Good morning! Please open your Bible in Colossians 3:1-10 and
read with me. My message this morning is entitled
“Looking Beneath the Surface of Life.” This message seeks to
address the need to better understand how we can
really change. It touches on the problems and concerns
of different kinds of people within the Christian community. Their
problems are familiar to most of us: the search for real change, the desire
to grow spiritually and the goal to conform more and more to the image
of Christ.
These people include: 1) those who are trying hard to do what
the Bible commands but feel frustrated; 2) those who are doing quite well
and feel happy most of the time; 3) those whose hearts are hardened by
the vagaries of life; and 4) those who are in positions of Christian leadership.
Are you one of these people? If you are, I think you should listen
carefully.
I. The Way Things Are Beneath the Appearance
How are things going beneath the appearance? Just a quick
glance beneath the surface of our life makes it clear that more is going
on than loving God and loving others. It requires only a moment of
honest self-reflection to realize that, no matter how much we may have
already changed, we still have a long way to go.
Most of us know things about ourself that no one else would guess:
thoughts, fantasies, things we do in private, secrets that make us feel
ashamed. We know things are not as they should be. Something
is wrong.
Ever since God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, we have
lived in an unnatural environment, a world in which we were not designed
to live. We were built to enjoy a garden without weeds, relationships
without friction, fellowship without distance. But something is wrong,
and we know it, both within our world and within ourself.
We wish we are better than
we are, but we’re not. And that realization brings shame, a desire
to hide, to avoid real contact and to present to others only that part
of us we think will be well received. We want to hide the rest — not because
we desire to avoid offending others with our ugly side, but because we
fear their rejection. We live for the purpose of self-protection,
clinging to whatever brings us happiness and security. The effect
is a discouraging distance between ourself and the people we long to be
close. The quality of our life diminishes. Most of us spend our life
trying to pretend things are better than they are. When reality breaks
through — perhaps in a glimpse of how disappointed or imperfect we are
— we’re strongly inclined to do whatever restores our feigned sense of
well-being. When we succeeded at arranging our life so that “all is well,”
we keep ourself from facing all that’s going on inside, we lose all power
to change what we do on the outside in any meaningful way. We rearrange
rather than change, and in so doing, we never become the transformed person
God calls us to be. How can we change into noble people whose source of
strength and joy is in finding our home in Christ? But how can we do that
when most of us make it through life by coping, not changing? Change
as our Lord describes it involves more than cleaning up our visible act.
The Bible calls for change in our lives. Let me read from the Life Application
Bible edition some passages from the Colossians and James. In Colossians
3:8, Paul wrote: “But now is the time to cast off or throw away all these
rotten garments of anger, hatred, cursing, and dirty language.” In James
1:21, it says: “So get rid of all that is wrong in your life, both inside
and outside, and humbly be glad for the wonderful message we have received,
for it is able to save our souls as it take hold of our hearts.” Biblical
change, however, never requires us to pretend that things are better than
they are. Christ wants us to face reality as it is, including all
the fears, hurts, resentments, and self-protective motives we work hard
out of sight, and to emerge as changed people.
II. Can I make it if I face it?
Perhaps the most frequently expressed fear people feel when they
begin to look closely at their lives is this: “I’m not sure if I can face
all that’s inside me.” It requires courage to explore our life honestly.
Most of us make it through life with some level of stability because we
refuse to think about troubling things going on within us. We just
keep on keeping on, stifling that nagging sense that something is wrong.
We want to think that we have found the key to life, that now
we can manage, that our empty heart is filled, that our struggle against
sin is now a march of victory. But in order to maintain that happy
conviction we must insulate ourself against the feedback of others who
find still unloving, and we must stubbornly deny the evidence in our soul
that more is wrong than we know how to handle. Denial for many becomes
a way of life. And it’s frighteningly easy to become deluded about
our spiritual maturity. Hosea (in chapter 7:9) scorned the Jews of
his day for having heads sprinkled with gray hair and not knowing it!
Normally, we’re the first to spot evidence of physical decline
and aging, such as gray hair. But just as normally, we’re the last
to notice signs of spiritual deterioration. And that’s Hosea’s point.
We’re capable of believing that we’re doing far better than we are.
Our Lord reserved His harshest criticism for people who made denial into
a trademark. The Pharisees specialized in looking good. They
managed to preserve their image by defining sin in terms of visible transgression
and then scrupulously adhering to the standards they established.
These people looked good.
