Finding Our Self-Worth

I've been thinking about this sermon for probably six months because I'm always working on ideas for sermons. In fact, I have a spin-off sermon I want to do in the future here on this very same subject, but it sort of came to head at one of the parenting classes that we've done.

It was the very first one because the theme of the class was—and it was basically about the two trees—but the theme of the class was about the power of words and how you can shape a child's mind through what you tell them. And, you know, over the years I've counseled with many a person who said, I was told by my parents that I was ugly and they put me down that you're ugly, and I've never gotten over that. They're 40 years old and they still feel ugly because they were told that. And it was just interesting some of the discussions that took place in the class, and then I've talked to a number of the adults who are in that class who have shared stories with me since then about things they struggle with because of what they were told as a child.

You know, instead of someone saying, well, that was a bad decision, it's you're stupid, you know? So you eventually are convinced you're stupid. Although I told them the story, I said, one of the great moments of my life in child during was I'm standing beside my son and he did something really, really stupid. And he's standing there and it's like, yeah, it was really stupid. Yeah, it was. No one we're going to do about. It's okay. Now we have a teaching moment, but it dawns on him.

This is bad. Okay? That's okay. He knew I didn't think he was stupid. He had done a stupid thing, though. He does something a bad decision. It wasn't like it's sin, but he did a really bad decision. Now he had to work through it. This leads us into what I wanted to talk about. And that is what is called in psychology self-esteem. But we're going to approach this in a way that you've probably never heard it discussed before.

I am working on this. I read some studies done in prisons because the general viewpoint is most people are criminals because they have low self-esteem. And they found out through the studies that, well, it's true in some cases, but it's actually not a major motivation for many of the criminals. And there was one study that said the habitual criminals, many of them scored the highest on self-esteem. In other words, the reason they were criminals is because, well, everybody treats me bad and I have a right to what I want.

So if I want your car, I'll steal it. And they thought they were absolutely justified. Now that's not like everybody, but there was all there was this group of people that it wasn't like, oh, I feel worthless and feel bad about myself. No, I feel good about myself and nobody else seems to recognize it. So they were justified in their actions. If we feel worthless and here's we're going to we have a spiritual issue here we're going to have to deal with. But we see it all the time in human behavior.

I mean, I have seen times where I've sat down with teenage girls who attempted suicide and it's because they didn't get attention from dad. So they tried to get it from boys. And you know what the boys did and now they feel worthless. And so life had no meaning. I watched it in my own children. I've watched it in my grandchildren. When they feel worthless, you'll see their conduct change. You'll see a change. Of course, working at camps for years, you could tell you see this kid come in and say, that kid feels worthless. You can see it. They're afraid to try anything. They're afraid to do anything. Of course, people will try to cover feelings of worthlessness through drug abuse, through alcoholism.

That's just an empty hole there. You try to fill that hole with, you know, with booze. It's just an empty hole. You can never put enough booze in that hole to fill it, which is the problem with all these issues. You can't put enough whatever you crave in there to fill the problem.

Sometimes people will try to fulfill feelings of worthlessness by being the center of attention. They just crave attention. They have to be the center of attention all the time.

So here's the question. How are we as Christians supposed to feel about ourselves?

You think, well, that's a dumb question. Why would you ask that? Well, wait a minute. I've talked to people. I've talked to people who've grown up in the church, and they've said the hardest thing about growing up in the church was that I just feel like a worthless sinner. You know, we're talking about adults. Go on the church my whole life, I'm a worthless sinner, and I don't even know why I want to go anymore. Now, I'm not saying the church did that to them. I'm saying it's a perception. That's how they feel. Unfortunately, well, so much of our problems in life aren't based on our reasoning. It's based on our feelings. And then we make up reasons to go with our feelings, right? So how are we supposed to feel? Are we supposed to say, no, no, that's not it. God's with us. We're better than everybody else. All these pagans out there, waiting to Jesus' Christ's back and fries them. I can't wait till their eyeballs melt in their head, you know? I mean, is that the approach we're supposed to have? What exactly are we supposed to do? I mean, you have to have some kind of self-confidence to get out of bed in the morning, right? And then you see people with no self-confidence, that's what they do. They stay in bed. Why get up? I'll fail anyways.

