Self Worth VS Work Worth
This is the rough draft of Pastor Steve’s message from the fourth week of “Raising Home Run Kids” on September 29, 2019. You can also watch the message here. We hope you find this helpful as you pursue your next steps in Christ
We’ve had all of our kids play sports at some time in their lives. One of the reasons is we believe that sports teach great character qualities like teamwork, perseverance and dealing with failure. Experiencing sports prepares kids for the real world. Another reason is because Keisa and I grew up playing sports. We love sports and so we wanted our kids to play sports. Why not? And how cool would it be if one of the group and played volleyball and track like their mom? How cool if they played baseball and basketball like their dad right?
I remember when Christian and Ellie were little, we put them both in baseball. They both had very different views on baseball. Christian was into it. He would swing the bat and hit the ball. He’d run the bases and never stop. He’d go for the ground ball. It was right in his wheelhouse. He loved it. Ellie on the other hand, not so much. She’d maybe swing the bat when the ball came. If she made contact, she’d kind of run to the base. Sometimes she’s run to third instead of first. If there was a ball hit and she was in the field, she would not move. She would wait for the ball to come right to her. To this day, she tells us that she hated baseball.
They are growing up in the same home with the same parents and they are so different. In fact, it’s not just the two of them, all four of our kids are so different. And one of the things we are learning as parents is that as different as they are, part of our job is to help them be home run kids. Our job is to help them round the bases and have a life filled with meaning and purpose. I want that for my kids. Isn’t that what we all want for our kids. What do you want for your kids? We want them to win in life. Ultimately we want them to live a home run life.
Today we are concluding our conversation in parenting, but here is the kicker. These principles, aren’t just for parenting. They apply to all of us. What we have shared so far, it really is the plan that God has for all of us. So, with baseball in mind, let’s draw a baseball diamond and start there.
What does a home run kind look like? Let’s start with home base. We want our kids to be connected. Connected with God. What we do in life, has everything to do with our relationship with Jesus Christ. All of our decision making, our values, and our future is connected to our views of Jesus. And as parents, what we want is to get this right. We want to have kids that are spiritually alive and how to love Christ. It all starts there.
Next, we move over to first base with character. Character matters. Character is what helps our kids be productive and life-giving adults one day. But again, character must be grounded to something significant to matter. As our kids grow in their faith in Christ, so grows their character. Next, we move on over to second base with community. It’s so important that our kids learn how to build healthy relationships. It’s so important that they learn to become relationally capable of interacting with other people.
That takes us to our last base; competency. We need to help our kids discover what they love to do. Maybe they will like baseball like Christian? Maybe they will not like Ellie, and watch that ball go right by them. That’s ok. Part of our job is to help them discern what they are good at. What they love and don’t love. Here’s a good question to start the day. How can I help my kids discover what God’s purpose is for them? How can I discover what God’s purpose is for me? That in part starts with the conversation of competency!
I want to use a passage today that is not normally used for parenting but I believe it has some insight on how to be a better parent. So, let me give you some context. The people of Israel had been recently released from over 400 years of oppression in Egypt. Under Mose’s leadership, they leave Egypt and begin to head towards the promised land. During the journey, Moses goes up on a mountain and experiences God first hand. It’s out of that experience with God that Moses is given the 10 commandments for Israel. These commandments would become the way that Israel would follow God and how they would treat one another in this brand new life. In fact, Moses was given the leadership responsibility of parenting this group of people. In many ways, he was their father. He would parent them in who they could be; just like you and I are called to with our kids,
Along the way, they are also given instructions on building God’s tabernacle. This tabernacle would later become the temple for the Jewish people and it was the place of worship. As the tabernacle is being built we find passages in Exodus on who would be involved in this project and what they would be responsible for.
Then the Lord said to Moses, 2 “Look, I have specifically chosen Bezalel son of Uri, grandson of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. 3 I have filled him with the Spirit of God, Exodus 31:1-3
Let me touch on this lightly. When you and I choose to follow Christ, God’s Holy Spirit takes up residence in us. God fills us with his spirit. In the NT, this was a promise of Jesus. Why is that a big deal? It’s God's spirit, that gives is the ability to follow Christ. He works in and through us each day to help us be more like Christ.
I have filled him with the Spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, ability, and expertise in all kinds of crafts. Exodus 31:3
God gives Bezalel not only his spirit but gifts and skills. He gives him wisdom and acumen. In other words, our skill sets are not simply a by-product of hard work or education or upbringing. Who we are starts with God.
4 He is a master craftsman, expert in working with gold, silver, and bronze. 5 He is skilled in engraving and mounting gemstones and in carving wood. He is a master at every craft! 6 “And I have personally appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to be his assistant. Moreover, I have given special skill to all the gifted craftsmen so they can make all the things I have commanded you to make: Exodus 31:4-6
God gives these men these amazing abilities and skills and they use them to create the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant. Both of which would become key to the faith story of the people of Israel. God gave them those competencies. Let’s personalize it. Your competencies are all rooted in your Creator. God has put skills inside of you for the amazing things that he wants to do through your life. God is the source. God would say, “just so you know, I put that in you. I have put skills in your kids too.”
And parents, guess what? God has already designed your kids that way. He has given them more than you can imagine. Your role as a parent, over their lifetime, is to help them recognize what God has put in them. You are called to help them find their competencies. And in turn, use those skills to honor their Creator.
But how? How do I raise competent kids? Let me give you a few ideas. One, Help them distinguish between self-worth and work worth. I believe this is key because for many of us, we struggle with this very issue. We get our self worth and our work worth all intertwined and confused. What is self-worth? If we are to go back to our drawing, I would say that the right side of our baseball diamond is self-worth. Our self-worth is who we are in God. In fact, the right side of our drawing right here (draw a box around home plate, upto second base and back down around 1st base) Why? Our self worth starts with God. Our values must always start with God. From there that self-worth feeds into our character. Worth leads to character. It also impacts how we interact with others. So, we must know that for us and for our kids, our self worth has to be rooted in our creator.
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Ephesians 1:4-5 (NLT)
When you have that perspective, it changes everything. God loved you, chose you and wanted you. That means you are of value. That means your self worth is determined by him. When our kids see that their self worth is rooted in Him, what happens? It affects all other aspects of their life right? Self-worth in God leads to Godly character like humility, integrity, and perseverance. Self-worth rooted in God leads to a healthy community. Kids learn how to treat other people with respect, love, and forgiveness. Self-worth leads to finding my value in God rather than my friends or what others think on social media. Self-worth in God is significant! And get this. We all have equal access to God and we can all find our self worth in him!
If you move to the left side of the baseball diamond, that is work worth. (draw a box around home, upto second base and over to third). That is competency and skills. Those are the things we as parents help them discover and work on over a lifetime. But we must also help our kids know that this left side, it’s not equal for everyone. That’s just the reality of life. One the right side, we all have value and purpose in Christ. We all have equal access to God. But on the left side, the competency side, that’s different for everyone. Not everyone can play baseball. Not everyone is brilliant at math. We have different abilities. We have different opportunities that come our way. That’s not a bad thing but it’s a reality that we have to navigate in our own lives and also help our kids learn. As Paul is parenting the NT church, look at what he says about this.
In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. 7 If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. Romans 12:6-8 (NLT)
God has given you different gifts than them. God has given you a different set of passions than your friends. That’s a good thing. Celebrate it. Don’t compare, be secure in how God has created you. That is your worth!
How do I raise competent kids? Two, Show them how to protect their self-worth in God. Why? Because we live in a culture that confuses the two. Constantly our culture is telling you and will tell your kids, “hey, you self worth is found in your work worth. Your self worth if found in your grades worth or your sports worth. Then eventually, your self worth is found in your next worth. The problem is when you and I confuse self-worth and work worth, we get in trouble. When we try to find self-worth in work worth, pain always follows.
A few weeks ago, Andrew Luck shocked the football world when he retired from the NFL at age 29. If you don’t know who Andrew Luck is, he was the starting quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. For the past few years, he’s battled injuries but had a comeback season in 2018 where he won the title of “comeback player of the year.” In 2018 check this out. He threw for 4,593 yards and 39 touchdowns. That is incredible! Going into the 2019 season the Colts were highly favored to go far in the AFC and were 12-1 favorites to go to the Superbowl. Yet, this man with all of the talent and accolades, he had been struggling with years of pain. With that pain, he was losing joy over a sport where he was very famous and very rich. Here is part of what he said.
"I’ve come to the proverbial fork in the road, and I made a vow to myself that if I ever did again, I’d choose me, in a sense. It’s very difficult; I love this team, I love my teammates, the folks in our building, the folks in this building, the fans, the game of football, and as part of this team, as a member of this team, and because of how I feel, I know that I am unable to pour my heart and soul into this position, which would not only sell myself short but the team in the end as well. And it’s sad, but I have a lot of clarity in this.
"I feel quite exhausted and quite tired. I do know once I hit the point where I felt like I knew what I needed to do and I talked to Nicole and my folks and some close friends and had some very difficult conversations with Mr. Irsay, Frank and Chris, it did seem like, in a sense, a weight was lifted. It’s been tiring. I feel tired, and not just in the physical sense.” (Andrew Luck)
With that, he stepped away from it all. I was reading a follow-up article a few days after his retirement that estimated that if Andrew Luck stayed healthy and stayed in the game as long as Tom Brady, he could have made upto $500 million more dollars. Think about that. His net worth would have gone up another half a billion dollars and he walked away from it. I don’t know what Andrew Luck believes when it comes to Christ or what his personal values are, but that decision says a lot. At least on some level, he is showing us that his value is not in the money or the fame. Somehow he’s been able to distinguish his self worth is not in his worth work.
Here is my question for you? How are you doing with this in your life? Too often we mix self-worth and work worth. It happens with our money. When we have more money, we feel more self-worth and when we have less, self-worth disappears. It happens in business. When the business is thriving we feel tremendous worth, and if it tanks we feel worthless It’s why we must root our self worth in God and protect it. Work worth is waiting to eat self-worth for lunch!
When you have the job you want, man you are flying high. You feel valued. When you don’t have the job you wanted or think you deserve, your self worth goes down. It’s like you’ve lost your identity. When your kiddos are at home and you pour your life into them, it’s crazy, but you feel like you have value. Then as the kids grow up and moved out, you feel lost. How? Our value is wrapped up in the work of our kids rather than self-worth.
Listen, it’s something you even have to guard against in ministry. I see it, I hear it and I feel it in ministry all of the time. I believe God has called us to reach people that are still not here. Why? People matter to God. Numbers matter to God because those numbers matter to God. Those numbers represent people. So we will do all we can to reach more because that is the heartbeat of God. You’ve heard me mention is a whole bunch of times. Yet, within the church world, there is this pull back and forth in how big a church is or how quickly it’s growing. Yet, what happens if I as your pastor get caught up in that back and forth pull? What happens I focus on numbers for the wrong reason? I could be attaching my worth to how big or how small this church is. I could ba attaching my worth to how fast or how slow our church grows compares to others. Is that healthy? In fact, how can God grow our church if my self worth in the numbers more than in him? He can’t!
Listen, we must all understand the priority of rooting our self worth in God and protecting it.
“The reason you have to protect this in your children is because the world will take their self-worth and attach it to their work worth and then that becomes their only worth.”
Parents, this is what your children are facing. They are being told ALL of the time that their self worth is tied to their academic worth. Other kids are trying to convince them that their self worth is attached to their parent’s net worth. Their parent’s new car. The size of their parent’s home. The kinds of vacations you take compared to that family’s vacation. So self-worth gets attached to how their performance on the field or on the court.
Guard your heart above all else, Proverbs 4.23
When I read that I think of basketball. I think this way; “Put some protective man to man defense around your heart. Don’t allow anything else or anyone else to get inside the paint. Keep it out on the perimeter.” To me, this is two-fold. When our kids our younger, we have to help guard their hearts. Sometimes we have to put up those barriers to teach them. They are not ready to do it yet on their own so you set up the perimeter. Maybe like this? “You know what, we aren’t doing the social media thing right now. You don’t think you are too young, but I don’t think you’re ready. I know all of your friends have it, but there is too much junk out there. We are going to wait right now. I’m going to ask you to trust me” That is guarding their heart and their self-worth.
But as your kids get older, it changes for us as parents. When our kids are older, we have to teach them to guard their own hearts. You may have to step in at times and put up some barriers to protect their hearts because they don’t see it. However, your role becomes more of teaching and reminding them Why? We want them to grow into men and women who do this on their own. How do you remind their of their worth? “Hey, I know which college you want to go to, but if it doesn’t happen, don’t lose your mind. God has a plan for you and no matter what happens, God won’t be surprised.” That is reminding them to guard their heart and self-worth.
Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Proverbs 4.23
Protect your kid’s hearts, because where their heart goes, so goes their lives. To develop that in them, tell them things like, “don’t listen to the crowd. Your value is not in stuff. Stop comparing what you have to others. God values you no matter your grades. God loves you no matter how many points you score. Listen to God’s voice more than the voices on social media.” You with me so far?
And maybe, just maybe, some of us need to hear this as well today? “Your worth is not in your job but your worth is found in Jesus. Remember, the job will fade one day, Christ will never fade away. Your worth is not determined by your past. Your past is forgiven so listen to Jesus rather than that nagging condemnation. Stop trying to find your worth in your dating life. Focus your worth in Christ first and then your dating relationships will be healthier. Your worth starts with Ch
“The reason you have to protect this in your life is because the world will take your self-worth and attach it to your work worth and then that becomes your only worth.”
Again, today I’ve put some notes in the app for each of you to help you grow. Some are geared towards parents and others to the rest of us. Take a look at those this week and take your next step to grow your faith in Jesus. Yet, today I want us to take a few moments to pray and to guide that prayer time, let’s ask these two questions of ourselves. Number one, Where do you find your worth and why? Number two, What are you doing to guard your self worth in Christ? Let’s take some time to pray and process through those question this week and today. Would you pray with me, please?