NCV)
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love
drives out fear.” 1 John 4:18 (NIV)
3. I Can Choose ________________________________________________________
“God
knows us far better than we know ourselves... That's why we can be so
sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into
something good. God knew what
he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the
lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The
Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and
intended shape of our lives there in him.” Rom.
8:27-29 (MSG)
“I
will praise the Lord no matter what happens.” Psalm 34:1 (LB)
4. I Can Choose __________________________________________________________
“Don't
copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a
new person by changing the way you think.”
Rom. 12:2 (NLT)
5. I Can Choose __________________________________________________________
“When
someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is
not the
same anymore. A new life has begun!”
2 Cor. 5:17 (LB)
WINNING WITH THE HAND YOU’RE
DEALT
Creating A Positive ID – Part 3
06-30-13 Sermon
The Bible says there’s
nothing simple about you. You’re
very complex. You’re
multifaceted. You’re not
easy to understand. You’re
not easy to explain. There are
many factors and there are many forces that create you. In Psalm 139:14, David says “Thank you Lord, for making me so wonderfully
complex.” Circle that on your
outline – “wonderfully complex.”
Guys if you’re sitting next to
your wife whisper into her ear right now, “Honey, you are wonderfully
complex!” And then wives you
whisper back, “You are amazingly simple!”
Actually, the Bible says
we’re all wonderfully complex. To
become all that God intends for you to be you have to look at every dimension
of your life, not just one.
Ecclesiastes 7:18 – I love
this in The Message paraphrase: “A person who fears God deals responsibly
with all of reality, not just a piece of it.” If you’re going to be who God wants you to be you’re going
to have to look at every area of your life. Every factor, every facet, every force in your life and deal
with all of them, to be all that God made you to be.
Today, I want us to look at
this subject of being who God meant you to be. I’m calling it Winning with the Hand You’re Dealt. Because
there are actually five factors in your life that influence your identity and
who you are.
You did not choose these
factors. God dealt some to you. There are some things that you have been dealt
in life. You didn’t choose
them. There are a lot of
things that make you you that you had
no choice in at all. They are the
hand you were dealt. But you’ve got to play the hand you were dealt.
The good news, and what I
want us to look at today, is that the Bible tells us how to still win the game
with the hand you’ve been dealt.
What we’re going to do today is talk about the five things that influence
your life that make you you and then
what God says to do with them to make sure you turn it into a winning hand.
1.
The first factor that makes you you is what I call My Chemistry.
This is your chromosomes.
It’s your dna. It’s your genes.
It’s your hormones. It is your chemical makeup. At the most basic biological level it’s you and your body. Everything that happens to you in your
life happens in your body and your body is made up of chemicals.
Every one of us have
structural and chemical weaknesses in our bodies. Some of you have a predisposition to your back going out.
It’s just the way your body’s wired.
All
of us have biological and chemical deficiencies. And these create emotional problems. These create physical
problems. These create mental problems in our lives.
I want you to write this down: No flaw is sinful or
shameful. In my physical body, in my
biology, in my chemistry, no flaw in me is shameful or sinful. It’s just how
you’re wired.
Any artist knows that they’ll
often create a flaw in a picture or in a vase or in a piece of pottery to say,
there’s nothing else like this in the world. It has this unique flaw in it. The flaw creates the uniqueness. Your genes have intentional flaws to
create your uniqueness. Your flaws
are a part of your custom design. God designed you and he even uses those flaws
for his purpose and his glory.
The first characteristic in
your life that makes you you is your
biology. Your body. Your chemistry.
2.
The second thing that determines your identity is Connections
– my Connections.
My connections are my
relationships in life. You
are a product of your relationships, especially your early year’s relationships. Those relationships may have been good
or they may have been bad. They may have been healthy. They may have been
unhealthy. They may have been
nonexistent. Or they may have been abusive. But you are a product of your
relationships.
Study after study has shown
that your identity, how you see yourself is largely determined by what you
think the most important people in your life think of you. What you think the
most important people in your life think of you tends to determine your
self-image, your self-esteem, your self-concept.
