sing it now Jesus is the answer for the world today above there no Jesus the way today we're going to be talking about the subject it faith and significance last time we talked about selfworth and what did we say about selfworth we said selfworth is your inherent worth as you see your yourself now how is significance different from that significance has to do with carrying out the meaning that God has placed in our lives when he created us significance is defined as that which is signified or intended to be expressed the meaning of an object let me give you an example remember from last time that Rembrant painting we said how much was the Rembrandt painting worth and we said it's worth whatever a rational person is willing to pay for it and then we asked you the question what was God willing to pay for you at auction his son so therefore you're worth as much as his son or God is not rational remember that now let's take that rembrand painting though and let's go to a burned out ghetto house house and let's hang that painting on the wall upside down and sideways how much is that painting worth just as much as it was before if you take that same rembrand painting you can still get 200 million for it or whatever it is because the worth of the painting hasn't changed has it but how much does it really help that building you know what are paintings for painting is supposed to help make the place look nicer isn't it so do you see that the significance has changed but the worth hasn't changed and we're going to find out that that's the case that our self-worth never changes because our selfworth is based on the fact that God loves us just the way we are without performance or approval or morals but significance can change but we're going to find out today that God has also provided completely for your significance like he has provided for your selfworth and we're going to take a look at that but first again we've got to look at the subject of the world system and look at what the world system as significance is like where do we get our ideas of significance from you growing up right in your family of origin even as a little kid the first time you play with other little kids in Nursery what do you find out some kids can run faster than other kids some kids can talk better than other kids some kids can do more than other kids and what do you get this idea that there's a pecking order of kids isn't there you're in the rat race and you're in Nursery that's the way life sort of is the way it seems and then in your family you're in competition with the rest of the kids for the approval of your parents and you get this idea of how significant of and important you are and then it also depends on how other people treat you if your parents don't pay any attention to you because they're just too busy like one client I had her dad made an lost millions and her mom was his secretary so she was brought up by a nanny how important do you think she felt to her parents but did that really change her importance unfortunately though we take all of those things and we come together and then we finally get to school and in school they give you grades in this class we give you grades so we're tying into the world system aren't we we hope you don't go and take your grades though and apply them to your significance or to your selfworth but you take those grades and the ones that get straight A and then we have sports and whoever is the football hero or the best player on the team how do you feel insignificance when they're choosing teams and you're the last one to be chosen and they don't even want you on the team and all these things get down into our feelings don't they and they get down to this feeling of being insignificant when we counsel people this is one of the main issues in marriages is the guy so busy going out there Conquering the world and doing stuff that the wife feels she isn't very important in our society if you're just a mom and a Homemaker compared to the CEO of the company or the person who has the big job in making the big bucks how do you feel pretty insignificant do you see what's going on and this is the basis of all of the things in life now last time we talked a little bit about how does our performance compare in importance to life really of all the things you've accomplished so much in your life how many of those are going to make a significant difference in the world 200 years from now they won't find our gravestone 200 years from now and if we compare all of those wonderful things you're trying so hard to accomplish and spending their whole life on how do they compare to the known universe remember what we said we said that you compare it to the known universe you find out you could put a million of our worlds inside of the Sun and if you traveled at 339 M 600,000 M an hour it would take you 4 months to get the edge of our solar system if you compare our solar system to the known universe it's like one grain of sand out of all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the entire world so now how important are all your account accomplishments but you see how crazy we are that we see all this stuff is critical and we get totally all stressed out about it don't we we'll find out of course God has a different system and we're going to look at that but let's look at our society now all Societies in the world based on the god that they worship have certain things that are important to them as an example if you go to the Orient it's all Saving Face that you look good your honor isn't desecrated you know people in the orient will commit Harry Cary kill themselves rather than be defamed how about in the Middle East it's all Revenge somebody did this to me I got to get back to them but how about here