Discover Your True Self - You are Valuable, Part 1

From the moment were born to the moment we die, we find ourselves on the searching to satisfy some inner unexplained journey. Our hunger causes us to search for people who will love our desire for acceptance pressures us to perform the praise of others all searching for significance want to find where to find state with welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with shipping Living on the Edge features the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram on this international discipleship program in this program. Chip continues a series discover your true self, by reminding us of a common condition for each of us reacts to differently based on our personality. Some of us diving completely driven withdrawal willing to risk this message is very revealing away that'll help you take some next steps on your spiritual journey that you're with now. If you have a Bible open it now to Ephesians chapter 1. Let's join Chip for his message, you are valuable. I think we all understand intuitively that we have the God given need to know that we matter to know that were valuable to know that were important and you have to be a rocket scientist or psychology major to understand that our parents of the very first people in our life, for better or for worse imprint into your soul into your mind that answers the question what makes me valuable.

What makes me important.

Do I really matter for some you had great parents and for others not so great parents for some out of their control. They weren't around, but I want to share a story before we begin to talk about finding the real you and want to dig down deep, a little bit. You can lean back and relax as we get started, it's a true story.

There's no bad people in it.

If by chance you recognize yourself or your family in it. It's just because it's so common, but until we begin to understand that the fundamental issue in our life is not our behaviors that we need to change, not our emotions that we need to fix or not even problem relationships that somehow that lead to addictions and struggles all those things are symptoms, but underneath all those things until you grasp and understand or something far deeper that when you address it.

One by one the symptoms begin to dissipate.

And so here's the story he's a friend many many years ago and his parents came from another country.

There were immigrants they like many immigrants didn't speak the language that came from a harsh situation from around the world and they took menial jobs early on learning English.

They started a small family business work extraordinary hours and as they develop a small family business came to this one conviction in this new land called America. We want our kids to have a better life and out of the most sincere and deepest desire, they learned that the pathway to a better life was education, especially the mother that they worked night and day in and yet after school for an hour or two or more every single night as my friend said we did extra homework. We couldn't just get A's, we had to get better than A's.

In fact, by the time he was in the mid-elementary school, third grade all day Saturday for five or six hours they begin studying and doing practice for the SAT and the ACT so they can get into the very best university.

He said the only thing that we only break we got the entire time was on Saturday afternoon for a couple hours. My mom thought we needed to be socialized and get to know the American culture and there is a church on the corner of the evangelical Bible teaching church and had a youth group and they would drop us off their his parents are just absolutely sacrificing everything they have, to help their kids have a better life from the kids perspective, it felt little bit different.

They felt they were torn between two worlds.

They want to socially acceptable and culturally acceptable in and they were starting when everyone else was having fun and in the world and the culture of the America they were living in was far different than their parents and and unintentionally the message they heard was, we are only love. When we excel in school and we excel professionally and the expectation is you, not only do well in school but you get into a prestigious university, and then you have a prestigious job a doctor or lawyer and that he said my sister worked really hard and maybe she was a little brighter than me.

She got a perfect score on both the SAT and the ACT perfect missed nothing. She went to a very prestigious university, and later did graduate work at another very prestigious university that you would all know, and then the story gets very painful.

She has no relationship whatsoever with the family. She's changed her address three different times of her mother and family can contact her. She lived under this pressure of ally, the euro value your approval, your basis for being is when you excel and no matter how much she did, she never felt like it enough and the last thing she ever wanted to be was around her mother and so mom filled with heartache produced a very successful daughter and lost her on the front of your notes.

I've written some very important information from a classic book called the search for significance and talk about some things and I put it in print.

Because some of you. I'm going to begin poking around, literally, not me, but God will in ways that you don't want to read this over again and so please open it up. Follow along from the life's onset we find ourselves. McGee writes searching to satisfy some inner unexplained yearning. Our hunger causes us to search for people who will love us. Our desire for acceptance pressures us to perform for the praise of others. Listen carefully.

Our desire to be loved and accepted is a underline this word symptom of our deeper need the need that governs our behavior and is the primary source.

Are you ready of our emotional pain often is unrecognized. This is our need for self-worth and then insightfully he finishes saying since the fall or since then entered the world, mankind has often failed to turn to God for the truth about himself. Instead, he is look to others to meet this inescapable need for self-worth.