That’s why I’ve told you many
times to make sure Jesus is the most important person in your life. Because he’s going to love you
unconditionally and he’s going to tell you the truth.
So the connections in your
life, your relationships, help determine your identity. My connections give my life meaning. My
connections give my life purpose.
And my connections give my life identity.
One day Jesus was walking
down the street and a guy comes up and says, Lord, what’s life all about? And Jesus says, Life is all about
love. He said, You can summarize
all of life in two sentences: Love God with all your heart and love your
neighbor as yourself. Be connected to God and be connected with each other. Be
in harmony with God and be in harmony with each other.
There’s a third card that
makes you you. My chemistry – that’s my
biology, my body; my connections – that’s my relationship.
3.
The third card that makes you you and makes me me is My
Circumstances.
These are the things that
happen to you. These are the things
that happen around you. None of these things were in your control. You didn’t choose your
chemistry. You didn’t choose
your initial connections. And you certainly haven’t chosen all your
circumstances.
If you’ve ever been abused your
abuse has affected your identity whether it was physical, emotional, sexual or
whatever. If you’ve ever
experienced rejection, that has affected your identity. If you’ve ever had a
failure or a series of failures, major failures in your life, that has affected
your identity. If you had a crisis,
if you had a catastrophe, these are all things that leave scars on your identity.
Problems shape your life.
Pressures shape your life.
Pain shapes your life. It’s
part of what you were dealt in life.
There’s a fourth card, a fourth
factor that makes you you. And this is a big one.
4.
It’s what I call My Consciousness.
My Consciousness is how I
talk to myself. That’s your consciousness. How I talk to myself. How you think
about you.
You’re talking to yourself
constantly. Constantly. There is
never a time in your life when you are not talking to you. If you talk to your friends the way you
talk to you, they wouldn’t be your friends. Because you are your toughest critic.
And by the way, you lie to yourself all the time. The Bible says, the heart is
deceitful. You lie to yourself more
than you lie to anybody else. You tell
yourself things that just aren’t true, but you believe them.
Your consciousness influences
your identity. Other people said to you– you’re no good, you’re worthless, you’ll
never amount to anything, you’re uncoordinated, you aren’t very
attractive, you’re a loser, blah, blah, blah. You file that. But then you started repeating it. And you started
saying it over and over. That’s
just like me to be… this. That’s just like me to be... that. You’ve said it over and over and over
and it got deeper and deeper in your consciousness.
Your habitual thoughts are
your identity. What you think about you. That’s your identity. The Bible says
this. Proverbs 23:7, “For as a man thinks in his heart, so he
is.” What you think about you,
that’s you – whether it’s true or not.
Proverbs 4:23 says this: “Be careful what you think, because your
thoughts run your life.” If
you want your life to go in a different direction you’re going to have to
direct those thoughts in a different direction.
Here’s the amazing thing: When
you think a thought it doesn’t have to be true to hurt you. You just have to believe it. So if somebody says, you’re never going
to amount to anything, and you believe it, guess what? You’re never going to amount to
anything. If you tell yourself, this marriage isn’t going to last, it isn’t going
to last. The person who says I
can’t and the person who says I can are both right! For as a man thinketh so is he. Be careful what you think because your thoughts run your
life. And if you think a thought long enough you become it. And if you believe
it about yourself, you act it out.
Here’s the problem. You know those fears you’ve got that
you keep going over and over in your mind? Our fears are often self-fulfilling. We sabotage ourselves. We set ourselves
up. Job 3:25. Job says this. “What I have always feared has happened to
me. What I dreaded has come to be.”
A self-fulfilling prophecy.
That’s the problem with fear.
Fears can become reality. We start
acting in that way. “I’m afraid to
do this,” so then you are afraid to do this. “I’m afraid I can’t do this,” then
you can’t do that.
Write this down:
Feelings aren’t facts.