in the United States what is it all about success whether you're going to be successful or not the question is are you beating the other rats and the rat race out are you winning the King of the Hill game if you're not you're considered unimportant and insignificant in our society now what are the consequences of this in a person's life the first consequence is we are all stressed out see that's how we have you write papers in this class right you can get totally stressed out writing your papers depending on how I'm going to grade them our society just set up that way when you're playing King of the Hill when you're playing what's called a zero sum game that means if I get it you don't see the LIE of the world is we are all in competition and only some of us are going to win and that stresses us all out let's just take an example of that from the Olympics during the summer and show you what it does to us how many you ever like see aerial snowboarding when the aerial snowboarding there was one particular man who has won the gold every time in aerial snowboarding this is when they go down the hill at 50 m an hour hit a snowbank fly up in the air do so many flips turns and everything else land on their snowboard coming down on the other side and there was a young kid there just before as the last part of the competition and this young kid does one more flip one more turn than has ever been done in the history of the world and the last guy to perform is the guy who won the gold before now what is he going to have to do do you understand if he just does what he's always done before he walks away with a silver metal but according to our system what's he going to have to do go For Broke and he gets high enough but he falls on the way down gets no medal at all in the Olympics he's a loser of course that's the way our society looks at it isn't it there's only a limited number that can stand at the top of the Heap and what's eventually going to happen to you see I'm suggesting in the world system all lose eventually every single one is going to lose I don't care how good you are you're eventually going to get too old for your sport are you're going to get Alzheimer's are you going to end up in a nursing home and then how significant are you going to be in life how long does all the great things that you do last you know I actually pity very talented people I pity Michael Phelps what is he going to do next having win eight gold medals in one Olympics and of course that means that also counted on the rest that his team members had to be the best what's he going to do at the next Olympics how much pressure is there going to be on him and what if he only gets seven gold medals in the next Olympics he is a loser do you see how this system of the world is very interesting we're all driven to take on more than we can easily accomplish you ever had that problem in your life where you just sent you had to do more and more and more how about at your work do they tend to cut down the number of employees and expected to continue to do the same amount of work how many you ever heard of the Peter Principle this is what's called the Peter Principle when you go to work at a corporation and you do a good job what are they going to do promote you and every time you do a good job in the more difficult task they're going to continue to promote you correct when are they going to quit promoting you when you're incompetent and therefore the Peter principal says everyone eventually finishes their career at their level of incompetence stressed out of your mind knowing you can't do the job but stuck in it for the rest of your life until you retire isn't this wonderful another way to look at is fish bowls if you're a little fish and a little Fishbowl you do pretty good right and especially if you're the biggest fish in a little Fishbowl you're doing pretty good but what's going to happen the little fish that does good in this Fishbowl is going to get moved to the next Fishbowl right with bigger fish more talented people and then what's going to happen if you do good there they're going to move to the next Fishbowl and every Fishbowl has bigger sharks and you continue getting moved up bigger and bigger fish BS still in the ocean you get your tail eaten off that's what the world system does and because of all the stress in the world system what do we do we medicate our emotions look around at the top Executives and find out how many don't drink around using some sort of a drug or not least using work to drive themselves and drive themselves so they have to be somebody and they have to be great and so they keep taking on bigger and bigger things until they fall badly that's why pity talented people because they're going to get higher and higher and higher until they get totally stressed out like several Governors recently they ended up medicating themselves with Affairs to cope for all all the stress that they're in and then they're all over the paper see at least if we mess up we probably don't get all over the papers right so the higher you go the worse the situation is what's interesting in America is they did a study and this study showed that all the self-help literature up to about 1952 talked about character and since 1952 most self-help literature talks about success have you seen that in our society how many people when they get to Washington get found out and get indicted or get kicked out or don't get vetted because of things they did where they sacrific their character for success but see that's what our society is telling people isn't it whatever it takes to be successful success is what you want and that's what this is all about so you see the world's system now let's look at God's system I want to ask you a question which