Formed in His Image

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the River Church podcast. [00:00:03] Speaker B: We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us. For more information, check out our [email protected]. [00:00:12] Speaker A: Let me tell you a story of Joe. Joe. Joe's in his early 30s. Joe works in finance in London. He works in the city, you know, the hustle and bustle of the city. Joe graduated with a degree in economics and now he works as part of a team in an investment bank negotiating deals between big multinational companies. He's in a high pressure job. Is this Joe? But he makes a lot of money, so he's good with that. If you look at Joe's Instagram page, you will see that he experiences the high life. He posts pictures of him in fancy wine bars, in good restaurants, and especially whenever he does business trips or leisure trips abroad that he posts pictures of where he's been. It looks all very exciting. Joe's a man who loves running. He got into running when he was at university. He was part of a track team and now he posts about how he's looking forward to the up and coming Paris marathon. He's signed up for that, he's training a lot for that. And he's post pictures of him looking great. Should we say Joe's had a couple of relationships in the past five years. They've been amazing times. You see pictures of him in sort of whirlwind romances, going visiting great places, looking happy. From the outside, Joe's life looks great. I mean, who wouldn't want Joe's life? But on the inside, Joe is hiding a deeper secret. Joe is actually deeply unhappy. His workplace has what you might call a toxic culture. Do you know, it's cut and thrust, it's dog eat dog. A phrase might be people are happy to backstab each other and undermine each other to get whatever they want. And hey, they go out as a team after work and people pretend that it's all nice and smiles, but hey, when someone gets a little bit worse for the wear, all the arguments and the accusations flare up. Joe actually hates to travel. Do you know, it's all well and good flying places, but all the pictures of airports, hotels and offices, he doesn't get to experience everything because he's just under pressure to get all the work done. He likes his running, but at the moment he's constantly missing his training sessions. He's angry with himself, he's disappointed with himself for doing so. The marathon's coming up, but actually he thinks he's secretly going to have to Pull out because he don't think he can train enough. He's not going to do it. Joe's relationships have been intense, they've been whirlwind, they've been full of romance. But then he misses out on his dates because of work pressures. And then when they do meet up, he's angry, he's irritable, he's tired, he's exhausted. And the relationships have all been ended by his girlfriend at the time because they're just fed up, he's not around. Joe's actually suffering from what might be described as mild depression and he's recently asked his doctor for sleeping pills. Now, I don't know whether you can relate to that story. I mean, I've not been in that situation, but I can definitely relate to parts of it under the pressure. How about you? Are you someone that can relate to parts of that? Because I think that story actually I've just made up. It's not true at all, I've just made it up. But it seems to be repeated everywhere, doesn't it? It's repeated on tv, on our news programs, on whatever you see on social media, when people actually reveal something that's going on. Celebrities who say about the things that actually happen in their Life. In our TVs, in films, in books, the story seems to repeat it and repeat it. And more recently we look at statistics about depression and they seem to be really just, well, overwhelming. The Office of National Statistics did a survey in 2022 and they asked a bunch of people across the age rang and it said the number of 16 to 29 year olds that reported having a moderate to severe depression symptoms in autumn of 22 was almost one in three, said the NHS on their statistics on diagnosing anxiety, depression and other related mental health conditions. 16 to 34 year olds. 1/4 of 16 to 34 year olds were diagnosed with a condition during 23 and 24. And while there are so many factors that affect our mental well being, our mental health, there are so many. I think many studies have pointed a link towards the whole thing of identity creation or this image management as being a major contributor. Let me try and explain a little bit what I mean about identity. So if we go back in the past, identity. Oh, that's gone too far. There we go. Identity was something that we were given, it was inherited. So if we go back for many years, who you were known as was about things like what your parents did, what your family was known about, it was about where you lived. So I remember growing up Maybe it's not so much these days, but you go across Dartford and you go, okay, there's that estate, there's that estate. And that kind of identified and said something about the people that were there, something about your education, where you went to school, did you go to Dartford west or Dartford Grandma? That said something about your identity. And then what you do as a job, what you do maybe as a job, what you do, what you got involved in, that was all about your identity that was given to you. I recently actually got asked to do a short bio. Has anyone had to do a short bio? Like a couple of sentences that describe who you are? And I was like, oh, no, what do I say? And so what did I do? I went to ChatGPT. Yeah, you