So, beware of people who always look good on the outside! But
listen to our Lord’s remarks when He spoke to them in
Matthew 23: 25-26:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are
full
of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First
clean the inside
of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.”
In his rebuke to the Pharisees, our Lord declared a principle that must guide all our efforts to change into the person God wants us to be. He made it clear that there is no place for pretense. We must come to grips with what’s going on behind the whitewashed appearance of our life. It seems to be His teaching that we can’t make it if we don’t face all that we are. But to change according to Christ’s instructions requires us to face all we prefer to deny. Real change requires an inside look.
III. Change Requires an Inside Look
Christians are realizing that their version of church involvement,
time in the Word, commitment to do right, claiming God’s promises, and
surrendering to God’s power is somehow not getting at the core troubles
of their hearts. We want more, and are therefore vulnerable to following
anyone who convincingly holds out the promise of more. We try the
latest spiritual fad, we attend the currently popular seminar or crusade,
we listen diligently to the tapes of our favorite gospel singers, and we
always come up short. Nothing satisfies, nothing works. In
our heart, we know that our latest effort to follow Christ has left deep
issues in our soul unaddressed. Is it possible to change at the core of
our being? How much change can we expect? The disturbing reality
within us, which we try to pretend isn’t there, makes us wonder just how
changed we can become. What the Lord requires is change from the inside
out — a process that begins with an honest look at whatever is happening
in our life and continues without ever pretending things are better than
they are. The courage to be honest is necessary if we’re to experience
the kind of change our Lord Jesus Christ makes possible. Real change
requires an inside look. An Inside Look Can Be Frustrating: Performance
or Dependence But an inside look into our lives can also be very frustrating.
In the NIV version of Philippians 2:12, 13 Paul wrote: “Therefore,
my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but
now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with
fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according
to His good purpose.” For centuries Christians have grappled with how we
are to work out our own salvation (which seems to involve real effort)
while somehow depending on God to work inside us, enabling us by His strength
to desire and carry out His will. If we are to be more than humanistic,
relying on our own resources to become all we can be, then dependence of
God as we seek to obey Him must go beyond inspiring rhetoric. It
must become vital reality. But how do we depend completely on God? The
answer is elusive. And because it’s elusive, most modern approaches
to understanding changing ourself come back to the central ingredient of
effort. Whether our problem is doing something we wish we were not
doing, or wanting to completely surrender ourself to God, or struggling
to believe we really are loved by God, the bottom line is still the same:
try harder!
But we’re back where we started. Once we grant that we
must poke our head beneath the surface of our life if we are to really
change, we’re faced with the considerable dilemma of figuring out our own
insides and exactly what we’re supposed to do with them. Where do
we begin?
IV. Dealing With Life Below the Waterline
There are more than 1,700 islands in the Philippines. But
when there’s a hightide, the smaller islands disappear. Those of
you who have gone to rivers in the provinces will notice that there’s a
waterline which suggests the best time to go swimming. During lowtide,
you’ll see all those big and small stones underneath. These stones
may represent the things that we need to deal with inside our individual
and collective lives. Or think of yourself as an iceberg. I wanted
to refrain from using this illustration because the only ice we know in
this country is the one we use to cool our drinks. But permit me, anyway,
to use this in the absence of a better one so that those who are not so
familiar with our geographic features can relate with me as I talk about
the realities beneath the waterline in our lives. Those of you who
have seen Titanic the movie or are familiar with this story are certainly
familiar with what I’m saying. So, think yourself as an iceberg.
Let the visible peak above the waterline represent the things you do, the
thoughts you consciously think, and the feelings you sense within you.
Let the great mass beneath the waterline represent the part of you that
cannot be clearly seen: the motives and attitudes of your heart,
those strange impulses that sometimes overwhelm your determination to resist
them, the painful memories and raging emotions you prefer to keep hidden
beneath the surface of your life. The Christian community generally presents
three (3) options for dealing with the confusing realities beneath the
waterline. All three (3) promise deep internal change. Let
me briefly outline these options:
1. Do your Christian duties
Hebrews 6: 12 says “ God is not unjust, He will not forget your
work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped his people and
continue to help them.” Perhaps the most common understanding of how change
comes is about his one: If we determine to do whatever god says, and if
we couple that determination with involvement in Christian activities,
then somehow the power of God is released, enabling us to live as we should.
Above the waterline, we do what we should, including immersing
ourself in God’s Word, praying and serving others. As we do these
things, God’s power eventually overwhelms all those problems below the
waterline and we are enable to live in consistent victory.