one of these two do you really want because see in God's system everyone wins but you don't win based on what you do you win based on what Jesus did let's take a look at that and try to understand that first let's see how the Bible talks about this first thing that the bible really says is the Bible term when is talking about significance it talks about being worthy the word there is axios and it means something having the weight of another thing of like value worth as much or one that has merited any anything worthy both in a good or a bad sense the second term that's used to understand from the Bible is the term the glory of God that's DACA and it means a good opinion concerning one resulting in Praise honor and Glory Splendor brightness magnificence Excellence preeminence dignity Grace or the absolute perfect inward or personal Excellency of Christ so the ultimate significance is what being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ carrying out what God determined for you not only the particular goal that God has for you what you're doing right now but that you be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ is that a little bit higher than what the world's asking for see the Army says what used to say be all you can be you know what God says be more than you can be so we're not lowering the standards here are we Philippians 1:1 being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and the praise of God here's an interesting thing everything we do in our own strength is motivated by selfishness and is therefore filthy rags remember that we talked about that earlier because what's selfishness when I'm motivated to take care of my selfworth my significance my love and my security here is the Bible verse you probably ought to memorize this one Isaiah 646 but we are all as an unclean thing and all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags and we all do Fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away so therefore in your own efforts can you make yourself more significant when God looks at all the things you're doing and your motivation and throws up he says you're just a selfish person the reason you did that the reason you were nice to that person wasn't because you loved them it was because you wanted to feel good about yourself hate to say even the majority of our love is what we love other people because they treat us nice because they're nice to us for what we get from the other people so how our stand and everything is so warped that we really can't do anything in our own efforts that is worthwhile when we are saved God began the process of delivering us from our selfishness through salvation by faith remember that class we already had and God has declared us to be righteous based on that Faith see righteousness is another word for reaching our potential or our significance now God operates outside of time and with Abraham and with us he says if you believe in me and rely on me I'm going to count you as righteous already so I can have a close relationship with you and you can be transformed by that close relationship so what's the first thing that God has done to make us significant count it as us as righteous based on what Jesus did not based on what we did so we can have that relationship with him here are two verses Romans 4:3 and what says the scripture Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness but to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness so the way God resolved this is first he says you believe I accepted as righteousness now we can start working on you right as our faith grows we're transformed more and more into our full potential now who is doing this God can I do it can I save myself can I forgive myself can I transform myself so therefore if I actually get to the place that I really love people in a real way and actually do something halfway decent who should get the credit cuz I haven't done it I can't do it that's what the Bible says here Romans 8:29 for whom he did Forno he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn of many brethren for whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also Justified and whom he justified them he also glorified the Bible goes on and of course what's another one of our problems do I ever sin well who took care of the sin problem did I take care of that now Jesus took care of the sin problem right Colossians 1:14 to whom we have Redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sin how about my shame problem how I feel about myself when I mess up cuz would you agree that this significant system puts you on this huge emotional roller coaster that when things are going good and you're doing what you think are good things although they're probably all filthy rags are you think you're wonderful and then you feel ashamed and worthless well Jesus took your shame upon the cross that's what the Bible tells us Isaiah 50: 6 I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off my hair I hid not my face from shame and spitting that's Jesus talking Romans 10:11 for the scripture Seth whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed and not only that we are powerless to do anything at all that counts for anything at all John 15:4 abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me I am the vine ye are the branches he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing do you really believe that this totally different than the world system isn't it see we think we can do something and we're trying to do something to make ourselves more significant the Bible makes it clear not only can we do nothing but we can't fix ourselves Galatians 33 oh are you so foolish having begun in the spirit are you now made perfect or whole by the flesh verse 5 he