Abba's Dearly Beloved

“Unless the Lord builds this house, the labourers labour in vain.” Psalm 127:1

Introduction: A Mosaic portrait

There is a famous and beautiful mosaic adorning the walls of the Church of the Hagia Sophia, one of the largest, famous and oldest churches in the medieval Christian world, in present day Istanbul, Turkey. Now a museum that was first a church and then a mosque, it is a spectacular place to visit if ever you visit the Turkish city. This mosaic is one of many commissioned by Byzantine emperors, devoted Eastern Orthodox Christians, who ruled what effectively was the remains of the Eastern Roman Empire with its capital based at Constantinople (now present-day Istanbul).

The mosaic depicts the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child in the centre and two famous Byzantine emperors, Justinian on the left, who built the Hagia Sophia Church, and Constantine I on the right, the founder of the city of the city of Constantinople (present day Istanbul).

In their hands, both emperors are offering and dedicating what they have built to Jesus. Justinian holds up the church of the Hagia Sophia, he ordered built and Constantine offers up in his hands what represents the city of Constantinople. It is an image of devotion of earthly accomplishments to the glory of God.

This picture goes right to the heart of today’s message: re-discovering the centre of our self-worth in the shelter of Jesus and his sacrificial, unfailing love. Gods heart was not only to gift a lost humanity resurrection life through the blood-soaked road that Jesus trod willingly for our sake to the cross. It was to clothe us with a resurrected identity and self-worth that had been lost when Adam and Eve first chose to hide in shame from God because of their physical and spiritual nakedness.

Part 1: A Sandy Foundation: Performance and Self-Worth

Jesus once told a parable of a foolish man who built his house upon the sand (Matthew 7:24-27); a metaphor for building your life, your self-worth, identity and hearts desires or treasures on anything other than Jesus and his example as the unshakeable rock. With this in mind, do you find yourself like I do at times building the foundations of your identity on the sands of what you achieve and do (or don’t achieve/do)? This is where our days become at its worst a driven quest for the next dopamine hit and sense of worth found in the next finished task, exercise regime or church ministry activity.

This does not mean that there is anything wrong with having dreams, setting goals and being motivated to achieve and be successful in life, nor should we discount the life-giving joy shared by almost everyone that accomplishing things brings! The danger is if we centre our focus and identity primarily on such insecure foundations of pride in our own labour, performance and achievement. When we face various storms in our lives, the house which we laboured painstakingly to build on the strength of our own toil, trophies and success will eventually collapse.

Jesus’ words are a reminder that fulness of life and a secure foundation can only ever first and foremost be found in him. Everything else including what we set our hearts and minds to and what we desire to achieve, flows from that place of our belovedness anchored and rooted in Christ.

So why can we get so unhealthily preoccupied with what we accomplish? It is the toxic lie that invites comparison and performance when believed that we are not acceptable as we are in Christ. We are then drawn into an illusion that whatever we achieve will make us feel good enough, valuable and a vindication of our self-worth. At its core can be a tragic lack of love for oneself, but this is the very person God loves and whom he sent Jesus to die for and desires to know.

This sadly in turn can actually hinder growing in intimacy and maturity in as followers and lovers of Jesus as author and theologian Henri Nouwen highlights:

“Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.””

Jesus firmly exposed the lie that our worth, value and security is primarily in what we achieve with this blunt statement:

“What good is it for a person to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul.” Mark 8:36

The reality is that measuring ourselves primarily by what we achieve or do not achieve will not satisfy as i have at times painfully discovered. For there is always something else to focus on to accomplish. Yet even if we in Jesus’ words were to “gain the whole world”, the status that we reach and the wealth, fame, knowledge or power we acquire are but a hollow, unrewarding and unhealthy distraction from what really satisfies the soul: the defining love and finished work of Christ.

Part 2: Truly lovable. God’s Foundations of Self-Worth

Psalm 139:14 proclaims that each of us have been “fearfully and wonderfully made” by God.

We are the awe inspiring and wonderful expressions of God’s creativity, yet sadly we do not always like the reflection we see when we look in a mirror. But God does, oh how he loves what he has made and redeemed in Jesus. Will you allow yourself today to believe and get into agreement with the truth that God accepts you and loves you for who you are? You are as Paul proclaims fully known and understood by God and in knowing you completely as he does, his love for you does not waver one bit (See 1 Corinthians 13:12). Your true self is someone that God accepts and loves and Jesus invites you to come out from hiding, cease running from him, from others or yourself and lay down all shame that causes you to believe the lie that your are disqualified or not good enough. You are qualified in Christ and what he has done, not in what you have done or not done. In being defined by such an identity stripped of performance, where intimate beloved oneness is enjoyed with God as a Father, you step with joy and not dread into what God has called you in this life to glorify him.

Returning to the mosaic, we see that it is not a celebration of what the two emperors achieved or built but the focus is the glory of and joy of Jesus that invites the surrender of their achievements to him. For in Jesus alone they as we do find an identity of belovedness that is eternal and not entangled in any way with performance or achievement. In Jesus a permeant “acceptance in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6 NKJV) of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is found that no temporary achievement or status on this earth could ever bring about.

A lyrical verse wrote by Saint Augustine in the fifth century provides a heart felt summary of this truth:

“In loving me God, you have made me [truly; completely, eternally] lovable.”

Prayer: Dear Father God, thank you that, I am truly and eternally accepted and loved by you defined not by what I achieve in this life but first and foremost by abiding in the only truly safe, secure and unshakeable place for my soul: the rock that is Jesus. Forgive me when I have allowed myself to believe the lie that I my acceptability to you rests on what I do or achieve. Help me to accept myself as you accept me and find my self-worth in the one who loves me and who was given and willingly gave himself for me and not in performance. Thank you, Father God. In Jesus’ precious name. Amen.