“I feel unattractive.” That doesn’t mean you are. “I feel fat.” That doesn’t mean you
are. “I feel dumb.” That doesn’t mean you are. “I feel nobody would ever want to marry
me.” Are you sure? Feelings aren’t facts. They’re feelings. And feelings lie all the time.
So my consciousness affects
my identity. But there’s a fifth
card. This fifth card is so important because it controls all the other cards.
5.
The fifth card that makes me me is My Choices.
The Bible says that you were
created in the image of God. What
does that mean?
It means a lot of things but
one of them is this: You have a
free moral choice. You have the choice
to choose. That’s because you’re made in God’s image. God made you. You can choose to do right or wrong.
The freedom of choice is your
greatest blessing. It is also your
greatest curse. Because we make
stupid choices all the time. We make dumb choices. We make self-defeating choices.
We make harmful choices that harm ourselves, our bodies, our circumstances and
everybody around us. So it becomes
a negative thing in our lives.
It’s a blessing but it’s also a curse.
But here’s the good news about
this card. God says it’s a
wild card. It’s the wild
card. This card can change the
suit and the number of any of the other cards you’re dealt. This is the wild card.
Your choices can determine
these other cards. I didn’t get to
choose my chemistry but I can choose what I do with my body and how I make the
most with what I’ve got. That’s my choice. And I can choose to do the best I can with what I’ve got.
I didn’t choose all
of my relationships but I can choose how I respond to them. And I can choose new
relationships. And I can choose to
learn relational skills. And I can
choose a lot of things that will change my connections.
I don’t choose my circumstances
but I certainly can choose how I respond to them. I am response-able. That means I’m responsible. I’m able to respond. God has
given us responsibility which means we have the ability to respond. I don’t control everything that happens
to me. But I control everything that happens in me, by what I choose to do in that response.
And even on my consciousness,
I didn’t control what people said to me, those old tapes that went in my mind
and I started believing, believing them. But I can choose to stop believing
them. And I can choose to think
differently. I can choose a
different consciousness. I can
control my thoughts. I can change the rudder of my boat by simply changing the
way that I think.
This is the good news. And if you use it you can change the
number and the suit of every card.
And your life and your destiny in eternity is determined by this
card. Ultimately your identity is
based on your choices. And it’s the wild card that can change everything else.
There are five winning choices
that you can make with the hand you’ve been dealt. Each of them has to do with
each of these cards.
With this first card, My Chemistry,
my biology, my chromosomes, my makeup, my physical being.
1.
First choice. I can choose to get healthier.
I don’t care what handicap
you have in your life. You can be healthier than you are right now. I can choose to get healthier. There are things that I can do that will
increase my energy. There are things
I can do that will lower my stress. There are things I can do that will cause
me to have more power, more health in my life. I can eat better, get more sleep, reduce the stress. There
are all kinds of things I can do.
And that’s totally in my control.
Psalm 119:73 says this, “You made
my body, Lord; now give me sense to heed your laws.”
So improving the control-ables
reduces the impact of the uncontrollables in my life. There are things in your
life you can’t change about your body.
But you can change the controllables. And you could have more energy than you’ve got. And you
could be in better shape. And you could probably extend your life some simply
by eating right, doing right, being right – things like that.
So that’s in your control.
Maybe you need to go get a checkup. Maybe you need to go get some blood work. Maybe
you need to go see a dentist. Maybe you need to get a supplement or get on some
kind of hormone replacement.
Whatever. I don’t know. But
the fact is, there are some steps you can do – medicine, exercise, controllable
things. So you start with the physical. The first card. What do I need to do
physically?
The second choice has to do
with My Connections.
2.
The choice I make here is I can Choose to Deepen Relationships.
That’s an intentional choice,
to make my relationships better. They can be better than they are right now. I can choose to
deepen my relationships. I can learn some communication skills. I can build some
new, healthy relationships and replace some bad, unhealthy relationships. I can reach out. I can work on my relationships.
I can risk connecting.
I don’t say that word “risk”
arbitrarily. Because any connection you make is going to be a risk. If you’re going
to build some new healthy relationships, you’re going to have to risk some
connecting.
