Playlist - wk 6 - Scars to your beautiful

Today we are finishing up this series. We’ve listened to some interesting songs and looked at them through the lens of God’s truth. Just to quickly recap this series, we started off with “Million Reasons.” When life wears us down and beats us up, the enemy will give us a million reasons to give up, but God has given us one good reason to stay the course. Jesus is the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. When we think of what He endured, we won’t become weary and give up. Some of our most meaningful times follow the most difficult trials.

Next, we listened to a song called “Brave.” The song tells how words can be a weapon or a drug. Scripture teaches that words have the power of life and death. God’s desire is for us to speak life and be brave with the truth. God’s truth is THE truth and He brings life to a lost and dying world.

The next song was called “Something Just Like This.” That song is about how we want to be something different or something more, but because of Christ we are exactly who God needs us to be. We don’t have to be some kind of superhero to serve God, we just need to be available and obedient.

Then we listened to a Michael Jackson song called “Man in the Mirror.” The song challenges us to realize that if I want to make a difference in the world I must start with myself. The man in the mirror. We looked at some examples of James and Jesus saying something very similar, but realized that the mirror we look into is actually God’s word.

Last week we moved from the oldest song on our list to the newest when we listened to “I Ain’t Worried.” Some might say that going from songs with titles such as, “Man in the Mirror” to titles like, “I Ain’t Worried” thirty to thirty-five years later might indicate a regression in society. My high school English teacher would have given me detention for listening to it because “ain’t” ain’t a word.

Even if we all deserve detention for listening to it, we looked at the beauty of living in freedom as a slave to God. As a free slave to God, He gives us the strength we need to serve like billionaires because we are wealthy beyond measure in the currency of grace. Just like we are free slaves to God, we are rich debtors to Him as well. The more we work and serve, the deeper into debt we go with this debt that we could never pay back. God loves it when we treasure Him and chase after Him as if we couldn’t get enough of the love that He offers us.

Today’s song is going to focus on a theme that has made minor appearances in some of the previous songs. It will be particularly impactful for you if you have ever wished that you could change something about yourself. If you have ever felt “less than.” You avoid this group or that place because you don’t think you are smart enough or good enough. You feel physically insecure and unattractive.

If we are being honest, probably almost all of us would say that there is something that we would change about ourselves if we could. If we are part of the small percentage of people who wouldn’t change anything if they could, it’s just as important for us to recognize that the person who God is calling me to reach out to in love probably feels insecure, unattractive, not good enough, or not smart enough in some area of their life.

For me personally, I would have loved to have had a little better understanding of this when I was younger. I still struggle with it sometimes, but when I was in school my lack of confidence kept me from doing many things. I avoided sports because I never felt good enough. I avoided people because I didn’t feel like I fit in. Little things would bother me deeply and make me feel like I failed.

Now-a-days, you can go buy short socks that barely stick out of your shoes. You can even buy no-show socks if you want. When I was a kid you just had to push your tall socks down after putting on your shoes. One day, when I was in second or third grade, I put my shoes on and forgot to push the socks down! I didn’t even realize it until one of the pretty girls in class started teasing me for my tall socks.

I have always been a little overweight, but being teased about it at a young age has made me very self conscious. When I know people are looking at me I usually freeze. I start worrying, “How do I look, do my socks look goofy, do I have a booger hanging out of my nose?”

The first public presentation I ever did was in seventh grade. I had to give a 5 minute speech about Spain. To put it mildly, I was terrified! I worked harder at that presentation than any other assignment I had ever done. When it was my time to share, I nervously went through my prepared speech and sat down, hoping it lasted 5 minutes. The teacher then informed me that I made it the full 5 minutes. WHEW! A sigh of relief! Then she told me that my time was actually 25 minutes. That sealed it for me. I would never speak in public again.

I don’t know what you would change about yourself, but sometimes I just feel fat, boring, and out of style. We are going to save the song until the end today, but I want to tell you a little about it to get us started. This song was written by a young girl who has had to deal with insecurities in her life. She has to deal with a condition that causes her physical perceptions to be skewed, she has a skin condition, and she has to deal with a condition that causes her hair to fall out in clumps.

