A Whole New Vision // The Grace Transformation, Part 3

So many things can crowd our vision for the future, normally they're the things right under our noses in the here and now. But there’s a different reality, the Great Unseen Reality, which, if we get a handle on it, gives us a whole new vision of the future.

SIGHT FOR THE BLIND

It’s funny how you and I can be blind to something which is patently obvious to someone else. A lot of that has to do with proximity. I was sitting with a young man the other day who has a great business. He’s a well-known speaker and author and travels all over the world and he’s an absolutely delightful human being, not full of himself in his own sense of self-importance which is pretty rare among media personalities.

Anyhow, he and I catch up every once in a little while to chat and before our last meeting I was thinking a bit about his business and something glaring jumped out at me – an opportunity that he was missing to really take his enterprise, which he works very hard at, to the next level.

So we chatted over lunch and he became more and more excited and then I could see it in his eyes, he had one of those, ‘now why didn’t I think of that’ moments. It’s so obvious, how come I didn’t come up with that? Can I tell you I’ve had many of those moments in my life from my early days in IT consulting when our managing director would fly in and review a project that I was working on and he would see this and see that and this and the other thing that I’d missed, why didn’t I think of that? I remember thinking that to myself, it’s so obvious.

And these days in this ministry of Christianityworks of which I’m the CEO. The ministry that’s responsible for this radio program that you’re listening to and lots of other things to boot. Even though I’m many years older and hopefully just a bit wiser than I was as a young consultant I know that there are still things that I miss.

And so what I’ve done is to surround myself with some smart, insightful, external advisors as well as some great board members who see things differently because they’re not involved in the day-to-day running of the ministry. It’s through their input that so many of the amazing things that God’s done through Christianityworks have in fact happened. And it’s also through their input and advice that we’ve managed to avoid a few mistakes along the way.

You get the point right? The closer you are to something the harder it is to see the wood for the trees. And one of the things that you and I are really close to, far too close to, unavoidably close to is our sin, our weaknesses and our failings. Now that’s a dangerous thing because as we saw last week on the program – sin always, always, always has painful consequences.

And if our weaknesses and failings, our sin are tucked away in the blind spots where we can’t see them they’re going to continue to ruin our lives. What we need is that external perspective and wisdom and insight to help us see what’s wrong so that we can do something about it.

If you’ve been able to join me over the last few episodes on the program, you’ll know that we’ve been talking about the powerful transformation that God wants to bring into our lives, to make our lives better by setting us free from sin which robs us of the amazing life that he always intended we should have.

God is a God of new beginnings and He is also a God of powerful lifelong transformation and growth. That seems a little far-fetched when you’re down there in the mire of the consequences of your own sin but it’s true. And we saw together how God spoke and brought transformation over the nation of Israel precisely at such a time as that, when it seemed impossible.

When as a result of their sin they’d been in exile in Babylon as slaves for seventy years, when because Babylon was the dominant super power of the day freedom and transformation and redemption and restoration all seemed completely impossible.

Right in the middle of that God stepped in and said this:

‘But now’ thus says the Lord, ‘he who created you O Jacob, he who formed you O Israel, do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name and you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire you shall not be burned and the flames shall not consume you.’

‘For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you because you are precious in my sight and honoured and I love you. I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.’ (Isaiah 43: 1-4)

So God steps in to redeem them but the problem for Israel is that they still probably don’t completely see their sin, they still probably don’t have a good handle on what got them there in the first place and how to avoid it in the future.

So just a few verses later God acknowledges that and this is what He says, Isaiah chapter 43, verses 8 to 10:

Bring forth the people who are blind yet have eyes, who are deaf yet have ears. Let all the nations gather together and let the people’s assemble. Who among them declared this and foretold to us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to justify them and let them hear and say it is true. You are my witnesses, says the Lord and my servant whom I have chosen so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.

In other words, the blind will see and become God’s witnesses. The deaf will hear the truth and will be able to tell others, ‘hey guys, it’s true’. God is going to remove the blind spots and clear out the deaf ears so that they can really see things as they are, so that they can see God as He is, so that they can see themselves and their sin for what they are.

When you think about it that’s exactly what you and I need in our lives, isn’t it? That external perspective and where better the get that than from God Himself? Who could be wiser? Who could care more? Who could love us more? Who could give us better advice than God Himself?

So God goes on and sets Israel free and restores them back to the Promised Land, back to Jerusalem, great. But if He doesn’t bring sight to the blind and hearing of truth to the deaf then they’re just going to make the same mistakes all over again just like you and me.

Do you imagine that a sculptor would begin and sculpture and then leave it incomplete? Do you imagine that a potter would toss a lump of clay on his wheel and leave it to go rock hard as a half-formed lump of dirt? No. They want to complete what they started and so it is with God.