You have to have some self-confidence to have a relationship that has any stability to it.

You have to have some self-confidence to develop work skills or to accomplish anything. And yet, you've heard sermon after sermon after sermon, you've heard me talk about how some of the core problems we have as human beings is pride, arrogance, and selfishness. Okay? So I don't want to feel too good about myself because I'll be arrogant and selfish.

So we're in this, how am I supposed to feel about myself as a Christian? Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself. Well, I don't love myself, so I guess I can't love my neighbor. And if I love myself, then I'm being selfish. So I don't know what that even means, right?

So how am I supposed to feel about myself?

I mean, to truly be a Christian, you have to come to grips with, you have a corrupted human nature. To truly be a Christian, you have to come to grips with, I am messed up.

I don't care whether you grew up in the church, if you came in, what age you came in, people will come in at 70 years eight of old and say, oh man, I would have got baptized years ago if I would have known how messed up I am. No matter when you respond to God, so that's where this starts. So I mean, the whole idea Jesus loves you just come the way you are doesn't work because if you really get into the Scripture, it's like, oh no, no, no, God says come the way you are so I can change you. I mean, I have to feel bad about myself, which you actually do. So, okay, well why, why did you try? And sometimes I just I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of people over the years and I hear this kind of stuff all the time and I understand it because we're going to look at this today. What is our self-worth? This is important because understanding our self-worth is how we'll treat our husband, our wife, and our children and how we understand their self-worth. I'm using self-worth. I don't want self-esteem because I don't want to slide over into that argument and that it means the same but slightly different, okay, because we got to figure out where it comes from. Self-esteem, the concept is it comes from you. We're going to figure out where this worth comes from, this value comes from. Do I have value? Am I worth anything? And where does that come from? It affects our relationship with others. It will determine to a certain degree what we accomplish in life, our sense of self-worth, and most importantly as Christians, it is a vital aspect of our relationship with God.

Because how does God want you to feel? How does God want you to feel? So we have two issues here, two sides that we tend to slide into as human beings. And we're all on this thread, this line, part this way, part that way, part... we go back and forth between these things in life. One is, I am worthless. And God, you know, I'm just sort of hanging on by my fingernails because God really is disgusted with me, and I am worthless. That's the one edge.

The other edge is that we're selfish and arrogant.

What's funny is that some of the behavior, the dysfunctional behavior we do as human beings can be from being on both sides of this. In other words, there are times when the person who feels worthless and the person who feels selfish are actually doing the same behavior. Not always, but there are times. They're both sides of the same coin. They're the dysfunctional ways that we think and feel about who we are. One is arrogance, one is worthlessness. And so, since they're both sides of the same coin, going—you and beings can go back and forth between the two. Now, a selfishness will express itself in certain ways, but here, these are the makeup of a truly selfish person. Okay? This is some traits of a truly selfish person. A selfish person is so obsessed with his or her own needs and desires that other people, their relationship with other people is only in relationship to how did they fulfill their needs and desires. They don't think in terms of helping or giving to another person. Everybody basically exists for me. They're the center of that universe, and that's how they interact with other people. A selfish person feels that their preferences, even in minor things, is always right. You ever been with eight people trying to decide what restaurant to go to? And then every once in a while, there's this person that says, well, this is where I'm going. Come on. And the other seven can say, well, that's not where we want to go. Then you stay here. That's where I'm going. And they've never gone once to a restaurant that everybody else wanted to go to. They always go to the one they want to go to. And you either go with them or you don't. You know, even in mundane things, their preferences are always right. A selfish person believes that he's superior to others, and that's why he's always putting them down. A selfish person always put others down. You know a person who has extremely low sense of self-worth, many times will put other people down and attempt to try to lift themselves up. So here you have a behavior that can come from both ends of this. Worthlessness or this arrogance. Both take it out on other people. One to show I'm superior, the other to hope. Hope I can find someone worse than I am.

