These days body image seems to be everything, not just for women but for men too. And people who aren’t happy with the way they look often lead very sad lives. Well it’s time we changed that.

Let me start today by letting you in on a little secret so that you understand where I’m coming from on this whole body image thing. For most of my adult life, until a few years ago, I hated seeing myself. I hated looking at my face in the mirror and I hated even more seeing a photo of myself. In fact as much as possible I avoided photos, why? Because I was grossly overweight and that was something I was deeply ashamed of.

I’d struggled with my weight all my life and as someone who pretty much always succeeds at things I turn my hand to, I hated, I mean I absolutely hated the fact that I couldn’t succeed at looking good. It’s a terrible thing I can tell you, not to want to look at yourself in the mirror, you avoid it studiously and it eats away at your self-esteem.

People would never had guessed it of the apparently bold and confident Berni Dymet but it was the scourge of my life. Of course I finally found out what was causing me to be so grossly overweight and that’s something I share in a free eBooklet called How I Lost 25 Kilograms. You can download it from the resources section of our Website, www.christianityworks.com if you’re interested, thousands already have.

But you see my point, when I come to talk about body image I’m speaking as someone who has struggled with the body image thing for most of his life so this is no theory lesson, this is someone whose life has been transformed by Christ speaking here.

Now before we get rocking and rolling to talk about the emotional side of body image let me say this, what I am not saying is that we shouldn’t worry about our health and our weight, the thing that’s causing gross obesity on a global pandemic scale is our addiction to sugar and processed foods. Get rid of those two things out of your diet, get back to what your grandparents and their parents were eating, yes including bacon and eggs and all those things and the weight just comes off. Absolutely get back to natural whole foods.

But weight isn’t the only thing that ruins our sense of body image, some people think they just look ugly. Okay some of us don’t fit the stereotypical images of beauty that we see in the glossy magazines and on television. In fact the reality is that most of us don’t, right? But that doesn’t stop many people from feeling visually inadequate. Some people have birthmarks or scars or perhaps you’re shorter than you’d like to be or taller than you want to be or you wish your hair was a different colour or those wrinkles would just go away.

There’s any number of things that we fret about when it comes to body image and for many people it simply ruins their lives, am I right? So where do we go with this? If you’re someone whose body image is ruining your life, do you want to be set free from that? I mean completely, totally and utterly set free from that? Then stick with me because that’s what we’re going to be doing right now. Not because I happen to have anything profound to say but because God does and first up this is what He has to say about body image, are you ready?

This comes from a time when the Prophet Samuel was sent by God to find a new king to replace King Saul of Israel who had gone off the rails. Have a listen:

The Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long are you going to grieve Saul? I’ve rejected him from being king over Israel so fill your horn with oil and set out. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite for I have provided for myself a king amongst his sons.’ So Samuel did what the Lord commanded and he came to Bethlehem and sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

When they came he looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before me’ but the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature because I have rejected him for the Lord does not see as mortals see, they look on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart.

Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel, he said ‘Neither has the Lord chosen this one’. Then Jesse made Shammah pass by and he said, ‘Neither has the Lord chosen this one’. Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel and Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The Lord has not chosen any of these.

Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all your sons here?’ And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest son but he’s out keeping the sheep’ and Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him for we will not sit down until he comes’. He sent and brought him. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome and the Lord said, ‘rise and anoint him for this is the one.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers and the spirit of the Lord came mightily on David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.

That was from 1 Samuel, chapter 16, verses 1 to 13.

Now that’s a profound story of how God chose David who turned out to be the greatest king that Israel ever had and notice that David was the runt of the litter, he was the little one, considered so unlikely that his father didn’t even put him before the Prophet. Samuel thought, ah number one son, you know the tall, the good-looking one, that’s the one that’s going to be king but God said to the Prophet:

Do not look on his outward appearance or on the height of his stature because I have rejected him. For the Lord does not see as mortals see, they look on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart.

