#440 See Yourself Here Series# 3, Jesus Sees You!

#440 See Yourself Here Series# 3, Jesus Sees You!
By: Zach Sloane

(Sermon notes & PowerPoint slide links at the bottom of the page)

Recap:
John 1:23-51 the sponsoring text for the whole of the series.

See. See yourself. See yourself Here!

Luke 3:5
Every valley shall be filled And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough ways smooth;

We looked at how the most important thing to see is Jesus. John the Baptist pointed us to him by showing us:

The Man
The Son of God
The Lamb of God
The Baptizer

Intro:
We want to see Jesus, but you can’t be your best you unless you know and are ok with the fact that Jesus sees you too!

In John 1:42-50, four times it says Jesus saw, or looked at someone.

John 1:42b – 50
“…Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is translated, A Stone)…
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered and said to Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these…”

Jesus sees you, not through you. And when he see you he sees:

Your Characteristics, character, and core.
He sees your past!
He sees your future!
He sees your true identity!

Jesus sees us: Why is this so important?

Rick Hanson
“Even though it’s scary, everyone longs to be seen, to be known. To have your hopes and fears acknowledged – the ones behind a polite smile or a frown of frustration. To have your true caring seen, as well as your positive intentions and natural goodness. Most intimately of all, to feel that your innermost being – the one to whom things happen, the one strapped to this roller coaster of a life trying to make sense of it before it ends – has been recognized by someone.”

We all just want to be seen for who we are. So does God. That’s literally his whole program for creation, to make himself known and to be intimately known.

Brene Brown
“In order for connection to happen we have to allow ourselves to be seen.”

Jesus came to identify with us, to let us know that we are seen, heard, and valued, that we can come out of hiding and stop trying to prevent God from seeing us.

Remember our primal ancestors Adam and Eve, when they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they became infected in their consciousness with a deep sense of inadequacy… as if they didn’t measure up and were worthy of death. And ever since then the human psyche has developed and passed along an ingrained, innate fear of God that makes us want to hide from him rather than run to him.

Genesis 3:10
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

Jesus seeing you is a good thing… he put his cards on the table – he said “here I am – you can see me for who I am.” And what we see when we look at him in His fully revealed and fully exposed self, hanging naked on the cross, literarily experiencing the worst of us, was someone who even then could say “Father forgive them.” He showed us we don’t need to hide anymore.

He sees you and he likes what he sees.

So what does he see?

Characteristics, character, and core.

John 1:47
“Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”

You were made unique! Born at the right time, to the right family, in the right nationality – everything about you that makes you the unique expression of God that you are needs to be celebrated, not denied.

Galatians 3:28
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

He wasn’t saying that there is now no such thing as gender or race, or economic status… as if these don’t exist. What he was saying was that no one was now any closer to God, better, more holy, or more acceptable to Him because of any of these things. Gentiles don’t need to become Jews, Jews don’t need to be Gentiles… what we all need is Jesus.

So Jesus sees your characteristics and he also sees your core, your character.

Look at what Jesus said. “An Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Same Bible tells me no one is righteous, no not one. We are all sinners who have all gone astray.

Romans 3:10-12 (and Ps. 14:1-3, Ps. 53:1-3)
“…as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless: no one does good, not even one.”

Jesus doesn’t say I see your worst parts, he says I see the best in you. And he is uniquely qualified to do so. He took our sin in his own body on the cross. He knows our sins better than we do – he actually experienced them – so he is qualified to say:

“when I you, I see the real you. At your core, I see you might be struggling with something today but I see the righteousness, the love, and the yes in your heart to God and his ways that you maybe don’t think is there, but I see it! You are righteous, you are holy, you are without blame, and full of the fruit of the Spirit.”

He sees your past!

John 1:48
Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”

Uh oh! Scary thought or comforting thought?

Now thankfully I am new creation. All things have become new. My past is gone. But, some of the memories of it, and even some of the consequences of it are still present with me and sometimes its hard to not think that because my evil past is so alive and present with me in my memories that it is is alive and present with God too.