He didn’t redeem you from your sin. He didn’t reveal Jesus to you to save you just to let you rot in your sin for the rest of your life.

Listen to how the Apostle Paul puts it in Philippians chapter 1, verse 6. He says:

I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

God wants to finish what He started in you. He wants to keep shaping you and transforming you and one of the main ways that He does that, just as He did with Israel, is through His Word.

One of the great tragedies of the Church is that there are so many so-called Christians. People hungering to be set free from the consequences of their sin, who trifle with the Word of God, who pick and choose what suits them and worse still who ignore it all together.

I wonder how many people today have a Bible or two or three or five, sitting on a shelf or in a cupboard at home, somewhere gathering dust. A Bible that they haven’t opened for months or even years. I wonder. And those self-same people are invariably the ones whose lives are in turmoil. They are the same people who are wallowing in the consequences of their sin.

Wake up! God wants to bring sight to the blind. He wants to bring truth to the deaf. He wants to transform your life so that you can be all that He ever planned you to be, so you can do all the things He ever planned for you to do.

God has an amazing plan for your life, God wants to transform your life, are you ready?

THE GREAT I-AM

I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember this but back when I was young there was a game that came out called Twister. Here’s how it worked. There was a plastic mat with coloured circles on it and you put it down on the floor. There might be two or three or four players and for each player the dial would be spun on a wheel and it would land on a certain colour.

What you had to do is put one of your hands or your feet on a circle of that colour on the mat. Now it’s easy for spin number one or perhaps two but with multiple players on the mat, by spin number three or four you had to do contortions to get around the other players on this relatively small mat to be able to place either a hand or a foot on the colour required.

Eventually, the three or four of you playing would end up collapsing in a heap from all the contortions. I mean I really can’t remember how you won the game but I do remember it was a lot of fun.

Well I have to say the contortions could get pretty uncomfortable particularly when someone else fell on top of you and knocked the stuffing out of you.

Now when you stand back and you think about that game objectively you come to realise that the reason people were doing these contortions there on that mat, is that their reference point was the dial that was spun around to select a colour. And to tell you the truth I see a lot of people living their lives like that because of the reference points that they choose.

If you choose wealth as your reference point then you’ll be contorting your life to fit with its demands. If you choose career you’ll be contorting your life to fit with its demands. Let me give you an example. The other day I caught up with a man for breakfast, now he’s just a few years younger than me and he works in the finance sector.

He had taken a new job in the bank that he works for to advance his career. So instead of working close to where he lives, he now has to travel a long way each day to and from work. And he’s having problems in this new job. It’s a high pressure, high target work environment with an unreasonable boss. So much so that in this large bank they simply can’t get people to apply for jobs in this particular office.

The more I listened, the more I heard this man basically asking me for advice as to how he could contort himself to fit into this environment. But what I saw from what he’d told me was that it was a toxic work environment where no matter how good he became at his job, no matter how much he twisted himself to fit he was never going to succeed.

When I pointed that out to him in an instant he looked at me with eyes wide open and said, ‘You know what, you’re right, you’re absolutely right’. His reference point was trying to please an unpleasable boss. And because I wasn’t close to it I was able to stand back and basically point out to him that he had the wrong reference point.

Do you see how easily we can do that when we’re close to a problem? It’s something that happens to each one of us and it’s something, as we saw last week on the program, happened to Israel. God brought them out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land, the Land flowing with milk and honey, where He blessed them immeasurably and yet off they went and they worshipped idols and foreign gods and behaved badly and turned their backs on God so after many warnings He punishes them.

The Babylonians invade, they destroy Jerusalem and they take God’s people into captivity for seventy years. But after that time God decides, look enough is enough, so He comes to set them free as we saw, if you were able to join me, in Isaiah chapter 43.

Now even though they were being set free one problem still remained. He needed to reset their reference point from the things of this world back to Him. Have a listen to what He says to them in verses 11 to 17 of that same chapter, chapter 43 in the Book of Isaiah.

I, I am the Lord and besides me there is no Saviour. I declared and saved and proclaimed when there was no strange god among you and you are my witnesses, says the Lord, I am God and also henceforth I am He. There is no one who can deliver from my hand, I work and who can hear it? Thus, says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, for your sake I will send to Babylon and break down all the bars and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned to lamentation.

I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Thus, says the Lord who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse and army and warrior. They lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick. (Isaiah 43: 11-17)

So what God is basically talking about here in this passage is that He is going to defeat the Babylonians also called the Chaldeans.

Now that’s amazing because they were the dominant super power of the day. But in doing this amazing thing before the eyes of His people these Israelites, who indeed had been in captivity for seventy years as slaves, He’s making a point to them.