know, it's coming. And I said, what does a good buyer look like for someone like me that does a job like me? What does a good buyer look like? And I recognized that what I was doing, I was trying to project something. I wanted to say, oh, I'm a credible person, I'm trustworthy, or I've got lots of experience, I know what I'm talking about. And it's like, oh, no, I'm trying to project an image. I'm trying to manage what other people want to. I try to manage what other people see of me. Have you ever been in a situation where you think I wanted to project something? I want other people that come in contact with me know something about me. I want them to know this special thing. Hey, I'm. I'm a great parent, or I really love my children, or I've got a great education or I'm good at my business, I'm a high flyer. Or something else about you. Sociologist Sigmund Bauman writes that in our society, as our society is fractured from communities to now, that the thing is now individuals, that identity is no longer a given, it's no longer something we receive. It's something that is a task. It's something that we do. And so culture around us says that identity needs to be great and that we need to work at managing, at creating this identity. So identity is now something that we project. It's something that we associate ourselves with, whether it's music, arts, fashion, celebrities, we choose our identity around our experiences. I've done this. We project our dreams and our visions. And now, especially in our culture, our sexual preferences. There's so much about our identity, we're choosing it. But the problem with that is then when these things go out of fashion, that Our identity kind of crumbles, and we have to disassociate with one thing and associate with something else. And so we're constantly on this struggle to recreate an identity, to become someone else. Sociologist Alain Ehrenberg, who wrote a book, he did a study about the history of depression in our modern Western society. And he looks at how it changed. He looks at how it affected people, and he looked at how people explained their own depression, where it come from. And he believes that the depression had spread and ballooned these days in recent history because of the cultural expectation that it's up to the individual to define their own meaning and value in life. And so he writes this. He writes, depression presents itself as an illness of responsibility in which the dominant feeling is that of failure. The depressed individual is unable to measure up. He is tired of becoming himself. Do you know, in society, these identities that people create, they project, they are fragile. They are constantly changing. And when people put all their hopes and dreams, their expectations, this is who I am. When they crumble, they are no longer able to meet hard times, that when the difficulties come, that these identities cannot carry them through the difficult times. And while our culture's desire is to be free of expectations, free of. Of, like, I'm not who you say I am. Have you ever heard that statement, I am who I am. And people want to project everything, become what it is that they feel inside. That actually that weight of carrying yourself on it, you know, that weight of bearing that responsibility of creating identity, actually crushes people. It crushes us. Now, that is all bad news. And I wanted to describe society so that we can actually identify it. You know, when we look at society, we can identify it. We can identify it in our own hearts as well. And that's all bad news. But I want to bring you some good news today. I want to bring you some hope amidst all of this. Maybe you recognize it in your children, maybe you recognize it in society around you, your colleagues, those people, in family members. But I want to bring you some hope. I don't have an answer. Let me be clear. I don't have an answer to all of anxiety and depression. And I'm not saying at all that this is the root of all anxiety and depression and other mental illnesses. It's very, very complicated. I just think that this is. I think the studies show that this is a prominent thing contributing to how modern life feels like. And I feel that getting a right view, a biblical view of identity is going to help us all in our life. I think it's something that is going to carry us through. And I also want to zero in on just one aspect of how we become that identity. How we become the biblical person that we are supposed to and how we practice this identity, how we sort of practice it in our own lives, that is something that will shape us and bring us to be more like the biblical identity that we are supposed to be. Okay, that's a lot. Are you all still with me? Yeah. Good. Okay. So biblical identity. Let's reset biblical identity. Who are we? Who does the Bible say that we are? Go back to Genesis 1. Genesis 1 describes us in who we are. Says, then God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the grounds. Humanity. We are an image of God. We are God's reflection. To reflect God is to be like him, to reflect his character, his love, his compassion, his mercy, his goodness, his righteousness, his justice. That is to reflect God in God's character and to reflect God in His creation. So in the way that God created, we are stewards of creation. And we reflect him by ruling over, well, ruling over creation, over the natural creation that has been put under us, and also to create just societies, good societies, communities of people that come together, that love and care for one another. And to be this, we need to be connected with