therefore that ministereth to you the spirit and worketh miracles among you does he it by The Works of the law or by the hearing of faith and it is God who makes us want to do what is right and promotes us and assists Us in being successful in life see who's working behind the scenes and doing all these kind of things we make this mistake when things are going good of patting ourself in the back and say hey aren't I doing great God doesn't look at it that way Philippians 2:13 for it is God that worketh in you both to Will and to do his good pleasure Deuteronomy 88:18 but Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God for it is he that giveth you power to get wealth that he may establish his Covenant which he swore unto thy Fathers as it is this day and 1 Corinthians 1:31 that according as it is written he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord now what do we do well we fall into Pride what is pride when I start taking credit for stuff that I really didn't do for who I am who was it that made you by the way who gave you your brain who makes you function if God took life away from you right now what would you be we have the whole story in the Old Testament about the king of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar that had pride in what happened to him in one day turned into an animal for seven years look at some other verses job 33:17 that he God May withdraw man from his purpose and hide Pride from man see God works directly against you if you get Pride Psalms 10:4 the wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God God is not in all his thoughts in Proverbs 16:18 Pride goeth Before Destruction and a hoty spirit before a fall bottom line to significance is this the fact that God has adopted us into his family makes us so significant that there's absolutely nothing we can do to make ourselves any more significant remember we said last time you've been adopted to be a child of the king of the universe you are a joint air with Jesus Christ that means you own a big chunk of the universe you're on the team that is going to rule the universe and you already have a throne and a crown prepared for you in heaven how can you get any more significant than that do you see how all of it comes back to what Jesus Jesus and More Jesus everything he has done for you is what makes you significant and that's what we have to get a hold of isn't it we must therefore draw the conclusion that our significance is totally dependent on what Christ did and that we cannot do anything in our own strength to achieve any greater success but now we've got to look at success a little bit more and talk about that and look at God's system and I want to prove to you something that in God's system everyone can be successful we already knew that God does all the things to help us get to the place that we can be successful but how does God see things very differently than we see things first in the world the world says we're all in competition with each other for limited resources God says that isn't true at all God says when he made you he gave you a particular mission here on this Earth and that's all he expects of you is to do your best to accomplish that specific Mission and that is a flaming success in the eyes of Heaven who do the rewards go to in heaven the Overcomers do you realize that greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven might be a Down syndrome child who gave one tract to somebody the Bible says many that are first now will be last then and many that are last now will be first then so God sees this totally differently Jeremiah 1: 15 before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee and before thou camest out of the womb I Sanctified thee and I ordained thee as a prophet unto the Nations when you filled out that dream sheet before you were born uh what did you ask God what mission did you ask God to give you and what talent did you ask God to give you you didn't fill out one of those sheets that's why you are like you are what am I saying none of us selected our mission and none of us selected our talents so what makes one of you better than somebody else it wasn't your choice because each of us has been designed and given a specific purpose we are not in competition with each other and the Bible makes it really clear that comparing ourselves one with another is stupid this is what it says 2 Corinthians 10:12 for we dare not make ourselves the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves for they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise here is the picture we're going to have a race and let's select some people here okay uh I guess we'll have Jason is going to run the 50 yard dash okay Alisia is going to run the 440 and I'm going to run the marathon and we're all in the chocks and we're ready to go and the gun goes off boom what's going to happen to Alisia if she looks at Jason and sees him just shooting out there and compares herself to him if she tries to keep up with him even if she's able to she's going to die because she's got to go an entire lap not just 50 yards and if Alicia compares herself to me she's going to say man what a loser he didn't even get down on the chocks I mean he's barely walking of course I've got 26 and half miles to go do you see what the Bible is saying if we compare ourselves with other people and they have different races how much is that going to mess up our race and how much are we going to artificially have dumb ideas of how significant important we are compared to somebody else why does God give certain people five talents and certain people two talents and certain people one Talent what does God do that this is the parable of the talents and we're going to read it I want to show you