Excerpts from: Mirror Images
5/7/06
Ephesians 1:3-14

Has anyone ever told you that you look like a celebrity? Do you have someone else's nose, eyes, cheekbones, or hair? Do you have the build of a famous athlete or model? Do you, sing, walk or talk like someone from the movies or the Broadway stage? Yeah, it's pretty cool to be compared to someone famous: unless, of course, that famous person is wacky, unscrupulous, or notoriously out of control.

Well, here's the deal: Who cares who our pop culture celebrity look-alike is? The question is: Are there sufficient character recognition points in our life to match us up with Christ?

When physical comparisons are made, beauty and brawn are certainly a part of the standard. But when spiritual character points are scored, what's the standard?

To know how godly one is, one must know who God intends us to be. What are the marks of spirituality that God destined us to embody? To what or to whom would we compare ourselves in a spiritual look-alike contest? Who would we mirror? We are to be people whose lives reflect our God.

1) First of all Paul says, we are a blessed people. God has "blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3). By comparison, there are other "spiritual" descriptors that people place on each other. Thinking superstitiously, some people are "luckier" than others. They hit the lotto. They avoid traffic accidents. They drop dishes that don't break. Their 'mojo' is working for them. But God doesn't want us to be lucky.

People will also describe each other as "having good karma." Those who beat cosmic cause and effect through merit. They tip the Even-Stephen balance through good behavior. But "being blessed" is not about good karma or trying to create good karma, or about trying to undo the effects of bad karma.

If it was, we'd all be characters in a sitcom like My Name is Earl. Earl spends his time on each 30-minute show trying to undo bad karma created when he was a worthless ne'er-do-well. When he wins $100,000 in the lottery, he considers himself "blessed" and decides to right all the wrongs from His past with his newfound cash and recently acquired insights. Karma is a funny thing.

Grace is even better. We don't need to be a people who spend their time trying to undo their mistakes. We're blessed. And being blessed requires a Blesser. We are blessed if we are told "Somebody up there is looking out for you." God wants to receive credit for the things in our lives that are attractive to others. James reminds us that, "Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights" ( 1:17 ). When we are seen as blessed people, others recognize the connection between our God and our lives.

We reflect a God who blesses His people. this blessing isn't based on how much money you have, the house you live in or the car you drive. It's based on God's economy-His love for us. Because our lives, our spirits have come alive to God, we are blessed.

2) Another spiritual recognition point is that God intends us to be holy people, "blameless before Him in love" (v. 4). We are to be set apart by our values. Seen as different. Pure. Upstanding. Good. Our actions and attitudes, our thoughts and emotions - God wants them all to conform to a standard: the mirror image of His son.

That's because God won't settle even when we are willing to. He designed us and knows what is best for us. He knows what will satisfy us and what won't. He knows what will hurt us and what won't.

We reflect a God who has holy standards for His beloved children. The reason we are called holy people is because when God looks at us He sees Christ, His very nature in us. Mirror mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? But from our Christian vantage point, we know we are human and live in these jars of clay.

So, we know from experience a holy and blameless standard would be ludicrous if Paul didn't also remind us that we are grace-gifted people (vs. 7-8). Grace means getting what we don't deserve, and giving us what we don't deserve is something God does really well. We know we aren't perfect-but we are forgiven.

Yet some Christians still try to maintain a sterling spiritual appearance. They have it all together. They're great. Their families are great. Their lives are great. But nobody has a perfect life.

While our lives should be marked by a standard, we should also be stories of the grace of God. We can't legalistically achieve holiness by stacking up good works that minimize the need for grace. God's grace is our only way of getting in the door, and God's grace is the only way we'll be staying in the room. In Transforming Grace , Jerry Bridges notes the way we miss this concept from our text: "We declared temporary bankruptcy to get into His kingdom, so now we think we can and must pay our own way with God. We were saved by grace, but we are living by performance."

3) We reflect grace and not perfection. God is a God who loves and not one who burdens. How can our thoughts and words and actions all stem from this lavished grace? How might we lavish grace on others - our families, friends, neighbors and coworkers - as it has been first lavished upon us? Living the answer makes us good spiritual look-a likes with God's hopes in Ephesians 1.

But if we were to sum up all of the spiritual look-alike qualities in this passage that God has destined for us to embody, we might do so with verse 12: We are to "live for the praise of His glory ."

Notice what it doesn't say:

• We don't live for the praise of our good decisions.
• We don't live for the praise of our values.
• We don't live for the praise of our plans or even our religion. A Christ clone will quickly deflect personal accolades. He will be humbly content to defer to a God of grace.

We might ask ourselves simply, "Does how I live reflect more of Christ or more of me?" Our recognition points should cause us to look more like Christ.

Pascal's prayer says it all: "I ask you neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death; but that you may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for your glory."

Let us be people whose whole lives are disposed for the glory of our God.

Celebrities gain and lose their star power as quickly as the effects of bad career and personal life decisions may dictate. Fame is transient. Applause is temporary.

But Christ is eternal. His celebrity is unflawed by shoddy character or poor choices. That is why as Christians we are "the first to set our hope on Christ" (v. 12). We believe in Him. We honor Him. We emulate Him. We mirror Him.

Paul concludes that we have been given God's Holy Spirit as a guarantee that he will give us what we need-and that when the time is right, God (not us) will bring everything together under Christ.

If you've got Jennifer Aniston's hair, or Tom Cruise's smile, fine. But how far is that really going to get you?

You're blessed, you're holy, you're grace-gifted, and you live to the "praise of His glory."

If that's what you look like, you're looking good.!  Really good!