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Part 5 of 7
Identity Theft Series - Ephesians 1:15-17
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We believe there are three ways you can live your life: culture's way, church's way, and the king's way. The king's way is the way of the rabbi—the way of Jesus. Jesus is not just our redeemer who teaches us how to get to heaven. He's our rabbi who teaches us how to live on earth.
Early on, the word used to describe Christianity was not "religion." It was called the way—because it literally impacted and influenced and changed not just something in your life, but the way you actually lived in every area of your life. The Bible is the blueprint to that way.
We're teaching through the book of Ephesians in a series titled Identity Theft. Here's what we know and believe to be true: How far you go and how much you grow isn't just impacted by what you know or believe about God. It is also impacted by what you know or believe about yourself.
When the enemy can't get you to see God wrong, his next step is to try to make sure you aren't seeing yourself right. God gives us the gift of scripture to reintroduce us to ourselves.
How far you go, how much you grow is in direct proportion to your willingness to be corrected. As humans who exist with imperfections, we will always do some things imperfectly. Every decision is pregnant with the potential to produce a season—one choice can produce an entire season.
Because of our imperfections, we all experience seasons of setbacks, or seasons of conscious or unconscious settling. We call this underoptimization—there is something you don't know that you need to be taught, or a way you're doing things that needs to be adjusted. But you must be willing to be confronted with conflicting information, and more importantly, you must be willing to submit your past view of things to the truth you're being currently confronted with—because it is truth that sets you free, not just from misery but also from mediocrity.
When God says through the prophet Hosea, "My people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge," He follows with: "Because you have rejected knowledge. You rejected me." Your issue wasn't that you weren't exposed—your issue was that you got exposed and you rejected something that conflicted with what you already believed to be true. You won't submit your way, and God says through Hosea that rejecting the knowledge He is giving you is in essence rejecting Him. You are stuck because you won't be corrected.
Proverbs 3:5-6 speaks to our tendency to make information an idol. God doesn't say don't lean, because life will make you lean. He says don't lean on your own understanding. When you lean on anything other than God, you always fall. We make an idol out of our information and refuse to give up the idol of our information for the real, true, living God. It keeps us either in misery or mediocrity in every area where we reject truth.
Whatever area you stay ignorant in—and ignorance isn't just a lack of information; it's misinformation—is the area you're going to suffer in.
In Ephesians 1, Paul spends the first 14 verses talking to believers, providing information and correction. But then he realizes the limitation of his own ability to transform people through information alone. He shifts from information to intercession.
In verse 15, Paul writes: "For this reason, since I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers." And in verse 17: "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better."
Paul recognizes his own limitations. He spent 14 verses talking to them, but he's praying for them because it's something only God can give. Some of us are tired of talking to people and wondering how many times we have to keep saying the same thing. But Paul engages in intercession and lets them know: I have not stopped praying for you.
This isn't a prayer for salvation—they're already converted. It's a prayer for revelation. "You're saved, but I want to make sure you know him better." In order to do that, they can't just lean on Paul's 14 verses. God's got to show them something.
This aligns with what we see in the Gospels with Jesus and Peter. When Jesus asked the disciples, "Who do men say that I am?" and then "Who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "You're Christ, son of the living God."
Jesus responded: "Blessed are you... because flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you. My father who's in heaven revealed this to you." This is what theologians call a theophany—a divine revelation where God reveals Himself. When God divinely reveals Himself, He reveals something not only about God but also something about you that you never would have known without that encounter.
Peter had an encounter with God that told him something about God. And then Jesus tells Peter who he is: "Thou art Peter. And on this rock I will build my church."
So Peter tells Jesus who Jesus is. And then Jesus tells Peter who he is.
Paul is doing the same thing. In the first 14 verses, he's telling them who they are—blessed, forgiven, chosen, redeemed. But then he says, in order for you to truly understand who you are, you need a revelation of who He is. Because seeing Him rightly is going to help you see yourself rightly.
This is why he prays: "That you get the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better."
The word used here for "know" is not surface familiarity. It's intimate knowing—ganosco—which speaks to knowing God Himself, not just knowing more about God. It's having a view and vantage point of God that is accurately aligned with who God is, not who we think He is and not who we want Him to be.