With phrases like I am what others say I am and he reasons I will find my value in their opinion of me and I'll let you know there is no person in this room there's no person that will listen or watch this bit from birth. You haven't been imprinted with the formula that is on the bottom of the page in your notes that your self-worth comes from your performance plus others opinions is so deeply ingrained the issue of behaviors of addictions you have learned from early on, are you really good at this or not, are you pleasing to people they think you're pretty does this group except you.

And so all of us in different ways in different groups and are you smart are you cute are you funny are you acceptable in different cultures and different histories and different families. They can come up with different ways, all of us have been brainwashed that your valuable you matter and your importance as a human being isn't just for who you are.

It's by what you do and what other people think of you know I put a question of the bottom of your notes and I like you to lean in instead of lean back and the question is, and what or whom do you tend to find your identity apart from Christ for the great majority of you. You know the right answer. This is who I am in Christ. But the fact for all of us until we meet Jesus is we put our identity. In other things and other people in the more honest you're willing to be in the next 30 seconds.

The more you get to get out of this message because we all look for identity and other things than Jesus. As I read my little list on probably left out some but it's a pretty good list.

I can identify with a number of them when you hear the one you think might apply. Do you want to just put an Asterix in your mind, you find your identity and success education money.

I mean honestly, not what you say is it fame is.

It looks as your identity, your funny you're the life of the party of this quick funny remarks is that your children success is that what really makes you a someone is a popularity. You are this people that it is in social media a lot and you really look at how many likes and how many comments and and you realize you feel good when you get them and you don't feel so good when you don't.

Is it your reputation. I mean even a good one. Your great dad your good businessman, your great mom your is it ministry is your identity really built around, look at all you do for God and how well you do it could even be you. Are you ready your integrity or your morality that everyone thinks you are while straight shooter tell the truth, not in and of themselves and others. Things are bad, are they, but none of them are the basis for your identity now turn the page with me if you will, because I want to talk about rather than the search for identity. I want to talk about your search for significance.

The truth of the matter is I don't care how mature you are. I don't think you graduate until heaven that you aren't in some way looking for your identity in certain people or certain things other than Christ. So why is that and how do we do that noticing your notes are attempts to meet our needs for success and approval fall into two broad categories compulsion and withdrawal, and as I read these. I want you just ask yourself which one of these will probably do little above which one of these is your tendency to want you to get if you will really get honest about who you are and how you think and what's going on in your heart and under the hood of your life. It will really help you begin to get liberated. Those of us who seek I identity and compulsion. We tend to be perfectionistic.

Workaholism driven to succeed obsessed with outward appearance, manipulate and use people for personal achievement. When I read that it's like Chip Ingram's name is right next to that I was a workaholic.

By the time I was 12.

To this day still worry about what people think wanting people's approval driven for success. Now it's not as warped as it was, but that's that's my default. We tend to marry someone with the other default so was nice to have your wife, your traces tends to be withdrawal along with a lot of others avoid failure avoid risk gravitate towards people who are comforting and kind or very needy because they're safe. Avoid relationships that demand vulnerability appear easy-going but often run from potential situations or relationships that might not succeed. Both of those things accomplish the same thing.

It's a goal to somehow prove to people or protect yourself from two things.

The fear of rejection and the fear of failure until the day you die you fear.

And I fear rejection and failure. Here's the results when we put our identity. This wife number one.

We become slaves become slaves to people's opinions and it can happen where you start as a little child and your whole life is your living for someone else. Your slaves to the expectation of your father said you should be like this and you were gifted and that and you were never the star athlete, or you are supposed to be musical because they were or you have to get in schoolwork you can go to college so you're done, or someone's opinion, who was an authority figure. Send your fat or slow or tall or dumb or unattractive, and for some of us we then try to prove that's not true, and for others. You withdrawn and you become a slave to these invisible opinions.

Second, you become actors, all of us. We have like this right.

Are these antennas and with different groups in different seasons watch little kids do it we do it and we find out is this is acceptable when I say this I get approval when I dress like that I get approval when I say this I get approval when I achieve this I get approval so over time instead of becoming the real you in understanding the real you. We can actually even as believers spend our whole life being slaves of what we think other people will approve of and filling different roles in different seasons.