something about that but the first question is why did the master in this story give certain people more talents I'm going to suggest it has to do with your mission if your mission in life is to be a guy who drives one of the garbage trucks do you think God ought to give you the brain of Einstein are you going to make a very good garbage collector if you're sitting there thinking Cals mc² and you're reading all the papers that people are throwing in there you're going to forget to pick up the garbage so God chooses and gives people according to their mission the talents that they should have let's look at the parable Matthew 25:15 and unto one he gave five talant and to another two and to another one to every man according to with several ability and straight way took his journey in those days a talent was $11,000 in silver okay but of course there's a double meaning here isn't it and after a long time the Lord of those servants cometh and reckon with them and so he that received five talents came and brought another five talents saying Lord thou deliver unto me five talents behold I have gained beside them five talents more and the Lord said unto him well done thou good and faithful servant thou Hast been Faithful over a few things I will make you ruler over many things enter thou in the joy of thy Lord so he's the successful one from even the world system isn't he but now the next guy comes and he only has two talents and he also that had received two talents came and said Lord thou deliver unto me two talents behold I have gained another two talents beside them so what's the Lord going to say to him well you did okay now what did he say and the Lord said unto him well done thou good and faithful servant thou Hast been Faithful over a few things I will make you ruler over many enter into the joy of thy Lord exactly the same words so if you're a f Talent person here you're in bad trouble you got to make another five talents right if I'm only a two Talent person here I only have to make two but now let's look at the one Talent person then he that received the one Talent came and said Lord I knew thee that thou art a hard man reaping where thou has not sown in gathering where thou has not straw translation you gave that guy five talents you didn't give me five talents what the heck do you expect you ripped me off you didn't give me enough to be successful like the five Talent person if you'd give me five talents then I could have maybe made five talents with it too you didn't give me enough grain to put in the soil that's what he's saying you didn't give me what I needed and I was afraid see if you're dumb enough to tie into the world system and you compare yourself with a a genius you're afraid you're going to fail in life aren't you and what do people do that are afraid they're going to fail in life don't try but see God says that's not the situation the situation is if I gave you one Talent I'm only expecting you to make one Talent I gave you a different Mission you're not in competition with a guy who has five talents in fact thank God you're not so don't compare yourself one with another don't compare your talents with another person your job is only to compete against who you and the Lord answered and said unto him th Wicked and thoughtful servant thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not and gather where I not STW you knew and I give some people five talents and some people two talents and some people one talent and you should have understood that the one Talent person is worth just as much as the person who had five talents you just have a different Mission and so you have different talents to go along with your mission do you see the difference from the way the world looks at these things and God has specifically placed persons with different different talents in each of the churches 1 Corinthians 12:14 for the body is not one member but many jop to verse 18 but now hath God set members every one of them in the body as it pleased him don't think you're supposed to be the pastor of this church if you weren't called to be the pastor of this church and don't expect to have the ability to preach if you weren't called to be the the pastor and don't envy the pastor from standing up there and doing what he's doing cuz the Bible says those that teach will have higher accountability right but if all the talent you were given was to clean the toilets and clean the church then thank God that's what you're supposed to be and you can get just as much reward in heaven for cleaning the toilets as he can get for pastoring the church and there's no difference in your value and no difference in your significance those things that are motivated by selfishness that are done according to the flesh by your own efforts do not have any value and are rejected by God 1 Corinthians 3:11 for other Foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ now if any man build upon this Foundation gold and silver and precious stones wood hair stubble Every Man's work shall be manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is if any man's work abide which he hath built thereon he shall receive a reward the hay and the straw and the stubble as what you did yourself to make yourself feel better to fulfill your needs for significance and selfworth and love and security that God never told you to do and you did it in your own effort the gold and the silver and the precious stones are when you said God whatever you want I want to fit in with your plans for the universe all I want to do is what you want to do I know I can't do anything of myself I'm relying completely on you Lord just use me in any way that you want to use me I don't care if I'm a f Talent a two Talent a one Talent person just show me what