God, right? We need to continually reflect on God in order to reflect him to others, to be Him. We need to be continually connected with him, knowing God in order to be a reflection of God to the world and to others. And notice throughout this that I've said that the image is of humanity. Humanity as a whole reflects God, not necessarily each and every individual. So none of us has the capacity to reflect God in His entirety. Okay? None of us. We were first mates, male and female, men and women, and then we were given also the gift of languages and cultures as we spread out across the world. And in it, we reflect God in the multitudes, in all of who we are, as we come together in communities. And that's why, as you fast forward right to the end of the Bible and you get to Revelation, what does it say? Who's before the throne of God? It says, people of every tribe and tongue and language as a nation. Because that's the full reflection of God in everyone, of all cultures, men and women coming together. That is the identity that we have been given. Now we know that After Adam and Eve, that creation, humanity does not reflect God how they are supposed to. Adam and Eve made the decision to decide for themselves their own identity. They wanted to do stuff, do life apart from God. They chose to be the captains of their own soul, as the poem goes, create their own destiny. And so they chose to eat the fruit of the tree to make their own way in the world. And because of what they did, humanity inherits this corruption. Do you know that we've decided to go our own way apart from God. And so our relationship to God is broken. We are no longer in that sort of good relationship with God, to be able to connect with God and reflect him in the world. But because of Jesus, because of what he has done, that we can commit ourselves to God. We can commit ourselves to following him, to declare Jesus is Lord and be reunited with God and the Holy Spirit. What does he do? He comes and comes and takes up residence in us, in ourselves, in our hearts, and he lives in us, connecting us to God so that we can commune with God, to know who God is, to listen, to learn to God, but also have the transforming power of God, the Holy Spirit in us, to make us more like him, to make us more like the image of God we are supposed to be. And so we are formed in God's image and we are being formed. We are continually being shaped to be like God. And so the Bible has this word or the theological term is the word sanctification. Sanctification literally means being made holy, which is holy is a good description of God. It's a word attached to God and no one else. We are being made day by day as we follow God to be more like this image, to be more like God himself. That's great. How do we do that with this one thing? Well, there's loads of things. So last year we went through a series, if you remember, called Forgotten Pathways. Who remembers that series? Do you remember? Good. Okay. And so we talked about lots of different ways that help us. Lots of different spiritual ways might call them. Them things like reading the Bible, prayer, fasting, and then other ways that are kind of other oriented, you know, community, generosity, service, things like that. Those are ways in which we can be shaped to be more like God. But one that I think that is really key, that perhaps we didn't talk about is the. That's essential to our suffering. Essential to our being formed is the whole topic of suffering. Suffering is a difficult topic. It's a topic we all wrestle with. It's a topic that really is what One of these big key questions that people say, I can't believe in a Christian God because there is suffering in the world. And if God loves the world so much, if God is the God of love, then how comes there is suffering? That is such a key question that people have. And there are so many different understandings and aspects to the question of suffering. I couldn't begin to even talk about them all this morning. And I'm not even going to try your hope you'll be glad to know. But I just want to talk about it as a real aspect of us becoming more like Jesus. Right. And I want to convince you that this is something that we need to really think about and meditate on. And just by way of three quick verses in the New Testament. Okay, I'll rush through them all. First one of Romans 5, Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, he says, not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance, character. And character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Second one, James one, he says, consider it pure joy. And he's not being ironic, okay? He's not making a joke, he's being serious. He says, consider it pure joy. My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. And then one from one Peter, he says, in all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, you've had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith, of greater worth than gold which perishes even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. These are just three short verses, three snippets across the New Testament where the writers are encouraging the Christians, the readers of his letter, to persevere in the midst of suffering. And they are spread in nearly just every letter in the New Testament, whether it's Hebrews or Corinthians or Philippians or Thessalonians. It is an encouragement to persevere through suffering. It is essential to us as Christians. And it wasn't just the whole thing of, hey, just keep going. It will get better in the end. It's a whole thing of keep going because God is doing something in