A selfish person resents anybody that tends to have more talent or opportunities or better looking or more wealth, whatever it is, because they think it's theirs. They should have it. You ever see a teenage girl put down another girl that's pretty just because she's pretty?

Why? Because their self-worth is somehow belittled by this person.

This person belittles their self-worth. Because the selfish person approaches every situation with what's in it for me, they tend to try to control a lot. They also have a real difficult time ever admitting they're wrong, and they get angry when things don't go their way. Now, every one of us can look at that list, and if we're honest, we've acted a number of those points sometime in our lives because every one of us deals with selfishness.

On the other end, there are many of us who deal with I'm just worthless. I have no value to give to anybody.

So here we are. There isn't a person here that doesn't fit somewhere on that line between this extreme and this extreme. We all have components, and some of us have both. The problem is both of those viewpoints are not God's viewpoint. They're dysfunctional. They keep us from having a right relationship with God, both of them.

So what do we do? What do we do? Here's a few characteristics of proper Christian sense of self-worth, and then I'm going to have to explain where that comes from. A proper concept, a Christian concept of self-worth, is first based in what? It's based in God.

Now we're going to have to explain that. My sense of self-worth is based in my education. No. It's based in my abilities. No. None of those things. It's based in my knowledge. No. It's based in my Sabbath-keeping. No. It's based in whatever. No. Our worth comes from one place.

One place only. And we have to understand what that is. It comes from God.

And this means that understanding the destructive results of sin—let me put it this way. To deal with your sense of worthlessness, you have to do something. And it's the same thing an arrogant person has to deal with. You have to accept God's forgiveness for your sins. You have to accept that love. No, no, no, no, no. My problem was this is why I don't have any self-worth. When I went to school, I didn't have nice clothes. We were poor family, and all the kids made fun of me, and I didn't make good grades. No, no, no, no. Okay. Fine.

Where are you going to get it from? Well, I don't know. But see, God has nothing to do with it. No, no, stop it. Move back away from this cliff. All of us in this mess called humanity has one place that we get our self-worth from and is from God. Now, we get help from other places and other people, but it has to start there. It has to start there. And we have to accept it. And the truth is, I found it very difficult when someone has an extremely low feeling of self-worth to accept what God's doing. They have a hard time accepting what God is doing. I will have my self-worth when my parents sit down with me and apologize for being so mean to me. But your parents are dead.

I had these conversations. When are they going to do this?

Besides, that wouldn't do it anyways. It would help, but it wouldn't solve it.

We have to become realistic about our abilities and limitations. And when we do this, we begin to see life as a chance to learn and grow as a person, as a child of God through the workmanship of God. We see our lives as God's work, what He's doing, and we want that work to be done in us.

Okay. How do we get there? Well, let's start with something. When we go to Genesis, how many times do we always read, God made humanity in His image? Right? We talk about that all the time. I gave a sermon about three years ago where I went through all these ways that human beings are like God. He gave us attributes that are like Him. We're conscious. Since my grandkids, my daughter, husband, grandkids are back in town for four months, I went over to their house a couple of times this week. You know, with Kim gone, it's like, I sure hope they invite me over for dinner. You know, I'd wait for the text. The kids are asking when you're coming. I'll be there in a minute, you know. But they were talking about the chickens. They're raising chickens and they're so smart and they go out and they pet them and the chickens are so... This is how Grandpa talks. I don't want to offend anybody. Come on. An animal that eats its own poop is not that smart. Okay. Oh, Grandpa, come just pet it. It's still dumb. Okay.

We have consciousness like God does. What's amazing is God never feels worthless and God is never arrogant. God never has self-doubts. Right? He lives in a state of being that we can't even imagine. That's who God is. We have consciousness, but there's something wrong with our consciousness. We have the ability to reason. He has the ability to reason, but we're all messed up in our ability to reason. We are creative. He's creative. Look what we create sometimes. Some amazing things and some terrible things. We experience emotions. He does too. Aren't you glad that He doesn't experience emotions like you and I do? We are capable of love. God is capable of love. He says it's who He is. It's a definition of His very being, and we're capable of that. And when God made Adam and Eve, now I want you to think about this, He looked at them and He didn't say, boy, this is bad work. You really need to feel bad about yourselves.