She said that one day she was watching a TV show about plastic surgery. She kept wondering why people felt the need to do that to themselves and it inspired her to write this song, “Scars To Your Beautiful.” She said that even though the song was written with women in mind, she believes it’s a message that can have an impact on everyone.

With that in mind, I want to read the lyrics from the beginning of the song with a slight modification. Let’s change “she” to “we” as we look for God’s truth in this uplifting song…

We just want to be beautiful

We go unnoticed, we know no limits

We crave attention, we praise an image

We pray to be sculpted by the sculptor

Oh, we don’t see the light that’s shining

Deeper than the eyes can find it

Maybe we have made ourselves blind

So we try to cover up our pain and cut our woes away

Cause cover-girls don’t cry after their face is made

If you have ever felt not good enough, not beautiful, not liked, or unnoticed, you are not alone. I want to give you one big thought to focus on today. I want to challenge you to ponder this truth, absorb it, let it sink in, and let it permeate the center of your mind and your heart in a way that would transform the way you see your imperfections. If you are taking notes, write this down. Our thought for today is this…

WITH CHRIST, YOU ARE GOD’S MASTERPIECE.

I’ll never forget, I was about 15 years old when God started teaching me this lesson. More likely, that’s when I started listening. I came home from school one day and the Power Team was on TV. The Power Team are a group of body builders who perform “strong man” type shows. They travel around the world doing things such as bending metal bars, breaking concrete blocks, and bench pressing logs while laying on a bed of nails while laying on top of another team member. You know, just typical things you might see your kids trying to do.

As I watched these guys do their thing, I remember one of them diving through a solid block of ice that was probably six feet tall and three or four feet thick. Afterward, he said something that really stuck with me. He said that they can do all of this stuff because Jesus gives them strength. It’s not even about Him giving them the strength to jump through ice or anything like that. That is just a small part of the larger picture of what Jesus did in their lives. We all have a part of us that is missing until we know Jesus. Jesus did something for us that we could never do on our own. He makes us complete.

After that I couldn’t stop watching TV. I just kept watching different preachers talk about Jesus. I wanted to know more about Jesus. My parents had taught me about Jesus, but for some reason watching the Power Team made something click and it was beginning to make sense to me. That night, I prayed to God the most significant prayer of my life in front of the TV with the Power Team.

To me, Paul’s words to the Ephesians become even more powerful when I can relate them to something like the Power Team…

Ephesians 2:8–9 NLT

8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

Pause there for a second. As I watched the Power Team, I knew that I would never be able to break a stack of concrete blocks or bend a piece of pipe by hand. I would never be able to brag about jumping through a human sized block of ice! I could never be rewarded for something I couldn’t even do. But they acknowledged they wouldn’t even have the strength, except for God giving it to them.

That’s a cheesy picture of what God does for all of us. He busted through the concrete, metal, and ice FOR US so that we could be with Him. God’s strength doing something I could never do, a gift that I could never earn. His strength is something that I need and could never live without. Jesus completes me and makes me into something new. Something beautiful…

Ephesians 2:10 NLT

10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Christ makes us brand new. The old is gone! The new has come! We are not saved BY good works, but FOR good works. With Christ, you are God’s masterpiece. God doesn’t make junk. He doesn’t mess up and make mistakes. He is in the business of making masterpieces. We don’t have to cover up things we don’t like or try change what God has created in order to hide what we don’t like. The only thing we need to add is Christ. With Jesus, you are a masterpiece.

The Greek word translated as “masterpiece” is “poiema (poy’-ay-mah)” It means much more than simply being made complete by God. There is another word that could have been used to show that Jesus made us complete or that God made us complete through Christ. Paul used this word instead…

poiema (poy’-ay-mah): a beautiful poem, perfect workmanship, a tapestry.

You are God’s poetic statement! His masterpiece! He didn’t just send Jesus because you couldn’t do it, so you needed help. He sent Jesus to make you into something amazing! To make you into a unique work of art!

God is the Artist—you are the art.

God is the Painter—you are the canvas.

God is the Sculptor—you are the clay.

You are God’s crowning achievement—His masterpiece!

