One of the most common battles for us in our society is overcoming the need for other’s to determine our self worth. I don’t any of us could deny this. We all struggle with what other people think of us. Conversations are generally very surfacey without much depth or vulnerability. We find it very hard to share deep emotions and struggles because of fear of what others would think of us. The world around us seems to be run on the hope of legacy. Children get their parent’s first name as their middle name, so that it might live on. Movie stars live lavish lifestyles full of parties and a constant grab for attention because they want people to talk about them and love them. Many in politics and offices of honor seek such because of the prestige and worth they gain from others looking up at them. High School is overcome with social status, cliques, and reckless attempts to be accepted. We would like to say that is a teenage thing, but in reality it never ends with graduation, it just transforms. We need a job that is respectable, a house, a car. The very act of embarrassment is the result of our self worth taking a hit because of something being revealed in the presence of others. Even churches are not immune, as we see social structures emerge and fights break out ultimately about authority and our need for respect and admiration in the eyes of others. We constantly gain our sense of self worth from those around us.
Did God intend for us to be this way, did he intend for us to be dependent on others for our sense of worth and value? We have been brought up and taught over and over again that no this isn’t right, but I think we need to turn all that on its head. I believe that God has created us so that those around us determine our sense of self worth. Now bear with me as a try to explain. We were designed for community and to need community and much more than that to need God. But as sin has taken and corrupted most things that were meant for good, sin has corrupted this as well. God wired us so that He told us who we were, so that he gave us worth. We were not designed to have a sense of worth if we were alone. We were made to need God and others. When corrupted this world it also corrupted that need for relationship. We needed God because he was what brought us value. Outside of that relationship, the relationship that told us we were loved, valuable, and beautiful, we didn’t have any worth at all. Sin created a separation between us and God and now in our attempt to regain our sense of value we turned to others around us and allowed them to determine our worth. Turn with me to Genesis 2:25,3:6-11.
Genesis 2:25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 8 ¶ And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" 10 And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." 11 He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"
The relationship with our Father was the greatest loss of all in the Fall. Without God we had no sense of self worth, no value. So today we feel the need to produce a legacy, to be remembered, to be loved and adored. There is one theme in this part of scripture that you may not have noticed. They were naked. Four times this text points that out. First in 2:25 they were naked and unashamed. They were unashamed because there was no reason to feel shame. God gave them all the worth they could ever desire, the relationship was intact, there was no room for shame. But then they ate and they were ashamed of their nakedness. Then Adam told God he was naked, then God asked Adam who told him he was naked. Naked, naked, naked. It goes so much more than simply skin deep. They were not ashamed by their nakedness because in reality they were not naked when in the presence of God. He clothed them in a glorious manner which left them fulfilled and without lack. But when they ate, when sin entered humanity they were separated from God and they became naked and they knew it. They were no longer clothed in the magnificence of God, and therefore now felt empty, shameful. This isn’t simply about skin. In the prophets God says he is going to strip them naked and reveal their shame, and in Revelation the church in Laodicea is declared to be naked because of the lack of God’s presence in their midst. We have no shame when in God’s presence, no nakedness. Our value exists because God takes pleasure in us. But when we have separated ourselves from God we must find our value elsewhere, and it is a constant pursuit because there is no value like that which God gives to us. We become desperate.
This is what Jesus came to do for the world. He came to cloth our nakedness. To proclaim worth and ascribe value to those the world said had none. Jesus came and revealed the worth of the worthless. Open your Bibles to Matthew 16:17-19 and we’ll read it together.
And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Do you remember who Peter was? He was a nobody. He was a fishermen by trade. He was not even from Judah, but he was from Galilee, which was a step above being a Samaritan. By the world’s standards Peter was worthless along with the rest of the disciples. Yet here is Jesus clothing him in glorious cloth of worth and value. He is telling him forget what everyone else thinks, you are mine and you are worth so much more. I will make you great. But Jesus did not simply do this for his disciples, it seems that Jesus made a habit of finding value in those the world had rejected as having none. He went to the lepers, he exclaimed the widow’s mite as having the most value, he hung out with prostitutes, Samaritans, and tax collectors. In the parable of the wedding feast it is the poor that are clothed and brought in to the wedding, not those who already think themselves to have worth. The story of Lazarus and the rich man, it was the worthless beggar Lazarus who was clothed and valued in the kingdom of heaven. Then on top of all that Jesus tells us a short parable in Matthew 13:45-46 that says, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” The kingdom of heaven here is like the merchant, not the pearl. Rather he is saying we are the ones of great worth the kingdom of heaven is in search of. Jesus is constantly declaring worth to the children of God. This is why it was the dirtiest people who felt mist comfortable around Jesus and the so called clean who felt uncomfortable. It was the people who had no value whether it be because of social status or sin that surrounded Jesus and felt most at ease in his presence. The ones who already thought themselves to have value and worth, those who did not need God to feel great felt quite uncomfortable around Jesus. The saddest thing of all though is that when I look on the church today it seems we have reversed those roles. Those who think themselves worthy, good, and holy are the ones who are most comfortable within the doors of the church. It is the ones who have it all together who are the most accepted. Whereas those who are in the most need, those who feel they have no value or worth, the dirty sinners, are the ones being pushed away. The ones who cannot stand to be in our presence.
As the body of Christ, as his disciples meant to convey his story, we are meant to communicate the worth Christ has poured out upon his children to all the world. We are meant to proclaim that you have so much value to God and to me, that He saw you as a pearl of great worth and He sold everything, dying on a cross so that He might have. Sinners should be drawn to us not put off by us. We should be showing them how much value they have to God and that they are wanted by God and ourselves. Instead the message that is poured out is you are dirty and worthless. Without God the world has already found that to be true, why else would we seek so desperately for the approval of others. When we step out in evangelism the very first thing we must do is show people they have value. That is why evangelism must start with service. We serve them, we sacrifice and “sell all we have,” because we like Christ have seen the pearl of great worth. This is the heart of the gospel. God has found his pearl and you are it. But is this what we are communicating. People want to be around you when they know that you value them. That is why people wanted to be around Jesus, that is why people should want to be around us. This is we the fall in the garden of Eden was such a tragedy. The one who valued us was now lost to us. But now Jesus has come and we are able to draw near again.
As we go out, as we attempt to spread God’s word and the good news, we need to realize these are the pearls of great worth he died for and we need to communicate that. God loves you so much, he considers you so valuable that he sold everything to die on a cross just so that he might have, so that he might be near you. It is not about some grand battle of good and evil and God wants to enlist you. It isn’t about becoming perfect or finding worth in ourselves. It is about that fact that God loves us and he wants us. The grand battle isn’t about good and evil, it is about us. God is fighting for us. He is not willing for one to perish because we are his children. When we come across the drunk, the drugee, the whore our first response should not be you need to change, but you have worth. We must as a church proclaim the worth and value of the broken and dirty found in creation. Then the broken will find comfort in us and be drawn near to Christ.
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