Write this down:
The fear of rejection prevents connection. The
reason why you feel disconnected is your fear of being rejected, your fear of
disapproval, your fear of being hurt, your fear of others.
How do I get rid of fear? How do I get rid of that fear? 1 John 4:18, “There
is no fear in love.
[Circle “no fear.”] Perfect love casts out all fear.”
Why does love take away
fear? Because love takes the focus
off me and puts it on somebody else.
It’s not about me. My
needs, my health, my heart, my hurt. It’s about you. Love has no fear because it’s not about me.
Fear is FEAR – False Evidence Appearing Real. It’s not real.
So how do you get rid of the
fear in your life? The fear of
making that connection. The fear of making a commitment. The fear of getting to know a stranger. The fear of getting in a small group. All of these things. How do I get rid of that?
You can’t talk yourself out of
it because fear isn’t logical. It isn’t rational. So you can rationalize it all you want but it isn’t going to
go away.
There’s only one way to get
rid of fear. Do the thing you fear
the most. Move against your fear.
Fear does not go away by logic. Fear
goes away by action. You move and
the fear vanishes. Fear is always
worse than the reality. Why? Because fear torments you twenty-four
hours a day. And the reality of that might only last an hour. The fear is always worse than the reality.
So you have to say, what am I
going to do? 1 Corinthians 14:1 “Let love be your highest goal.” That
ought to be your goal for the rest of your life. It’s not about
accomplishments. It’s not about achievements. It’s not about fame. It’s about
love. Love is going to be my highest goal. Life is all about learning how to love.
Love means risking
connections. It means stepping out.
You ought to pray Ephesians
3:17, “I pray that Christ will live in
your hearts by faith and that your life will be strong in love [circle that
– “strong in love.”] and be built on love.
[Circle that “strong in love”
and “built in love.”] You ought
to pray that every morning. Every
morning get up and say, “Today, Jesus Christ, I want you to fill my heart by
faith. And Jesus Christ, today I want to be strong in love. And I want to be
built on love.”
The third, on the Circumstances
of life – the trauma, the trouble, the pain, the pressure, the problems, the
stress, the suffering in my life.
3.
I can choose to Trust God no matter what happens.
I can choose to trust God regardless
of my circumstances. And that
gives you an identity nobody else is going to have.
Romans 8:27-29, I love this
in the Message “God knows us far better
than we know ourselves… That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our
lives of love for God [circle “every detail”] is worked into something good. [It’s not all good but it can be
worked into something good.] God knew what he was doing from the very
beginning. He decided from the outset
to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The
Son, Jesus, stands first in the line of humanity he restored. And we see the
original and intended shape of our lives there in him.” God wants to use every circumstance in my
life to make me like Jesus.
Psalm 34:1, “I will praise the Lord no matter what
happens.” Friends, when you get
to that point, that’s a choice. It’s
the confidence that says hit me with your best shot! I will praise the Lord no matter what happens. That is a confidence that is built on
my relationship to God and it can’t be taken from me. I will praise the Lord no
matter what.
Write this down on your outline: I’m a product of my
past but I’m not a prisoner of it. I
am a product of my past. Yes, it has
influenced me. My chemistry, my
connections, my circumstances, they’ve all influenced me. I’m a product of my
past. But I am not a prisoner of it. And I can be different.
That leads me to number four
and this is a big one – the fourth choice.
4.
I can choose what I think about.
I can’t choose what other
people say about me or what they say to me. But I can choose what I continue to
allow in my mind. Your self is
created by your memories.
For years everybody thought
that the adult brain could not be changed. This is standard. But then a guy won the 2002 Nobel Prize in neurobiology for
proving that you can rewire the adult brain. You can change your brain. It is elastic. It
is not in concrete. And your brain
can change and it can be rewired regardless of what’s happened in your past. You can change.
It’s great that science in
2002 finally caught up with the Bible.
Because two thousand years earlier in Romans 12 God said this “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this
world… [the habits and their pattern of thinking] but let God transform you [change your mind, change your
brain. Transform you.] Let him transform you into a new person by
changing the way you think.” Change
your brain, change your life.