Listen to me; God doesn’t give two hoots about your physical stature, that’s the last thing He’s interested in. What He’s interested in is who you are, your heart and if that’s the most precious thing in Gods sight isn’t it time to ditch this whole body image inadequacy thing that you’ve been going on about, well?

What you look like is by and large, God’s sovereign choice other than perhaps your weight and a few cosmetic things, the rest is completely out of your control. What matters is who you are, your sense of humour, your heart, your passions, the gifts Gods given you. If that matters most to God shouldn’t that e what matters most to you?

God often, almost always in fact, chooses plain ordinary looking people to achieve amazing things for Him. Okay the odd person is really good-looking, God bless them but the rest of us is just, well ordinary. Take Jesus for instance, Jesus the Son of God, if you’d been God what would you have done with Jesus body?

Would you have made Him tall and good-looking with a striking physique? I think I probably would have but listen to what the Prophet Isaiah says about this Messiah, this Jesus who was to come, Isaiah chapter 53, verse 2.

For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground he had no form or majesty that we should look at him and know beauty that we should desire him.

That’s Jesus we’re talking about and look what He achieved and after His crucifixion and His resurrection His scars were something that He didn’t hide, He showed them off, John chapter 20, verse 27:

Then he said to Thomas, ‘put your finger here and see my hands, reach out your hand and put it in my side, do not doubt but believe.

My friend Jesus put His body on the line for you and me, it was His earthly tent which He used plain and ordinary and unimpressive as it was, to glorify God. What an example, what a powerful Word to set you free from this ridiculous, devilish destruction being wrought through a false understanding of your body image.

Jesus came to set you free and when He sets you free you are free indeed. How about it?

Have you ever set out to really impress someone? I mean you really want them to think well of you and yet somehow you fall short of their expectations. Do you remember how that felt?

I haven’t had that many job interviews in my life, in fact I’ve only really had two of them but the first one is the one that I remember most. It was a day-long selection board, they called it, in front of some generals and colonels who were selecting candidates to train as officers in the Australian army.

There were about twenty of us, young men vying for contention and about six or seven of these senior officers, they spent the whole day putting us through the hoops. There were group sessions where we’re asked questions, each had to get up and give an impromptu speech, there was an obstacle course that we had to traverse with problems to solve along the way, all sorts of different things. It was an exhausting day I can tell you and the whole time you were really trying to impress these guys because you wanted to be selected to train as an officer.

The pressure was intense, out of the twenty of us just three or four made it through, I happened to be one of them. And then for the next four years at the Royal Military College Duntroon we were constantly being assessed. Every time you interacted with one of the military or academic staff they were assessing you and constantly filling in these pink slips, (“OQ9’s” they were called) that were entered into a computer system.

Almost without notice a fellow officer cadet would be plucked from a class and discharged because they hadn’t measured up. We started off with one hundred and forty-eight young men in our class and yet only sixty-one of us graduated four years later, I by the skin of my teeth because I failed the cross-country run by a few seconds in my final year.

It seems to be the way of the world doesn’t it? We’re constantly under the microscope, constantly being assessed and evaluated. In the workplace, in social settings, on the sporting field, it’s almost like we’ve been conditioned to compete and in a competitive environment if you want to succeed you have to impress other people.

I remember a publisher telling me that if I want to succeed at the book writing game I’d have to become a shameless self-promoter. That’s terrible isn’t it? And self promotion, having your own PR machine to tell other people how good you are, seems to be the order of the day, we dress to impress.

But what I’ve discovered is that all this competition makes you insecure and the shameless self promotion that many people carry on with is simply a mask behind which they hide in deep insecurity. You’ve been there, I’ve been there and it’s simply no way to live your life.

We’re in the middle of a series of messages called So … How’s Your Self Image Looking and the reason that we’re chatting about this whole self promotion thing today is that for many people it’s white-anting their sense of self. God actually has something very specific to say on this because He knows that it’s no way to live your life, hiding behind that mask of insecurity.