I remember when I was in high school and probably the greatest thing that happened when I receive the gospel. It took a couple years or so, but I still remember the sense of I'm loved Casino night, I became an actor.

II found it in the locker room, I could cuss like a sailor around coaches and adults. I could be the all American boy around girls that I wanted today I could be sweet and kind and you know I just figured out what what what each group want and you display that role you get. I remember coming to Christ to realize I'm actually loved for who I am. See the results actually are not just laboring actors, but the real you is never seen. Sometimes you've never seen the real you. This is so unconscious and so inbred in your psyche that you tried to please and become this person that will be acceptable to you know who you are. You believed all kind of lies and even more tragically, the real you is never loved. We confuse affirmation for love. You get really good grades are your really great sports or you're really faithful you're really responsible you're really something if people go wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I get praise for my workaholism produces a hard worker and a lot of A's but a super dysfunctional. But here's the thing.

See the real you. You know, is this person and you're projecting this hologram.

This image of this wonderful, kind, caring, responsible whatever it is and when people respond to that. It doesn't penetrate is what you know that they don't know you, see what you desperately need.

I desperately need every single person is craving for is someone that see all that you are the good, the bad, ugly, the challenging and ready.

Love you just you and God says I created you and is like 7 billion people, almost on the whole earth, and he thinks you're so important that there is no mold your DNA is different than any single person.

Your eye color how your brain processes information your height, your gifts your talents, your tendencies, he uniquely made you and loves you just the way you are in the greatest thing the most attractive thing that happens to people is when you would discover this is who God made me to be and you have the freedom to say no to the lies and you are you. It's amazing thing unique you is a very attractive person, but you gotta cut through the lies God says that's what I want to do. That's why Jesus came.

Yet told the story about my friend that I only shared the part about his sister. Something happened to him.

He yeah he really like that youth group he felt loved that accepted him. He had never in his life ever open the Bible and he began to to read the Bible to begin to get God's picture of him that he came to a personal relationship with Christ and little by little by little the lies that happen in his mind and his life begin to change in as he matured and crew.

You realize that your grades are important schools important and with all that training. He certainly did well, but he realizes it's not one that matters is not what makes me valuable.

He had the grace to to look behind his mom's motives versus the resentment and in the the approval and he has a relationship with his family and now he actually went into business on that out of business is helping people discover who they are and sending them to all kind of places where people were need around the world were his parents came from helping an amazing story, but the difference between him and his sister and the relationship with this parents in the relationship with the self.

There is not self-loathing with the bar that you can never achieve.

He just understood you know what my mom is human and she did the best she could with all she had.

But I'm not can you believe the lie that I have to live up to some invisible standard to be valuable and important.

In fact, Jesus came and said this to a group of Jews who believed on him. If you continue in my word, literally the word if you abide in my word, not just here at not just quote come the church, but if you take my word, digest it and apply it to your life, then here's what happens then you're truly my follower my disciple and here's a result, then you'll know the truth and the truth will set you free. The truth about God, the truth about yourself the truth about the future, the truth about eternity annually free you be free, free to be all God made you to be all that raises the question how does that happen. Had you really get to know the truth. What is true about you and and me and then how to how you experience in your note you noticed page 3 it says in Christ. You are so just want to pause here everything I'm gonna say from this moment on only applies to certain group of people's nothing God doesn't love everyone. This applies to those who are in Christ. As we look at Ephesians chapter 1 the first three chapters this idea in Christ.

In him in Christ, everything going to say is for anyone who a certain point in time has recognized I've been a rebel and a sinner against a holy God, and I recognize that I confess that when I turn from my sin and an empty hands of faith, Lord Jesus, I believe and trust in you and you alone when you hung up on the cross you paid for my sin rose from the grave you forgave me and then you came into my life I've been taken from the King of darkness to the kingdom of light and I'm on this journey as you live your life through everything I'm gonna say only applies to those genuine followers are believers. Number one I want to tell you that you are chosen. You not only chosen but your adopted daughter is your father.

He's committed to protect you and provide for you and cherish you as his child forever wife that got from your head 18 inches down to your heart. God is my father regardless of what your parents were like, regardless if you've been through marriage. It didn't work. Regardless, he been fired from a job that is my father. He promised to provide for me and protect me and no one can Rob keep cherishes me. He sings over me with his love. I'm valuable because he made me an third-year redeemed big word means you been purchased out of the slave market of sin by Jesus and underline this you are infinitely precious and treasured possession is that the opposite of you only matter if you can look good. Are you only matter if you can do this or do that.