you want to do and I'll do it but I'm relying on you and not relying on myself in God's system we all win and can be successful but we must not compare ourselves one with another now now let's take an example I want to show it to you directly out of the Bible how many You' ever heard of John the Baptist well I want you to take the world system and we're going to look at John the Baptist for a little bit and then we're going to see what Jesus said about John the Baptist and we're going to see if there's a big difference between the way the world looks at things and the way God looks at things John the Baptist had a pretty good start in life right an angel appeared to his father and said he was going to be born and he was going to be great and all those kind of things but at least from the world's point of view it didn't work out very well because we don't know anything that happen to John for the next 30 Years and then finally we see John and where is he he's living in the desert wearing groy camels hair eating Locust sort of like grasshoppers in Wild honey he owns absolutely nothing we don't even know he even got married and he's screaming at people that they're supposed to repent and worse than that he has no political cth whatsoever he tells the king he shouldn't be married his brother's wife his entire Ministry lasts no longer than 6 months to a year and a half and he gets his head chopped off now from a worldly standpoint how successful is that that about the most losing scenario you can possibly come up with from a worldly stand point but what did Jesus say about John how did Jesus look at all of this verily I say unto you among them that are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist not withstanding he that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he so why was John so great I mean Jesus just said John was at least as great as Elijah or Abraham or Moses or everyone that went before him because John handled his significance right see John realized he wasn't called to be the Christ and he said I must decrease he must increase John even handed his disciples off to Jesus when there appeared to be a competition between Jesus and him for baptizing they both went to opposite ends of Israel so they wouldn't be in competition with each other he found what God called him to do and he carried it out and he got out of the way but what did the last part of that verse say it says that every one of you in the kingdom of God can be greater than John the Baptist because on top of that you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you don't you so how significant can you be in the kingdom of God if you simply find what God called you to do do your very best doing it and not compare yourself with other people and accept the significance that God has provided for you now let's take a look at everything that we've talked here we have a chart in your book called God's plan for selfworth and significance and I want to put this all together for you and help you so you understand what we've said so far first on your chart do you see the line of Southworth does it go up and down no because my selfworth is dependent on what the fact that God Made Me In His Image and said I am very good he loves me and there's nothing I can do in the way of performance or approval or morals or anything else to change that and everybody in the world is of equal value whether they're totally messing up or whether there's some wonderful successful pasture someplace or whether they're us we're all of equal worth and it never changes our inherent worth is the same just like that inherent worth of that rembrand painting is the same no matter how it's used or how it's expressed now look at significance or meaning in the garden do you see where it is in the the garden they had complete significance because they based their significance on what God said about them but when they ate of the tree of Good and Evil what happened they chose to be their own Gods and they chose to use their own method of significance comparing themselves one to another and what happened they crashed bad didn't they did you see the filthy rags do you see the shame they're up and down in emotional roller coaster but when we get saved what happens our significance is restored because now we become a child of God and we are a joint air with Jesus Christ we're going to be on the team that's going to rule the universe we've got a throne already prepared for us it's an established fact based on faith that God declares us righteous does but does that mean we never mess up again but what happens when we mess up on your chart those are the little V's called sin we go to Jesus we confess our sin and because of what he did for us our sin is cleansed away erased as far as the East is from the west and you notice the line of Faith as our faith grows we not only are position righteous but God works in our life through the process of Salvation or sanctification through faith to actually transform us more and more to the glory of God which is that Top Line so what am I saying our entire self-image is based on what Jesus did and what God has done for us and what we allow him to express through us and that's how we're worthwhile and that's how we're significant and it has nothing to do with us but it has everything to do with him and what he did in our lives let's pray Lord we thank you that we don't have to fight and Scrabble and be in that King of the Hill game or that rat race or beat ourselves up or go up and down and do all of those kind of things that the whole world does but Lord that we can win completely simply by obeying you accepting what you've done through us through Jesus Christ and Lord we give you all the glory and the honor in Jesus name