2 Corinthians 5:17-18a
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God…”

Now thanks to Jesus, when God looks at my past, when he looks at my life as a whole what he sees is me, not my sin, not may failures. And he won’t let me get away hiding from him by presenting to him what I think were my greatest successes either… he comes to me and sees me, and that empowers me to move forward into today, knowing that what he sees from yesterday is just me in Christ.

He sees your future!

John 1:50
“Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”

Jesus see the potential in you, he sees the dreams, passions in you. They are not lost on him, he doesn’t ignore them and not see them.

How can he be so sure of our future when so much of it seems to depend on the choices you make or circumstance down here?

Your future is to fully manifest the life of Christ that is within you – to manifest the fullness of all that He is. His victory is certain, in fact, its already won. He’s has achieved on our behalf, attained from God for us everything we need. In Christ, we are already positioned and equipped for the future God has for us, in many ways we’re already there. We just don’t realize it yet!

He sees your future and it looks a lot like the fullness of Jesus fully shining in you!

He sees your true identity!

John 1:42
“Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is translated, A Stone)…”

When we talk about identity we are talking about that deep inner sense of self – a knowing of who I am on the inside.

Biblically speaking – identity is one of those things that humans get most deeply and most profoundly from God. We came from Him.

You can generate a false sense of self from other things like your job, your family, your relationships, your race, gender, sexuality, the persona that you try to cast – but deep down, identity, a true sense of self can only be fully satisfied in the human heart when your sense of self comes from Jesus.

He is what our true self looks like.

John 1:42
“Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is translated is Peter)…”

Whatever Simon means, Jesus says, you may have been this but, “you will now be known as Cephas or Peter.”

Kephas is Aramaic for rock, or Peter (verse 42).

Peter means: Petros: “a stone” or “a boulder,” Peter, one of the twelve apostles.

4074 Pétros (a masculine noun) – properly, a stone (pebble), such as a small rock found along a pathway.

But:

Matthew 16:18-29
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church…”

You are Peter, Petros, masculine noun, a single pebble, a stone. But on this rock, this PETRAS, this feminine noun I will build my church.

Strong’s Concordance #4073 Petra
petra: a (large mass of) rock
Original Word: πέτρα, ας, ἡ

4073 pétra (a feminine noun) – “a mass of connected rock,” which is distinct from 4074 (Pétros) which is “a detached stone or boulder” (A-S). 4073

(pétra) is a “solid or native rock, rising up through the earth” (Souter) – a huge mass of rock (a boulder), such as a projecting cliff.

On the Petra, the rock mountain, or the stoney ground that makes up a massive rock face, something that is not a single stone but a massive rock structure, thats what I will build my church upon.

Amazing that the substance of the small stone that is Peter, is the same substance as the stone that is emerging from the ground. Same substance.

The revelation of Jesus is the foundation and essence of all of our own identities and the essence and substance of who and what we are. Peter would later come to appreciate this, that he had become a partaker of the divine nature. We share the same nature as God Himself! WOW!

2 Peter 1:4(NIV)
Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires

He would also come to appreciate the fact that he is but a solitary stone, but one that is being built together with other stones into a holy and spiritual dwelling for God.

1 Peter 2:4-5
“As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house[a] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

He saw that he was at his core identity the same as Jesus. That’s why this is so important. So many people are chasing an identity that is so much less than what they already are. Or, they are pursuing righteousness and sanctification with no regard for their identification with Christ.

Even in the Old covenant this dynamic was prophesied.

Isaiah 51:1
Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn;

You want righteousness to show up in your life? You want to be the best version of you? It starts right here. “Look to the rock form which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn…” and when you do, realize that you are of the same substance, one with the One you came from.

So See. See Yourself. See yourself in light of the One You are one with, the one you came from. Know that Jesus sees you, and let what he sees when he looks at you fill and flood your vision too.

Jesus sees you… and he likes what he sees!

See Yourself Here Series 3, Jesus Sees You, Sermon notes to print, PDF

See Yourself Here Series 3, Jesus Sees You, PowerPoint Slides, PDF