When we fail above the waterline, then more effort is called
for — perhaps spending more time in the Word or prayer or enlisting in
the various church ministries. Obedience to Christian duty and bathing
our mind and soul in God’s truth keep us from quenching or grieving the
Holy Spirit.
2. Depend on the Special Work of the Holy Spirit
In Romans 8: 26-27, the bible says that “the Spirit helps us
in our weakness. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of
the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance
with God’s will.”
A second approach grants that more needs to be done to change than
performing Christian duties and expecting the resulting grace to take care
of below-the-waterline problems. The effects of the Fall and our stubborn
inclination to sin must be forcefully dealt with by a definite work of
the Spirit. Certainly we must choose to do what is right and continue
to learn more about God and His Word, but a special power is necessary
and available to lift us to higher ground in our pursuit of godliness.
The unifying theme of this second option fro dealing with internal change
is the belief that the Spirit of God can be released to do what needs to
be done by some decisive act of faith on our part.
3. Work Through Obstacles to Growth
Notice that neither of the first two options requires us to deal
directly with issues below the waterline. The first approach assures us
that commitment to do the right thing is all that is necessary. The
power of God will come into our life as we perform our Christian duties.
If we’re struggling with depressed feelings, we need to take an inside
look; we must simply become more involved in Bible study, prayer, and Christian
service. The second approach also assumes that it’s not necessary
to take an inside look. The Holy Spirit understands all that’s inside
and is able to clean up the mess if we permit Him to do His work.
A long, hard, thorough look at our attitudes, feelings, goals, and self-image
is at best self-absorbing introspection. All we must do in order
to deeply change is to more fervently entrust to the Spirit. Frustration
with this approach has opened the door to the modern emphasis on counseling,
share groups, and seminars on self-understanding. doing right or
yielding to God’s Spirit has not always produce the change we desired.
Disappointed with traditional Christian approaches to change, we eagerly
welcome new ideas. When blocks to growth are not overcome by more
study or deeper yielding, some form of counseling sometimes seems appropriate.
I am sympathetic to modern emphasis on counseling because most counselors
(if not all) encourage an honest look below the waterline. I regard
that as a big plus. The tragedy is that counselors are more often
aware of the importance of facing who we really are than are churches.
And that, of course, includes the Cruzada Church of Christ and most Christian
churches in the Philippines! Until this situation changes, until communities
of God’s people are willing to courageously look at each other’s lives
and to search out God’s answers for the tough questions, professional counseling
will play a needed and vital role in promoting deep change. Unfortunately,
individual counselors may not provide biblical solutions fro their desperate
clients. Unless the church begins to encourage an inside look as
well, hurting people may find only false and temporary solutions.
Conclusion: Knowing what to look for the choice confronting many
sincere, struggling Christians is either: (1) to ignore the critical issues
of internal character development and just try harder to be good Christians
without ever understanding what’s happening beneath the surface of their
lives or (2) to take an inside look guided by more current psychological
theory than by biblical revelation. Identifying your temperament, healing
painful memories, learning to ventilate buried hurts, reconstructing the
damaging impact of your parents’ mistakes, facing destructive emotions
and hidden agendas and bringing them under conscious control are all examples
of the second alternative. Neither of the two options moves us toward
the kind of deep change our Lord desires. If we are to change from the
inside out, we must understand what internal problems need correction.
That requires an inside look. And the inside look must be guided by Bible’s
teaching on what to expect when we peel off the layers and explores what
lurks beneath the surface. I submit that we’re long overdue for an
understanding of how to change that begins with an honest look at what
we’re like beneath the surface and is guided by the light of the Scripture.
An inside look is important but it is tricky. The same
Bible that instructs us in Psalms 4:23 to “guard our heart” also tells
us in Jeremiah 17:9 that “our heart is impossible to understand as well
as deceitfully wicked.” the command to keep watch over our unknowable
heart is like ordering a guard to never let an invisible prisoner out of
his sight.
Clearly, if our insides are as difficult to know as the Bible
indicates, then any hope of an accurate inward look depends entirely on
God’s willingness to help. With God’s help, we can accurately understand
what needs to be
understood.
When depression slowly erodes our energy, when strong urges to
do wrong pop out of nowhere, when honest feedback makes it clear that we’re
not good at communicating love, we can and must remain confident
that the Bible will
guide us in our inside look to whatever issues need our attention.