you in the midst of it. And you need to keep going in the midst of it. Peter here uses that thing of refining by fire, you know, where you would dig up a lump of earth that's got some metal in it, something precious that you need to get out. Gold, silver, you know, iron, tin, something. And you'd heat it up, it would be all mixed together, this lump of ore, and you'd heat it up and you'd be able to separate out that which is precious, something that you really need the metal out and get away the mud and the earth that's attached into it. He uses that as an analogy and that he's saying, as we go through suffering, as we persevere through all of the questions and the doubts and the things that were. That would dissuade us and take us through different avenues, that would be refined out till we have what is pure. The faith that we need to hang on to God, to know him and to be shaped to live like God in the process of suffering. And so do you know, we could go into lots of different angles. I thought of just lots of different things about how I could encourage you from it. But really the main thing that I wanted to say is that God, that all our suffering is used by God to make us more like Him. Every situation that you go through is an opportunity for God to shape us to be more like Him. Right. It's our responsibility. It's our responsibility to choose, to hang on to faith, to choose, as has been said so many times this morning, that God is good, God loves us, God wants the best for us. And this is him working out himself, his compassion through taking us through hard times. And this modern quest, why I sort of competed it against the modern quest for identity. Because this modern quest for identity is that modern quest that Adam and Eve started. The quest to self create, to say, I am going to define who I am. I want to fulfill my own desires and dreams. I want to follow what I want for myself. I want to be the captain of my own soul. And there's that pretense that we can control our future, that we are in control, that we can just work hard and make it happen. But the thing is, when hard times come, that identity crumbles. That identity is just not strong enough to carry us through the hard times. But if we forego that and say, not my will, God, but yours be done, I am going to honor you in all of it. I am going to trust you, God in all of it, then we get to be made more like Him. We get to be Made more like him. And I just want in it to like the way that we do that is to meditate. Remember our relationship with God, to meditate on who God is. Right. And so if you are going through a hard time at the moment, I want to encourage you to meditate on who God is. And if you are not going through a particularly difficult time at the moment, don't worry, it will come. Right? It will come. But you can prepare yourself for that time by meditating on who God is. Right. And in it, just pause and reflect on Jesus. For God so loved the world out of an expression of his love that he sent his son. Jesus chose to go through suffering, to go through that whole everything that he did because of the joy set before him. We can't look at Jesus and say God was angry with him. This was not God's will for Jesus to go through suffering. No, it was God's will for Jesus to go through suffering. And so he says, come, follow me. And as we journey through it, meditate on Jesus. Meditate on what he has done. A man they said was marked by suffering, the son of suffering, he has gone before. He will take us with him through to the other side. Amen. Amen. I know that some of it is actually difficult and hopefully I've explained some more and I want to just throw it out to questions. Right. You may have a question, maybe try not to get into your situation, but maybe there's something, an aspect that I haven't explained. I want to make sure that you know well. And so I just want to throw it over to questions. And if anyone has anything specific to ask, maybe you're sitting. No one wants to be the first person to ask a question. Okay. Right. Can I encourage you just to ask if something's been going through your mind? Okay. Maybe just put your hand up and Mary J. Is going to run to you with a microphone. Yeah. Has anyone got any questions that they just want to ask about that? Okay. Mark has a question. Would you run up to Mark and Yes, please do. Feel empowered that no question is silly because even, you know, someone else may be thinking about it in the room. Mark, go for it. Yeah. Is it because he wants us to be more like him? Because he's suffering as well? Because God is suffering? No, I think in it. So we could go lots of things, what happens in suffering, But I think it's helping us to reverse the Adam and Eve story in us. So we chose to go through, to choose to do different, something else to go somewhere else. Right. To choose a way apart from God. And we really, really want to do that. And CS Lewis has got this great description at the end of, I think the last battle where I can't remember the character's name. He's covered himself in scales because he wants to protect himself. He's become like a dragon, I think the story goes. And ripping off those scales is painful. You know, we built up things in our hearts, things that we think this is good for me. And we protect ourselves and actually ripping those off from us, ripping our self desires away from us, ripping who we want. We think we are in control. Ripping that off is painful. And suffering actually helps us, helps us to do that. Suffering is a way of us. CS Lewis has this great thing of God whispers in our times of wealth, but he shouts