It's the opposite of your performance.

There's one person's opinion, your heavenly father you are infinitely valuable and you are precious to you believe that you really believe that you believe it to the point where you can say you not love people's approval and I know this was my folks dream for my life and I know everyone at work feels like. Unless they do this and do that and until they live in this neighborhood and get this the code and Lester kids go to this school and that school and in less this and that less my two-year-old is a star on the soccer team. I understand everyone thinks that way I don't neither. It would be nice, but I'm on the precious treasure of my heavenly father. So my priorities and my family and my future is independent of what my parents think or thought or what anyone else does or what anyone ever says is cool or in or right or wonderful.

I'm human.

It would be nice, but the Bible says in him.

Christ you have been redeemed. How through his blood. What is redemption, the forgiveness of our trespasses, literally the word is, is when you know what's right and you cross a line.

According to the richness of his grace, which he lavished upon us. We are slaves to sin and Christ came and when he died upon the cross he atoned. Literally he ransom he paid for the purchase price of your salvation and freedom was the death of the perfect son of God been listening to drip.

You are valuable series discover your true self, how to silence the lives of your past and actually experience who God says you are chip will be right back with this application but before you is I hope you'll take a second to go online or tap share and encourage others to join us for this series to know we all struggle with doubts about self worth and value, but the facts about who we are change when we put our faith in Jesus chips teaching from the book of Ephesians to help us understand who we are as believers in Christ explains the nature of the new creation. We become and how to leave old things and doubts in the past for limited time resources for discover your true self are discounted and the MP3s are always free to order your copy or to send it to a friend visit us online at http://livingontheedge.org for additional information.

Just give us a call at 1-888-333-6003 will now your strip with a quick thought, hey I want to take just a minute to ask you something really important. If you been impacted by this ministry.

Would you please pray about partnering with Living on the Edge in a new way right now.

Nearly everything we do is dependent on contributions from partners like you are ability to reach people through radio online or are app sharing and developing small group resources, providing broadcasts that are international in Asia and the Middle East and literally dark places around the globe. Please pray how you might be able to come alongside and be a partner to Living on the Edge to help us reach people with the truth of God's word. Thank you in advance for whatever God leads you to do well helping people like Chip said literally around the world has always been an important mission. But now more than ever, as we see more chaos and more division were stepping up our efforts to reach people with the truth of who Jesus is and why he came you like to partner with us to help get that message out now would be a great time to do it to send the gift or to become a monthly partner, give us a call at 1-888-333-6003 or donate online at http://livingontheedge.org app listeners just tap the donate button and let me thank you in advance for your support of this ministry, as we wrap up today's program. You know, I think half the battle is understanding that you and I are all engaged on a search for significance as part of our nature about why it's not a bad thing. I think the big issue is where are we looking to find that significance. And if you're like me, or every other human being. I think we look for it in some pretty common things a boyfriend girlfriend a mate work children are physical appearance, social status, social media, I mean, what we own, what people think of this I mean all of us are looking for significance in lots of different places in the problem with all of those things is they can't deliver, they just don't have the power, and we may intellectually know that but the current is so strong it just pulls us into believing in performing behaving and working to look a certain way or to have other people approve of us. There's only one person that will never let you down and there's a way to be significant. That has nothing to do with your performance or your parents are who you know or how many likes or how many people are watching reviewing your Instagram and it's the Lord Jesus Christ.

But when you look for significance in the wrong places. It's a dead-end street and what he says to us is you don't have to be a slave or an actor. The real you is the most beautiful and attractive thing in the whole world and God want you to know she'll never let you down he'll never let go and that you are valuable and no matter what he loved you.

He cares for you. He's paid a price for you because you matter.

Let me encourage you to be on this journey with me to get that from your head to your heart and in our next program went to talk specifically about how to actually experience being loved and valued by him in a great way to stay engaged and connected to chip been Living on the Edge is with the Chip Ingram map, you'll get free access to all of Chip's recent messages is message notes and much more. Not only that, but it couldn't be easier to call or email directly from the yeah opening to be with us again next time. I then told them this is Dave thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge