Prime Retreat 2017 "Value"

Prime Retreat Saturday Morning

Today I was asked to open up our day with a discussion of personal value. What gives us value, what things do we look to, to bring us value, and how can we grow to understand this in light of the Gospel.

We are resting this week on this short passage of scripture in 1 John 4:19. (We love because he first loved us). Now I think we all believe this to be true on face value. But I find so many times that we tend to simply take these verses, pass them over and never really take the time to get them. Well one of my favorite things to do over the last couple years has been to take a short passage like this and really mull it over for truth and understanding. It is astounding to me, the depth of wisdom and inspiration that can be found simply by stewing on scripture. I want to do this today as well. We are going to look at this passage through a lens of personal value. What makes us valuable, what do we do to get it, what are some lies we believe, and what does the gospel tell us about it. To do this this morning I want to direct us to another passage that will help us to truly understand this passage in light of our discussion on value.

1 Peter 1:18-19

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

And I think the best way for me to talk about this subject is to simply tell you the highlights of my own journey with this subject. I was born in Redwood city in 1982 and was raised as, what I call, a kind of Catholic. I am not certain if the gospel of Christ was ever really taught to me or if I was just never listening, but I never got it for sure. I was under the impression that I had to obey a certain number of rules, the dos and don’ts. And If I did enough right, then God was happy with me, and if I messed up he was mad. The trouble for me was that there seemed to be three kinds of people that surrounded me; first was the super Catholic who thought they were all that and a bag of chips because they followed all the rules and were on god’s good side, haughty and prideful. Second was the secret sinner, they would raise their hands in church, say all the prayers and then give you the finger leaving the parking lot. And third was the apathetic catholic. The one who thought going to church once or twice a year was enough to barely get them to heaven, but the rest of their life was a total mess with sin. In any case, I saw no benefit to following a God who would have people like that around. Who would tolerate that. I was out.

But as we all know. Each of us wants, desperately to feel like we have some purpose in life, some reason for being, motivation for living and something that makes us who we are. We deep down within ourselves want to believe the statement “I matter”. “I am someone” I am valuable. I was the same way. Once I officially decided to part with anything religious, in fact I developed a deep resentment for anything that even smelled of religion or faith. Instead I began to look elsewhere for value, purpose, meaning, stability, motivation. And you know we have a church word for these things…Idols. It’s the concept that what makes me who I am is due to some external source. My value is assigned to me by my relationship with this…thing. Now there are many places in this world where people literally worship physical idols in the form of statues, or other carved items, what the church in America typically considers idols are the things that we put our trust in, the things I look to give my live value, meaning, stability.

with perishable things such as silver or gold

See those are idols. And there are many we could talk about.

In my case. I took a shot at chasing nearly every idol that was out there for me. I thought my life would be of value if I achieved a certain level of success in my chosen career; being a firefighter. I did everything I could to chase that job; classes, trainings, I talked, walked and breathed firefighting for nearly 8 years after high school. I would put the sticker on my car, carry rope with me when I was never likely to use it, and even dress like one though I was never paid to do so. And while the profession was noble and all, I was not in it for any noble reason. The reason I was obsessed with being a firefighter was because I thought that it made me someone, gave me value, respect…And I thought that if I could achieve enough success in this career, then I could finally, maybe believe that I was valuable as a person. It was an idol. I looked to it for value. I did everything I could to worship that idol.

Another one for me was girls. And we all know this, that one of the major ways we are evaluated by the world around us and by ourselves as well, is who we are with. Who likes us, who wants us. Are we pretty or attractive. And the drive for success in this area pushes us to change all kinds of things about ourselves to get it. I would dress how I thought I had to, talk how I thought I had to, go places, do things, and pretend to be whoever I needed to be to accomplish this goal of landing the right “trophy”. Because my desire for girls was not about them at all, I did not love them for who they were, I loved them for who I thought they made me. And maybe if I got the right girl, I could also believe that I was someone, that I was valuable. The trouble was, unfortunately, but really fortunately in hindsight; I was never that great with the girls, I know, I know. Believe it or not, I was not always this dashingly handsome, svelte and charming guy you see before you today (JK) I could not even talk to girls, it honestly still makes me nervous. I have less nerves about preaching in front of 1500 people than I did about recently working up the guts to ask out this amazing girl I'm now dating. The trouble back then was that because I was so completely "unsuccessful" in it, I deeply questioned my value as a man in it. It made me feel desperate, and caused me to place so much attention there that I ended up making some very self destructive choices. Not pretty. And I’m not blind to the fact that I am speaking to a group of adult single adult people here. How many of us still question our value because of the fact that “no one loves us” or believe that there must be something wrong with us? Man I’ve been there to.

And there are so many areas we could get into with this subject. One of the most valuable skills any of us could ever develop is the ability to look into our own life, our heart and our mind and ask the tough questions to ourselves. Why do I do this, why do I think this, why did I say that? Do we chase financial prosperity in an effort to feel secure, or literally valuable? Do we chase possessions, hoping that if our material wealth is high enough that makes our character valuable to? Maybe its looks. Especially for the girls here, so much of your value is placed on you by the culture of beauty. Social status maybe, popularity? Pokémon deck? Dude, Anything! Anything that we look to, to try and give us value, stability, purpose or meaning. But do they work?

I want to read you a quote from the late David Rockefeller. He was being interviewed by a New York times reporter who was doing a sort of bio piece about him. The reporter asked the question “Mr. Rockefeller, you are one of the wealthiest men the world has ever see, you own houses all over the earth, businesses that own many other businesses, you have influence on politics and policy all over the world and so much wealth that it is difficult to calculate. Mr. Rockefeller, when do you think you would reach a point when you could say “this is enough”? In response, he said, “just a little more” with a chuckle. You see, the things we think give us value never really do, do they. It is never, enough is it? We can chase our idols all the way until they leave us dissatisfied and broken. But there is a little wiggle room here I think, is it completely our fault? No, we have been raised in a world that is telling us this message. empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors. The real sad thing is that so much of the world lives this way and has no hope for anything different…but we do. While we can’t change the culture we are in outright, we can begin to change our view of it.

Here’s a question for you. How do we decide how valuable this is? If I were going to sell it on e-bay? How do we decide the value of this thing? Is it us who sets the price? Is it e-bay who processes the transaction? Is it the first bidder? Or is it the last one? Yea, it’s the highest bidder that decides how valuable the thing is, no one else. We can have all kinds of ideas about how much something is worth, but until the bidding closes, none of that matters. Now picture that you are in fact for sale, searching for your value. Going around taking bids on yourself from all these idols here, using all the things we talked about before to try and find the high bid. But what does our passage say. Look at this.

you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

It says you were redeemed. Purchased from the empty way of life, by the precious blood of Christ. There was truly never anything more valuable in this world than the blood of Christ. He was the highest bidder for you. But what we have to realize about this is that he was not bidding on us because we are of some truly great value. Many folks think God should have wanted them in the club because they are such great people, like the ones I grew up around. But scripture teaches us something completely opposed to that idea. You see this was not a good deal for him. According to the standards of the one who sets them, we are not worthy of the sacrifice made for us.

But here is the part that gets me every time. See there is a little word we use in the church world do describe Jesus; omniscient. This word is used to describe a state of consciousness that encompasses all possible knowledge. In other words, scripture teaches us that Jesus, God in the flesh, had all the knowledge that anyone could ever know, present in his mind at all times. We see this when Jesus reads minds, predicts the future, and talks of the past as if he was there in the present. He was omniscient as God the father is as well. Now the implications of this are immense. Because you see when Christ hung on that cross and spoke the words “it is finished” he knew exactly what he was paying for down to the individual sin, present in his mind’s eye with greater clarity than I could ever remember. when I try to gauge how valuable I am, I am confronted with the sin that is within me. The natural result of my chasing of idols for value, is deeply seated sin within me. As I try to catalogue the sin In my life I am often disgusted by what I see. I see sin all over. I am a Glutton, a selfish man, a lustful man, hateful, envious, a schemer, a gossip, a felon, a thief, an adulterer and a liar. And truthfully, I can’t even remember the majority of the sin that has been in my life, but Christ did. It is astounding. Take a moment with me and simply catalogue in your mind, the things you would never want spoken of you, but that are absolutely true…………. But worst of all is the fact that I have been a heretic and a blasphemer. You would not believe the things I have said about the one who it says purchased me with his precious blood. I would openly mock Jesus and his followers, call him a crazy guy, glad they killed him…When it comes to true value in the eyes of my creator, I was worthless. And I still am.

Yet still, knowing my sin, knowing my idols, knowing who I am, he loved me still, and he loves you still. Christ could have bid a penny on me and it would have been a rip off for him. But instead he willingly poured out his precious blood on my behalf. Redeeming me. Changing me. Creating the man, you see here. There is nothing left to earn, no bidders left to impress. We can truly let go of these things we are so fearful to let go of. We are more valuable than we could ever even know, not because we are so great, but because Christ is.

Where are we with this today? What idols are you chasing? Where are you searching for value? Who do you think your bidders are? How would your life look if you were to truly rest in the fact that you have a savior who knows full well your true value, and paid the highest price possible anyway. True freedom from chasing the wind awaits us when we embrace the love of our incredibly gracious and merciful Christ.