Here's the critical truth: Some people are not struggling because they don't know enough about God. They're struggling because what they know about God isn't actually aligned with who God is.
There is a connection between theology and identity. You will never know who you are if you have a bad theology. I can't know myself right if I see God wrong or know God wrong. Your theology informs your identity. If your theology is wrong, if you're wrong about God, you will always be wrong about you.
Why is Paul praying this prayer? He's praying it to people who are already saved. They're believers. But he's saying, "I want you to know Him better—more accurately."
The key is that intimacy is intertwined with accuracy. If I'm emotionally intimate with my wife, it means not just that I'm more passionate—it means I'm more aligned. I have a more accurate sense of what her needs are, her wants, her desires. There are aspects of who she really is that I didn't see before that I see now. If not, I'm working hard trying to please who I think she is, not who she actually is.
It is possible to fall in love with who God is not. Some people in long-term relationships realize, "I didn't know who this person was." What they fell in love with was who they thought they were. It took seasons—not time, but seasons—to reveal who people really are. Seasons reveal character. How are you when you're stressed? How are you when you're extended? How are you when you're offended? How are you when you don't get your way? That's what gives a comprehensive picture of who you are.
The same is true with God. It is possible to be offended when you get a revelation that somebody is not who you thought they were, but you fell in love with who you thought they were, not who they actually are. And this is possible not just in our relationships with people—it's also possible in our relationship with God.
The question is: Is the God you're in love with the God of the Bible?
Many of us fell in love with a God that was actually given to us. A God that was passed down. Not all of us—not everybody was born into Christian culture. But for those of us who were, we were born into a version of God that was passed down to us. And even if you weren't born into Christian culture, when you got born again, unless you had an isolated supernatural experience with Jesus, there was still a version of God you were given by the gospel that was preached to you.
Inherent in a person's explanation of the gospel is their view of God. When some people say, "You're not preaching the gospel," I say, "Not yours. Absolutely not yours. Because I don't have your God." Inherent in a person's version of the gospel, the version of the gospel reveals their view of God.
My advancement and my evolution is tied to my willingness to be corrected. A disciple must be willing to reconsider assumptions and interpretations that have been handed down to you or that you've assumed about God. Some of those things may not be aligned with who God is. Some of us were handed a view of God that was unbiblical, unhelpful, and unhealthy. But we have been inside that wrong picture so long that the wrong picture feels right.
The question we have to ask is: Is there a disconnect between my education about God and the revelation of God that we see in scripture? It's possible to be living out of a picture of God that we were handed and not one that we actually found in the Word.
Here are three types of wrong gods that people have been given:
The first is the Tyrant God. This is the god who is perpetually disappointed in you. He is always watching you—not with a loving eye to protect you, but watching you to assess and catch you in your imperfection so He can punish you. He is harsh and impossible to satisfy.
No matter how much you do, it's never enough. No matter how far you've come, He is focused on how far you have to go. He is less than a father, but the epitome of an impossible standard you're spending your whole life trying to reach.
People who were handed this God either become exhausted performers or quiet quitters. They spend their spiritual life trying to earn what God has already given, working for some approval that was never withheld from them. And they conclude that the gap between who you are and what God is asking of you is too large to close. So they end up exhausted from overperforming, or they engage in quiet quitting.
The Tyrant God produces people who never rest, never feel secure, and never experience the reality of God's love. You cannot ever feel loved by somebody you're always trying to please.
This type of God leads us to become performance-driven and approval-addicted. We're always seeking approval. We're always trying to perform for His love. The Tyrant God is one that emphasizes perfection over peace. When we know God is a God of peace, you never experience the peace of God because you're always striving for perfection in God. It's a God who corrects but never comforts—an unbalanced view of God.
How do you know if you have this God? When the gospel you heard was motivated to move you to avoid hell. The singular motivation is not a new covenant motivation—"This way is better"—but rather "Don't go to hell." Because you got a God that's just waiting to send you there. Every step you take and every decision you make is a decision you make avoiding hell instead of pursuing Him. You're avoiding wrath instead of pursuing love.