He’s saying, "Look, the only one who has the power to do this is me", God Himself. All those other gods that you were worshipping, which is what got you here in the first place, do they have the power to do this? Do the Babylonians have the power to stand against me? No, of course, they don’t.

So why chase after those other gods? Why have your reference point for your life out there somewhere? Because if you do that you’ll end up doing contortions to fit with the demands of those other things which you call gods, whether it’s wealth or career or reputation or maybe a physical idol, whatever it happens to be for you, all those things are false gods.

I know there are some people who need to reset their reference point today, who need to stop spinning the dial in their lifelong game of twister and focus on the one reference point, God Himself, who has the power to set them free.

Can I ask you quietly but directly, are you one of those? Because if you are today, here, right now is the time to make Jesus the number one reference point of your life.

In the days of old before satellite navigation, ships always didn’t know exactly where they were. Of course these days using simple Sat Nav technology they can pinpoint their location on the globe within just a few metres. But back then they couldn’t. So when it was dark or stormy or foggy if they were close to the land they ran a very real risk of crashing into the rocks.

That’s why lighthouses were built, as a reference point, a light that shone out into the darkness, to help them head in the right direction rather than the wrong one which would lead to death and destruction.

Jesus said this, He said:

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in the darkness but will have the light of life. (John 8:12)

The question however is for each one of us, who or what am I following? Who or what is my reference point? Is it that unreasonable boss who somehow tricked me into thinking that I had to conform to his plans and contort my life? Is it that extra money I’m chasing which is causing me to do that long commute and to miss out on time with my family? Is it …? Well, what is it?

I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again. God’s plan is to transform your life completely and radically, to set you free to be who He made you to be and He’s done that by grace.

And when we let the light of Jesus shine in our hearts, when we let the light of Jesus guide our steps, when we make Him our reference point in place of all those other imposters out there, then the grace transformation that God has always wanted to bring you starts to happen in your life.

Listen to Him again: I, I am the Lord and besides me there is no Saviour.

A NEW REALITY

Before we believe in Jesus, our reality is determined by the here and now, how we feel and what we’re going through, and all too often what we’ve been through in the past shapes us to a great degree, but the moment anyone believes in Jesus, the past becomes completely irrelevant. The moment we take God for who He is, the great I-am, all those other things cease to be all that relevant to our lives because in Him, you and I are completely transformed. Have a listen to 2 Corinthians 5:17, written by the apostle Paul:

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.

How much of the past has passed away? Everything, all of it, every last little bit is gone the moment you believe in Jesus because in God’s sight and in reality you have become a completely new creation, you have literally been born again and everything about you has become new, everything.

And God wants us to see that today. That’s why in that verse that I just read He says, ‘See, see everything has become new’. Do you see? Because that’s the great reality that God wants you to see today – the reality of your complete transformation. You, your life, your slate wiped clean and your future, whatever it may hold in God’s plan for you is bright because your God, the same one who sent Jesus for you, is pouring His grace out into your life today through His Word and His Spirit.

Back there in the Old Testament, Israel was punished for their sins but you and I, we have a new contract, a new arrangement with God written in the blood of Jesus who bore the punishment that you and I so richly deserve. Back then, the Israelites didn’t receive mercy but eventually they received grace.

Today you and I, if we believe in Jesus, we receive both mercy and grace, both freedom from punishment that we deserve and the unmerited, undeserved favour and blessing of God through Jesus, through Him alone and nobody else.

What a grace transformation, the power of the past over you is broken, your future lies in God’s hands – what a blessing! What a grace transformation!

When the apostle Paul was writing to his friend Titus, this in part is what he said about this utterly amazing grace transformation. Titus 2:11-14:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passion, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright and Godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for Himself a people of His own, who are zealous for good deeds.

In other words, the way we respond to God’s grace, the best way to experience the grace transformation in your life, is to let go of all of that bad stuff: The bad stuff that’s crowding God out of the picture, and to live your life as a great big thank-you to God for what He’s done for you. Now isn’t that a powerful idea? Simple, but powerful. Live your life every day, everything you do, as a big thank-you to God for His grace. Wow!

Now there’s a transformed life right there, right? Of course we’re going to make mistakes along the way, but when you say thank-you to God the best you can with every thought and every hope and every deed, just imagine how powerfully God will work in us and through us. That’s where it’s at.

Those idols, those things that we’ve elevated to the wrong level in our lives, they can never deliver that. In fact, quite the opposite. They end up being burdens that weigh us down. The only thing that lifts us up, the only thing that sets us free, the only thing that brings the change that we need in our lives, is the grace of God through Jesus Christ. That’s the only thing.

We’re going to talk a lot more about this next week on the programme as we continue our look at the amazing, powerful grace transformation that God wants to bring to pass in your life.