He said about always creation. This is good. This is good. And the word is all different. What He says in Hebrew, what He says there, this is very good. It's almost like God looked at the angels and said, I do pretty good work, don't I? Surprised? I mean, the angels were just shocked, shouted for joy. Yeah, look what I do. He didn't look at Adam and Eve and say what flawed, stupid, ugly, worthless beings. He didn't say that. And then they sinned.

And when they sinned, what did they do? They hid from God because their relationship with God was now damaged and they messed up their lives. And we've been doing that for all these millennia. But I want you to understand, before they sinned, they had an intrinsic value from God. Adam and Eve didn't need a psychologist. God, could you bring us a doctor so we could sit down and talk? We're having some marriage problems. They didn't need that. What Adam and Eve had were healthy minds, healthy relationship with God. Once they got kicked out of Eden, or once they sinned, the moment they sinned, that relationship was broken and they weren't receiving an intrinsic value from God anymore. And inside they knew it.

Inside they knew it. But God didn't leave us like that.

The whole story of the Bible is God reuniting us with Him so that we can receive the value He intends to give us. Do you understand that? The whole history of the Bible is we lost that value. And it's Him saying, only I can give it to you because I'm the one who gave it to you at the beginning. Adam and Eve's value came from God. When they kicked it, well, when they sinned, the value was gone. They knew it. They went and hid from Him. They were afraid of Him. God wants to restore that value to human beings. So how do we do that?

Okay. First thing you have to do, we have to accept that reality that God has called you, okay, yes to pay tithes, yes to keep the Sabbath, yes to do all those things. But those are just tools. Sometimes we think that's everything. No, those are tools for something. We have to do them for the work to be done in us. You go break the Sabbath and there's a problem between you and God. You go steal. You go lie. You go cheat. You go commit adultery. And you have a problem with God, right? But the constant work of God is to restore us into the value He designed us to have.

To restore you to the worth that He created you to have, and you and I don't have on our own. It's gone. But He never stopped the creation, did He? He never just wiped out humanity. He just said, keep producing people and I'm going to keep working with people. There's this whole plan and I want to restore them back. It's called the restoration, right? The New Testament calls about restoration. That's just not of the planet. That's just not of, you know, the environment. It's the restoration of what human beings are supposed to be. And just like selfishness is not a functional spiritual state, worthlessness is not a functional spiritual state. But we're always in these places. We have to accept that work.

That He desires, okay, He desires to give you value.

He desires to give you worth. It's what He does. Have you understood that, David? Psalm 139. I read Psalm 139, bits and pieces of it. I don't think I've ever read from the pulpit the entire chapter. I'm going to read most of the entire chapter.

This is a Mator David, okay. This is after some of his sins, after his failures, after a lot of, a life of trying to obey God and failing miserably. Sometimes God doing great miracles through him. He's lived this life of up and down and this is a Mator David. Verse 1, Oh Lord, You have searched me and know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down. You are equated with my ways. For there's not a word on my tongue, but behold, oh Lord, You know it all together. He says, You have hedged me behind and from before and laid your hand upon me. He says, You have control over my life. Everything about me you know. Now, David says this. What you have to understand is you can say this. Isn't that what God has called us to be? God knows every thought you have, every mistake you make, every good thing you do. He knows all of it. The good, the bad, the ugly, He knows all of it. And His hand is upon you to guide you, to help you.

David, with these statements, how God is with him.

I mean, all the things happen to the world and God knows all things. But He's with me. David's just overwhelmed by that because look what he says in verse 6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. I can't understand why the great, perfect God is so involved with me. This is the first step towards your receiving worth from God. Because it makes no sense that He would do it, just like it didn't with David. Why would you pay attention to me? And God says, because it's what I do. I made people to receive value and worth from me. And I've picked you right now to work with you. I'll pick somebody else at another time and this person at another time and these other people when Christ comes back. But I'm picking you right now to receive value from me.

And David said, this is too big for me. A guy like me?