Philippians 4:8 “Dear brothers and sisters, let me say one
more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts [that means
intentional focus] on what is true and
honorable and right. [You need to fill your mind with the truth, not lies.]
Think about things that are pure and
lovely and admirable. Think about
things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” That means you get the garbage out of your life. You don’t watch junk tv. There are some movies you don’t go
to. There are a lot of books you
just don’t read, because you think about things that are excellent and worthy
of praise.
You can rewire your
brain. You can. It’s a choice. I can choose what I think
about. I can choose my consciousness.
There’s one more choice I can
make. Remember the fifth card is the wild card. This is the wild card that can change the number and the suit,
the color, of every other card that I’ve been dealt.
5.
The fifth choice I can choose is this. I can choose
Jesus as my Savior.
When I talk about Savior I’m
not just talking about saving you out of hell into heaven. I’m not just talking
about saving you from your sins and forgiving you. I’m talking about letting Jesus be your Savior every
day. This changes everything. Because when I choose Jesus as my Savior every
day, I get the power to follow through on these choices. I can make these choices
but I’m not going to stick with them on willpower. I’ve got to make choices and
then depend on Jesus to give me the power to do these things. I choose him as
my Savior.
I say, “Jesus, I need you to
save me from my chemistry. I need you to save me from my physical, emotional,
mental defects. I need your salvation in my heart, body and mind. Jesus, I need
you to save my relationships. They’re going south. I need you to save me to have
healthy relationships not hurtful, harmful ones. And Jesus, I need you to save
me from my circumstances. From the
problems, from the pressures, from the trauma, from the trouble. And Jesus, I
need you to save my mind and put a guard up there. Put on the helmet of
salvation. What’s the helmet for?
To guard your mind, so it protects you from the thoughts that come in
and influence you, because your mind controls your life. Jesus, I need you to save
me not from sin. I need you to save me from myself.”
The Bible says this: “When
someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He’s not the
same anymore. A new life has begun!” It’s like being born again. It’s like
starting over. That’s a whole new identity.
You think that you’re waiting
on God to change stuff in your life?
God. I’ve really wanted to be
married. God, I’ve really wanted to get healthier. God, I really wanted to have
that job. All those things
that you think you’re waiting on God for, God says, I’m waiting on you to use the wild card I gave you. Because according
to your faith it will be done unto you.
You get to choose. You get
to choose how much I bless your life. And it is never too late to start over.
Prayer:
Pray
this prayer with me in your heart:
Dear God, there’s some things in my hand that life has dealt me and that
others have dealt me that I don’t like. But I thank you for the wild card, that
you made me in your image and I can make choices. Today, in your power and in your strength, I choose to get
healthier. I choose to do the things
that will give me more energy and a healthier body and a healthier mind and
healthier emotions.
Then
say, Lord, I choose to build healthy relationships. I’m so scared to death but I’m going to risk building some
new healthy connections. There’s no fear in love. Help me to get the focus off
me and onto others. I want love to be my highest goal. Jesus, I want my heart to be filled
with you by faith. And I want to
be strong in love.
Dear
God, I choose to trust you regardless of the circumstances. I will praise the Lord
no matter what happens. I’m going to trust that every detail of my life is
being worked out for good and for God. I want to be like Jesus. I want to see
the original intended shape of my life in him.
Dear
God, thank you that I can choose what I think about. No more garbage in my mind. No more junk. I want to think on things
that are lovely and pure and honest and true. Help me to fill my life with the
positive memories that you’ve given me and the word of truth.
Most
of all, Jesus, I choose you as my Savior. I need you to do more than save me
from my sins and salvation into heaven. I need that. But even more, I need you
to save me from myself. I need you
to save me from all the things that have shaped me in the wrong ways. I need
you to help me to rewire my mind, my body, my heart, my relationships and every
part of my body so that the rest of my life is the best of my life. I pray this in the name of my Savior,
Jesus. Amen.
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