But what we see clearly in scripture is that the God of the Bible doesn't send people to hell. Jesus Himself said hell. Here's what we believe: There is life beyond this life. There's more to life than this. There's what we call eternal life and what's called eternal differentiation—meaning we all live beyond this life, but we all don't have the same experience. One is described as heaven, the other as hell.
Jesus makes it clear that hell is the place where evil is quarantined. He says in Matthew 25 that hell is reserved for the devil and his angels. That's who it was created for. It wasn't even created for us. There's an evil enterprise being headed by Satan that has a time period where they are allowed to adversely impact God's creation. But there's a time coming where God allows that influence and impact to come to an end, and they are eternally relegated to an eternal quarantine called hell, where they are no longer able to adversely impact or influence God's creation. That's who hell is for.
Here's what God does: God, being a loving God who respects your choice, will not force people who don't want to be with Him temporarily to be with Him eternally. He doesn't send people to hell. They choose it. God says, "I'm not going to force you to be with me eternally if you don't want to be with me now." Hell is God respecting a human's choice and a human's right not to choose Him. This is just what life is like without me.
Many people have been handed this Tyrant God. Your spiritual life isn't producing peace—it just increases your anxiousness. Instead of running to the Father and going boldly to the throne of grace when there are missteps and mistakes, you run from Him—from the very One you should be running to.
It's like the Prodigal Son, who has misjudged his father and thinks his father expects something his father doesn't even want. He's preparing a speech to give to his dad, but his dad won't even hear it. "I'm going to say to my dad when I get back, make me one of your hired servants," but the dad won't even let him get the speech out. "You think I want something from you I don't want."
We see this in Genesis too. Adam and Eve thought they had a Tyrant God. So they tried to hide from Him. And what you do with a Tyrant God is you try to cover yourself. That's what they did—they tried to cover themselves. Then God had to recover them. After He recovered them, what did He recover them with? Some skins.
Wait a minute. What did they try to cover themselves with? Fig leaves. What did He cover them with? Skins—something more sturdy. But you can't get skin without what? You have to kill something. Blood has to be shed. So even in the garden, we see the gospel—the shedding of blood to cover and recover sin.
Something had to die. Blood had to be shed. What tyrant does that? What tyrant says, "You broke it, but I'm going to fix it"?
Here's the challenge: Christian parenting is greatly influenced by Christian theology. Tyrant gods become tyrant parents who parent in a tyrannical way because they confuse harshness with standards. Some people are so conditioned to conflate harshness with standards that when you say God's not a tyrant, their assumption is demonic. Their response rises up in offense and aggression. But nothing about that reveals the fruit of the Spirit. The spirit you're carrying says to me this isn't righteous indignation. This is something else. It's a trigger, and you don't know you're triggered.
There's something so derelict in your own view of spiritual formation that you think you have to scare people straight. Remember that show "Scared Straight"? But scripture says: "By my loving kindness have I drawn thee." It is the goodness of God that leads me to repentance. You've got to be persuaded, not terrorized. If you have to tell people every week not to lie, that says something about their own spiritual journey. It doesn't mean they're immoral—it means they're underformed.
Legalism didn't work. It didn't make you holy. It made you scared. It made you more shameful when you did what you couldn't stop doing. It made you a better hider. At least let's be honest about that.
The second god is the Transactional God. This God is a vending machine. You put in the right behaviors, and God spews out the blessing. This view of God creates entitlement in the Christian, because your giving and living unconsciously entitle you to a life where you avoid adversity.
Biblical theology includes a theology of a good and generous God as He chooses to bestow not just spiritual but natural blessing on His people. He gives us all things that pertain to life and godliness. The proper utilization of the gifts and talents God has given you sometimes will produce fruit that shows up not just in the impact you make on other people's lives but in the income that comes into your life. Solomon says it's okay to enjoy the fruit of your labor.
The Bible's very clear: The issue when it comes to morality—good or evil—is not rich or poor. It's character. You can be evil and poor, holy and rich. You can be holy and poor, evil and rich. It's the character of the person. The Bible's not anti-wealth. The Bible's not anti-people having money. But there was a segment within a movement that almost treated a person's generosity as an obligation for God to respond by blessing that person financially in proportion to what they claimed that person needed to give.