Then he expands it. Verse 7, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? He says, God, you've made the universe. Where can I go where I'm not in your presence? He's just overwhelmed with the greatness of the God who's paying this much attention to Him. If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall follow me, even the night shall be light upon me. Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as the day the darkness and the light are both alike to you. Wow! This is the God that's paying attention to me.

It's the same God that's paying attention to you and me. I forget that all the time, and I get all worried or something about something that's like, you think this is a problem to God? Nobody is to me.

And in the moment, you forget who's paying attention to you. You forget where your value comes from. So we get caught up in the world and all its craziness, which has no value.

It has no value.

And we forget what's happening now only in your life can come from Him.

David now expands it even more. Verse 13, For you formed my inward parts, you covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous to all your works, that you are my soul who knows very well. You know what? Unless we understand who we are in relationship with God, it's very hard to praise Him.

I read an interesting article recently by a...well, it was a leading evangelist. I read a little bit by him once in a while because he tries to be biblical, and he said...he's starting to realize much of what passes for praise in the modern world isn't praise, that singing songs that make you feel better. We're not actually praising God.

We're doing things...and I don't mean us. I mean, he was looking in the...just the basic society out there. He said, we're all doing things that feel good about ourselves. I said, I'm praising God. David, in this understanding of who God was and what was happening to him, as this God is paying attention to him, not because he deserved any attention, but because God decided to do it. He says, so I praise you. I sing songs to praise you. I say prayers to praise you because of what you're doing.

You can see where his value is coming from. He goes on, he says, my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance before it was...while it was still unformed. And in your book, they were numbered, the days fashioned for me, when as yet they were none of them done. He says, you're paying attention to every day of my life. That's what the Almighty Creator God is doing for you. Not because you had intrinsic value, it's because he's making intrinsic value in you. Just think about that a minute. Because he says, you are my enemies. And then I sacrificed Jesus Christ for you. And Christ said, I came and willingly did that just for you. Why? Because we can give you what you don't have. They give us what we don't have. The Holy Spirit of God comes into us. You know what that means? You're the most valuable person, thing in the world, in the universe is, God and Jesus Christ. And then God puts his Spirit in us. What's that make us? The third most valuable thing on the earth, I mean, in the universe. Because God puts part of his mind in us and says, now let me give you value because you don't have it without me. You have 70 years. And you might produce a little value along the way, and that's nice, but there's no eternal value without God. There can't be. You and I can't produce eternal value. We can produce all kinds of value that helps somebody that's nice, that's good, but not for eternity. We produce value for a period of time, and it's very small.

That's not what God's doing. He's producing eternal value.

Now, what's interesting is when we skip down, I'm going to skip down to verse 23. So you think, at this point, he'd say, so you know, God, I feel really good about myself. No, he does feel good about himself. You can see it. Wow, it's amazing how God made me. It's amazing how God's evolved in my life. It's amazing how God keeps saving me. It's amazing how God keeps forgiving me. So what is, those are feelings of value, by the way. And then what's he say in verse 23? Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties. God, I'm not done yet.

Search me, work with me, finish me. That's what the rest of our lives are. Whatever time any of us have, it's search me, finish me, work with me, give me value that even surpass surpasses this life. I want value right now, today, that only you have, only God has. It's the only source we can get it from. It's the only worth we can have. Give it to me. Search me. Then he says, and see if there's any wicked way in me. And lead me in what? The way everlasting. Lead me in the way that will go on forever and ever and ever. That's why, as strange as it sounds, before we can really start to understand self-esteem, we have to change that to God-esteem. I mean, God valued us so much, he sacrificed Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ valued us so much. He willingly died for us. How much does He value us? I don't know what else He could do to show the value who places on us. And then he says, now let me heal you from what happened to every human being since Adam and Eve. You know, since Eve talked to Satan, this is what's happened. Let me heal you from that and put back in you what they had. Peace with God. Total happiness. No depression. No anger. They didn't have any of that. They had never had any of that. Let's go back to there, okay? Let's get you back there. A second thing, after understanding we have to esteem God, is that a true sense of self-worth comes from the struggle of God working in us. It's the struggle of God giving us value, and we keep wanting to hold on to things that we think are valuable. We want to hold on to wealth and status, our physical looks, or whatever we're holding on to. We want to hold on to it and say, no, no, no, this is what gives me value. This is what makes me feel good about myself. Guess the evil son of that's got to go. Nope.

Look at Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1.

Verse 15. Paul's writing to a group of people. He knows very well. He started the church there. He cares for them. So at first there's some personal comments, and then he just launches into, this is what your purpose is.

Therefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. Now, here's what Paul's praying for the people in Ephesus. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him. He says, I'm praying that God gives you what you don't have. Revelation from God, the spirit of God.

And why? What happens? The health of wealth gospel? Oh, you're all going to become rich and famous and, you know, the health of wealth gospel is one of the greatest travesties that ever happened in Christianity.

Know that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, which you've received. See, that's why we have to accept this. Either you've been called and you have received the hope of this calling or we're playing church. That's really all it is. It's a very simple thing. Either playing church or you've received the hope of the calling. And if you receive the calling, what is it? That what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, in the saints, that God is... we are His inheritance. We become valuable because God makes us valuable. And what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards what? Towards us. His power in sustaining the universe? That's amazing. His power... what do you mean? His power towards us? I'm a widow and I'm alone. His power towards you is this lifetime so that you will be His child forever. That's His power. That's what He's doing. He's giving you value. Yeah, but I'm only 16. If you're listening to this and you understand it, it's His power that's leading you there. That's what it is. It's His power. Because I'm not smart enough. I don't have the magic words that make you understand this. God does it. This is where the value comes from.

Toward us who believe according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ Jesus when He raised Him from the dead, seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also that is in the age to come.

He goes on. This is so that He can be all in all. Christ will be in everything, every human being. The Father is all in all. He's in everyone. In the end, those who are with God forever are those who have been given God's value, God's worth, and become His children.

Sometimes we don't respond to God because we think our worthlessness is greater than God's ability to heal us.

We think it's greater than God's ability to heal us. It's very interesting. We miss these things. Well, I wasn't going to turn. 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3. It's to women here, but He makes similar statements to men, just generally to men and women. But this one is really zeroed in on sometimes. One of those things is easy to get zeroed in on is my sense of worth, my sense of value. Verse 3 of 1 Peter 3, Do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel. Now, He's saying, women, dress in rags, let your hair grow down, don't take a bath, and that's how we want you to live. That's not what He's saying. Just look at the analogy He gives when He talks about Israel as His bride, the beautiful clothes He gave her, how He fixed her hair, how He put jewels on her, and earrings, and okay, look at all that. So He wasn't saying that you should all just go around in rags and, you know, looking terrible. What He's saying is, don't make that your focal point of value. God made women to want to look right and good. And fortunately, they teach us men how to look right and good. But then He says, rather, okay, here's His focal point, let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Now, listen to this, okay, listen to this, which is very precious in the sight of God. There's value.

He said, don't be so worried about your looks, worried about being my daughter, and didn't just look nice, okay? He doesn't say, don't look nice, but worry about this, be focused on this, and you're precious to me. You know, I don't have any value. God looks at you and says, no, you're precious to me. See how we're missing this? We're missing His viewpoint. You're precious to Him because He gives you the value. You say, well, I don't have anything to give Him. No, but He has something to give you. He gives us value. He gives us forgiveness. Well, they don't forgive it when we're in our sins. And all of a sudden, you're not in your sins. You know, you come up out of that water, what do we say? All your sins are forgiven. That's real. You have to accept that or not accept it. If you accept it, you have to give up all that crap from the past. You've got to forget it because you've been brought up out of the water. You've been forgiven.

Oh, there, I'm using the grandpa word again. Sorry about that. See, the kids are back, so now all of a sudden, my language is going down. Of course, Mom and Dad just shake their head when they get the grandpa language. So as you can see, here, Paul isn't saying, no, you know, he doesn't think women should look good. No, he's saying, no. Be precious in the sight of God, then worry about how you look. And you'll trust that you're designed to try to look nice by God. But be precious to Him first. A true sense of worth comes from understanding that we're designed to live in relationships based in God's love. We just went through 10 sermons on agape.