Let’s continue with some more lyrics, again, slightly altered to reflect all of us…

You don’t see you’re perfect

You don’t understand you’re worth it

Or that beauty goes deeper than the surface

So to all the people that are hurting

Let Christ be your mirror

Help you see a little bit clearer

The light that shines within

You might say, “I get it. I know that through Christ I am a masterpiece, but it doesn’t change the fact that I need to slim up a bit, have whiter teeth, different hair, bigger muscles, smarter, funnier, or shorter socks.” If you told someone that you didn’t think you were good enough, you didn’t think you would ever be able to advance at work, or you felt ugly and ashamed, they might say, “Actually, you just need some self-esteem.”

The bad thing about self-esteem is that it continues to focus on the problems. You will continue to look at short-comings and attempt to have a high regard for them. In a physical sense, you will only feel like you are lying to yourself. In a spiritual sense, at best you will become okay with sin and imperfection. In truth, we should not be so focused on “self.” We should move from a self-centered way of thinking because what we need is a Christ-centered esteem.

Self-esteem is just feeling good about self, but it’s Christ in us that helps us understand how valuable we are. We are worthy of the life of Christ. Our worth is not based on what someone says about us, how we feel about us, or the standard that the world sets. Our worth is based on who Christ says we are. Let Christ be your mirror, and He says that we are a masterpiece created by Him to do the tasks prepared for us before we were even born.

I love this quote from Todd Keene, the leader of the Power Team…

“Through the leading of the Holy Spirit, we are to fight to become more like Christ. Not lower the standard to comfort our shortcomings.” -Todd Keene

We need a Christ-centered esteem, because what you believe about yourself on the inside eventually manifests itself on the outside. Where you look is where your life moves. Have you ever been driving down the road and briefly turned to look at something outside the window, but when you looked back at the road you realized that you had drifted in the direction you turned your head?

If you have ever seen the X-Games, you may have noticed that whether it was the skiers, motorcyclists, skateboarders, or whoever, after they leave the face of the ramp, the athletes immediately turn their heads toward the place where they are landing. It’s for the same reason. Your life will move in the direction in which you have fixed your eyes.

Instead of focusing on ourselves, our focus should be on Christ in us. I love the imagery Paul gives the Corinthians in his second letter to them…

2 Corinthians 4:5–7 NLT

5 You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

That is a beautiful picture of what we are talking about today. We are just fragile jars of clay, but our beauty, our value, the light within, comes from Jesus. This makes it clear to us that the Power Team was right! It comes from God, not ourselves!

Let’s look at a few more words from the song…

There’s a hope that’s waiting for you in the dark

You should know you’re beautiful just the way you are

And you don’t have to change a thing

The world could change it’s heart

No scars to your beautiful

God loves you like that. He loves you just the way that He created you. With Jesus, He wants to make you His masterpiece. There are so many little things that we see as ugly and not pretty enough, so we keep them in the dark or try to hide them with makeup. We compare ourselves to other people or to someone’s expectations, and quickly forget that God loves us just the way we are.

In truth, God doesn’t JUST love all of you equally, He loves you uniquely. He created you! You are special! You don’t have to have a six pack, look great in Yoga pants, or be the most popular person in town. It’s WHO you are that matters. You are God’s masterpiece! To quote pastor Craig Groeschel, “No beauty shines brighter than Christ in your heart. Nothing is more attractive than Godly confidence born from inner spiritual character.”

It doesn’t matter if your socks are ugly and you like to talk. It doesn’t even matter if you like to talk about your ugly socks! What matters is Christ in you. He gives you life. His life brings light into darkness that cannot be extinguished. That is John’s opening statement…

John 1:4–5 NLT

4 The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

You are accepted by Christ. You are secure in Christ. You are significant because of Christ. And He’s not done with you. You are His masterpiece with His light in your heart and He will continue the work He began inside of you until He is finished. Phil 1:6 “6 And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

The enemy wants us to be distracted with concerns of what other people think, shifting us to a self-centered focus and trying to please people rather than listening to what God wants for us. We try to improve self-esteem rather than having a Christ-centered esteem. Just like what inspired this song, it pushes us to crazy things like, plastic surgery and becoming someone else, rather than finding happiness and satisfaction in Christ. Self-esteem wants me to look to my own creation instead of God’s masterpiece.

We are about to listen to the song, but before we do, let’s pray to close and after the video you will be set free from this five minute speech.

Close in Prayer

Play Video: Scars To Your Beautiful

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