loudest in our times of suffering. In a hardship. In our times of hardship, you really pray. You know, we pray in times of prosperity and wealth and good, but you really pray when you're going through a hard time. So yeah, not because God himself is suffering, but really great question. Anyone else want a thingy? Okay. [00:31:15] Speaker B: Hi Ian. [00:31:15] Speaker A: Hello. [00:31:16] Speaker B: I love what you said about meditating on the word of God and just preparing yourself when those troublesome times do come. What tips can, can you give us in terms of really meditating on the word of God? As a busy person in our busy lifestyles today, like on a day to day basis, what would that look like? [00:31:37] Speaker A: Oh, well, I'd say actually go back and listen to the previous preachers. They're all still online. So go back and listen to them. I think just lots of different ways of following through, you know, loads of different pathways to reading the Bible, loads of different plans and things. Loads of different resources out there that are really, really good. Yeah, loads of different ones. So I wouldn't want to kind of put anything right now. It would be a big thing to summarize. But yeah, go back to some of those resources. Yeah, yeah. Joseph. [00:32:18] Speaker B: Mine is about children. If a small child is sick, really. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Really ill, maybe six months or three. [00:32:25] Speaker B: Months, and the parents have fasted, prayed. [00:32:28] Speaker A: And there's no healing and there is suffering for this young child and the parents, how do they go through this? Who will fall to see that the child is not ill? Yeah. Illness of a family member is probably of yourself or a family member is probably one of the most heartbreaking things I think. And I haven't been through it myself and I can't imagine, I really can't imagine what some people I know in this room have been through real, real terrible struggles and especially of losing a child or a loved or a partner or. Do you know someone? I know. Yeah. Again, I can't think of anything better to do than to meditate on God and God's story. God himself, the father, his own son, died a horrible, traumatic death and went through real, real hard times. And aside from personally meditating on God, that God has put us together as a community, right? God has brought us together as church because we are not strong enough to go through things by ourselves. Has put us together as a community so that his grace. So his grace might be mediated, might be, you know, transformed or might be. What's the word? Mediated. Come through, channeled through us. So we are channels of God's grace to one another. So if you are going through a hard time, meditate on God's grace. Reach out to others who might channel God's grace and his love to you. Because we all need it. [00:34:20] Speaker B: I've got two more people, so how many more can you take? [00:34:22] Speaker A: So people know, let's just do one more. Okay. And then finish because we have gone. Yeah. And kids work. Sorry. I love them. [00:34:31] Speaker B: Okay. [00:34:31] Speaker A: I'll go to Timmy now. Yeah, Timmy. [00:34:34] Speaker B: Thanks, Ian. So my question really is just our heart posture towards suffering. So is it wrong to actively pray away suffering? So, like, I have this running joke with God where I say, I'm one of your weaker servants. Weaker soldiers keep me in reserve. Keep me at the back of the battlefield, please. So I tell him this, that please, you know, I can't fight. I'm not a fighter. But so are you saying that. And when I'm going through suffering, I am praying. I'm saying, lord, please remember, I'm not a fighter. Help me. Or are you saying that, you know, when we're going through suffering, we should embrace it and say, let your will be done. What you teaching me? Or are we to pray? Are we actually to pray it away against it? Yeah. Does that make sense? [00:35:23] Speaker A: That is a great question. Great question. I'm going to do the preacher answer. Yes and yes. Okay. So it's both. Why? Because we don't know. We don't know. And we often only find out what's the pathway at the end. And we look back, right? We don't know. And often, you know, God wants us to. He invites us to come and pray for him, for healing, for. For release from suffering. That is part of his kingdom coming. Do you know? But it's now, not yet. We don't have the fullness of God's kingdom with all of human flourishing. And you know, we are in a time when it's still suffering. And so we pray God will your kingdom come. Okay, Will you release us from our suffering right here, right now, but also let your will be done in my life? So will you help me go through even though I don't know what's going on? Okay. And we just. We live with that tension. So pray both. Pray both. And God will reveal his will in due time. And I just want to say, sort of in summary of that, that as we do this as individuals and as we do this as community together, we get to show the world a better way. We get to show the world a better way than the way that they are going. That the way of finding that. So many people, like I said, are trying to find their own identity, their meaning and purpose in life by forging something. But we have a better answer. And as we show them not only in our life, but invite them to be part of this community of support in loving one another through the dark times, we get to show them who God is. We image him. Okay, God bless you. I'm going to hand back to Mary, who's just going to finish up. [00:37:29] Speaker B: Thank you so much.