When we have right relationships with other people, we increase each other's value. And as Christians, we increase the value that God gives us.

I had a one day this week, I was busy doing stuff, and I thought, ah, there's this friend of mine. He's been sick. I should call him. Lives way up north. I thought, because he's an elder, he and I always have these great phone calls. I thought, no, I should. I sure would like to talk to him. No, I should do my work. And guess who called?

And we spent two hours on the phone, and I didn't get any work done for two hours. And when I was done, I was like, yeah, God, let's do it. I mean, I was so pumped up because of the interaction we were having. He gave me value. He gave me value, and it was part of God's value. And hopefully, I gave him value too. We were sharing it. And where did it come from? God.

A true sense of worth also comes, and people sometimes, this is their only sense of worth, and then it's not a true sense of worth. It comes from God giving each of us abilities. And we use those abilities to accomplish things.

My son-in-law was telling me the other day, he watched some special on, I think it was Netflix, it was about a group of men that work in some factory here in the United States. And I forget what they were making. It was something that we all have. I mean, it was a common thing. And they were interviewing them. And like I said, oh, yeah, I've worked here 20 years. It's great. And all he did was run the same machine for 20 years. And he's an expert at it. And he said, then he went home. He got in his nice car. He drove to his nice home. There was his wife and his kids. And he said, yeah, the great thing about this job is when I go home, I don't have any worries. And he said, I'd be driven crazy. I said, I would too. But you know what? Because he told me the story. So there was one guy, his job is to fix machines at breakdown. And that's always done for his whole life. He's worked in this factory fixing machines. He says, this is a challenge every day. Other guys did different things. And he says, the shows about how so many of these guys had worked there 20 years and more. And they were friends. And they, you know, they all lived there in these little houses, nice houses. It was in US. I mean, they weren't poor. And I said, you know what's amazing and all that? It's easiest for us to say, huh, spend 20 years running the same machine over and over again, must not be very smart. Probably doesn't have a high IQ. Probably doesn't, you see what I mean? We start, he must not have any real gumption to get up and go. Of course, then he told me what they were making. And I'm thinking, I want that job. Who's the dumb one here? Who's the dumb one here? But then I thought of something else. It's easy. And this, and that they were happy. He worked hard. I mean, this guy was a hard worker. He was happy doing his job, running a machine. And yet, if I, I wish I could remember the product, probably every one of us has that product in our home. Which means is, tens and tens of millions of people have received value from a man who runs a machine every day. And we put him down, right? He must not have any drive. What do you mean? He gets out of bed every morning, and he shows up at eight o'clock, and he works to five, working a drudge job that he stays concentrated at, does it well, always gets the, always passes the quality control, goes home and raises his family.

And he just made me think, boy, are our values messed up.

He's found something he's good at, and he does it every day, and it's not because he's dumb. See, we don't value each other the way we should, because we tend to value status, or wealth, how much money you have, right? How big a house you have. We value those things as the measure of the person. So we think that measures us. We think that measures us. And it shouldn't. It's nice to have nice things. It's not bad to have nice things, but they shouldn't be the measure of who we are.

You know, if I get a Mercedes, does that make me a better man, a better pastor, a better husband? No. It doesn't? It just means that someone gave me a Mercedes, and I don't know how now to pay the bills to keep it running. Okay? Because once it breaks down, I have to empty my bank account to fix a Mercedes. It doesn't make me a better person. It doesn't make you a better person, either. Now, it might be fun to have a Mercedes for a while, right? I don't know. I've never had a Mercedes. I read the other Mustang. I said that about four years ago in a sermon that I've always wanted a Mustang and reached the age I knew I was never going to get one. Tina Casein, the next week, brought me a Matchbox Mustang.

I still have that, by the way. I still have my Matchbox Mustang.

I haven't opened it. You know, you don't open those things. 30 years now, it'll be worth like eight dollars. So, I... which is a lot of money to me. So, we have to work. We have to find our abilities. And if your abilities isn't as important as somebody else's, it doesn't matter. You will find value in doing what you're supposed to do. But, you know, all work is drudgery at times.