You can make a biblical argument: The law of sowing and reaping says you reap in proportion to how you sow. If you sow sparingly, you reap sparingly. If you sow bountifully, you reap bountifully. But when people start calling out numbers, they're determining for other people what sparingly and bountifully is. If someone says, "Don't walk up here with $5," now you're counting pockets. But what if someone only has six? If they only have six and they give five, and somebody gives 5,000, the one that gave five—who only had six to begin with—gave more.
There was a part of that movement that presented God like a vending machine. When God sent harvest to people's lives in other ways, they were so entitled to the harvest coming a certain way that they became frustrated. They said they weren't blessed, ignoring the areas where they were blessed in ways that money couldn't buy.
The Transactional God says: My giving and my living entitles me to a life where I avoid adversity. If you're serving that kind of God, you're going to have a hard time with hard times. Sometimes you do all that living and all that giving, and life still isn't easy.
When you have a Transactional God, you try to purchase stuff that only relationship can get you. Like Simon the sorcerer who tried to purchase and buy the power of the Holy Spirit. You try to buy and trade with God. It's not rooted in love. "I'm doing this in order to get this from you, Jesus. If you do that, God, I'll do this." That's the danger of a Transactional God—it makes us try to purchase what only a relationship can give.
The third god is the Tolerating God. This is the God who saved you but doesn't particularly like you. He accepted you because Jesus made it possible, but you always sense that He is putting up with you rather than you being someone He is delighted in.
Because people believe God merely tolerates them, what they do is they just tolerate themselves. They carry a low level of self-contempt that no amount of affirmation can touch. They spiritualize low self-esteem and call it humility. They sanctify their mediocrity and call it submission.
They ignore scriptures that say how He delights in them, how He sings over them, how He has chosen them. They ignore books like Hosea, which is a metaphor of how He pursues them, runs after them, and is relentlessly running after them.
We are so accustomed to being used that we don't even know how to accept being loved. We can't believe that somebody like that wants somebody like us. Some of us were given that God.
We reject unbiblical self-deprecating talk. We say about ourselves what He says about us. "I was a sinner, but Ephesians says now I'm a saint. I'm a child of the Most High God."
I don't think all of us hold a singular view of God. It's probably a mixture. Let me show you if you've been influenced. If anything said here made you feel shame—not conviction, but shame—that lets you know Tyrant is in your theology.
When you know you need to know God better, it's through the acknowledgment that there are some views you hold that are unaligned. You don't know what you don't know until you know it. So the question is: When you know it, are you willing to submit your view to truth?
You might feel regret that you didn't know this earlier, but you shouldn't feel shame, because it's not that you didn't want to know. Nobody taught you. Some of our views of God were given to us by godly people. You trusted what they gave you. But how were you supposed to know?
This is important because you must learn how to walk. Just because something is available doesn't mean you need to consume it. Every time you go to YouTube, every time you go to Instagram, every time you go to TikTok, you're going to a buffet. It's a buffet, but just because it's out doesn't mean you need to eat it. Some stuff doesn't go together.
Some of us are eating all of these different views of God. So you're calling yourself full, but you're kind of confused. We've made God into Frankenstein. We took all of these parts of many different things and made our own God. We're taking all of these ideas and concepts about God, and what many of us have made is a God we made ourselves.
In Exodus 32, Moses was up on the mountain and was handed the right God. But the people reduced the right God to a version of God that they could understand or manipulate. They said, "Let us make a God who we can see." Not just any god, but a god fashioned out of the god they were familiar with in Egypt. They made a god that kept them in bondage. They rejected what they were handed and reduced God to a god they could understand.
What motivated them to engage in idolatry was comfort. They said, "Make us a god because we don't know what has happened to this fellow Moses."
This is a series really for your reflection. It's a series to hopefully release your mental grip on a view and version of God that is adversely impacting your own growth and your own development.
God is not a Tyrant. He's covenantal. He's not Transactional. He's relational. And He is madly in love with His people, not just merely tolerating His people.
My prayer is whatever you need to see, that God will open your eyes to help you see where you've been given a God that's not the God of the Bible. Only God can give you this vision. Our job is to point you to the truth, but it takes divine revelation for you to actually see and know Him better.