In working on this, I watched a video from a young woman who... We're going to collagians, by the way. A young woman who...

She posted this video of how she got out of college and started her first corporate job. She had to work nine to five. And how terrible it was. Because she had to go in every day and work till five o'clock. She really didn't understand what she was doing. They just brought this work to her. And she did the work. I don't know whether she's putting things on a computer or whatever. And she said, I'm making good... you know, I thought I was making good money, but this has got to change. This company has to change. We got to get the government to change its company. All these companies have to change. Corporate work is not for people. My problem is, she said, is I need money to live off of. So I've got to get the company to change to give me a different job or only let me work a few hours and give me the same amount of money.

The world revolves around me. We know maybe she is a square pagan around home. Maybe she does need to get another job. But that wasn't her idea. Her idea is everything has to change to fit what I want.

That isn't... she's got... at that approach, she's probably not going to like most any job.

Because, you know, jobs are jobs sometimes. Sometimes you love it and sometimes it's... you know, I love being a pastor. And this is what God's called me to do. And then someone's like, oh no, those Nashville people, I don't know. No, I never felt that way.

Collagions 2.22. Bond servants, people that had sold themselves into indentured servitude, and it may even be referring to slaves, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. Wait a minute. You know, what are the secrets to joy and work? I found this out when I was a janitor and had to clean dozens of toilets a day. You put everything you are into it and you create the cleanest toilets possible. And you take pride in the toilets. Nobody else might care, but you do.

You put your heart into whatever it is. Your heart into whatever it is.

He says, verse 23, and whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ. Every place we go, no matter what we're doing, we are to bring the value of God to that place. The value He's giving you, you are to go and give it to that place. We get a chance here to come together. I mean, this is a remarkable opportunity we take for granted to share the value of God with each other once a week, because you can do that all week long with phone calls and visits and emails. But you have this opportunity. We have this opportunity to share what God has given us with others. And you have that opportunity every time you get up and go to work. You have that opportunity every time you walk through Walmart, where you see a lot of people that need some value from God, right? We have that opportunity.

Self-esteem, probably this isn't anywhere you thought a sermon on self-esteem would go. All right? If I'm going to build my self-esteem with self, let's see, once again, that's an empty hole. What can I pour? Can I pour enough acclimation in there? Can I pour, you know, what? You know, if enough people say, I like your sermon, then I become a better person? Or do I say, thank you, God, for helping some people? Because there's two or three people who are going to say, I didn't make any sense to me at all. And that's okay, too.

We have to realize that what God is doing with us as His workmanship, that's what it's all about. And we think all these other things, all these other things are nice, blessings are good. I mean, these other things are good in life. I'm not saying that we should be hermits. We are supposed to enjoy life, too, by the way. But if that's our worth, if that's our value, I've had two or three of the people at the parenting class say, one thing that was said in the parenting class that they found helpful was the statement that you are a family as a husband and wife, that children add to the family. It's not like, oh, we became a family today, no? The marriage covenant was the marriage covenant between the two of you. And then you get to add to that family, but you were already a family. You weren't two single people.

You're already a family, and then you added to the family, which makes you realize that's true. Because if we're not together, adding a child is just going to make this a bad family. If we are together, adding a child is going to build a good family.

Human beings spend their lives trying to find self-worth. And we usually end up, two ends of this dysfunctional thinking, and we're usually all in the middle, all over the place. One is a feeling of just absolute worthlessness. And the other is, God's good to have a friend like me.

We're just so arrogant. And the truth is, the only way to deal with, and it's actually both of these, but we're talking about this lack of feeling of self-worth. The only way to begin to deal with that. You have to accept something with your whole heart. You may have to go ask and pray for God to give you that acceptance, but you have to accept that God is involved in your life.

He is involved in doing something with you. It is a lifetime journey. You have to read Psalm 139 and say, yes, this is my prayer to you, to God. You must accept that. And once you accept that, you literally have to give your life to God, and to His, what He calls, workmanship. To develop in you the value that was lost in Eden, and the value that will give you value to be His child forever in His family.