If who you are on the outside is different to who you are on the inside you end up feeling like you’re being torn apart, you end up feeling that you have to spend your whole life pretending, impressing other people, dancing to their tune, marching to the beat of their drum. You end up feeling like a fraud with a fear that someone is going to catch you out, that they’ll discover that really you aren’t anywhere near as good as they think you are.

I hope you can tell that I’m speaking first hand here because this is very much how I lived my life before Jesus set me free. Have a listen to these two Scriptures from Gods Word, 1 Samuel chapter 2, verse 3:

Talk no more so very proudly, let no arrogance come from your mouth for the Lord is a God of knowledge and by him actions are weighed.

And also Proverbs chapter 27, verses 1 and 2:

Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring. Let another praise you and not your own mouth, a stranger and not your own lips.

What God is saying here is, stop boasting! Stop being so full of yourself because arrogance is foolish. God is a God of knowledge, He knows what you’re on about, He sees through all that facade and all that rubbish and while some people might be intimidated by pride and arrogance, most of them, like God, can see straight through it.

Who cares what you say about how good you are or what you can do or what you’ve achieved or what you’re going to do. Self-praise is pretty much worthless, in fact it has negative value in most people’s eyes including in God’s eyes. So much better to just get out there and do good and let someone else praise you, not your own mouth, a stranger even, not your own lips.

When I was in the army as an officer each year we had a formal confidential report written on each one of us. There were two types of officers, those who set out to impress their superiors so they’d get a good annual confidential report, and those who just got on and did good and led their soldiers and honoured their seniors and didn’t think at all about their annual report.

And it was the latter not the former group that I wanted to follow into battle. It was the latter not the former who we spoke well of. See self-promotion is ugly, it’s ugly on the outside to those who receive it and it’s ugly on the inside because it feeds a deep insecurity and makes you feel even more insecure.

If you’re someone who constantly worries about what other people think of you just stop it, stop it, it ain’t worth it. You can never please them all, just get on with it, do good, honour God and let the rest take care of itself. Sometimes people will love you, sometimes people will criticise you, who cares? And even more to the point let God take care of it for you, 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 5 and 6:

God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that he may exalt you in due time.

See, the bottom line is this, self-promotion is nothing, nothing compared to God promotion. Listen:

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that he may exalt you in due time.

When we humble ourselves we start to discover a deep security in Christ and we end up reaping the benefits of His promotion in due time. And that’s an incredibly precious thing because what God ends up doing is promoting you in the right direction, into the plan He has for your life, to use the giftings He wove into your DNA before you were even thought of.

God knows much better where to promote you and how to promote you and where to exalt you and when to exalt you and where to use you than you do. There’s something incredibly satisfying about letting Him worry about all of that for us. Don’t take this the wrong way but I really don’t care what people think about me. I don’t say that arrogantly or belligerently or rudely or wrongly.

See, some people write in, in fact many, to say how blessed they’ve been through these messages and that’s a great encouragement to me. Other people though write in saying all sorts of horrible things. Well, fair enough, they’re entitled, but neither of those two things sway me in choosing the next thing I’m going to be saying on the next program because I let the Holy Spirit guide me and lead me in that.

Some messages I know are going to be popular, others I know aren’t going to get the same response because they share some of the hard truths that God wants us to hear from His Word, it’s just the way it is. My security is in my Lord, in Jesus who died for me, who rose again for me, and that makes for such a peaceful life, a much more contented life.

God wants you to be contented, He wants you to be secure, He wants you to be heading in the right direction. He loves you, why wouldn’t He? But remember this, He always opposes the proud and yet He always gives grace to the humble. Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you in due time, in His time, just at the right time. That’s God’s plan for you

One of the worst things, the absolute worst things that you and I can ever do when it comes to our self-esteem is to compare ourselves with other people. But despite that, well we still go on doing it don’t we?

Who was it, during your teenage years that you compared yourself to? Most of us, we had a few people back then to whom we looked as the ideal image. First up, there was probably a peer: if you’re a male it was another boy, if you’re female it was another girl. It was that one person that you wished you could be like them. As good-looking, as well liked, as smart, as athletic, whatever it is you admired about them and the life that they had it gnawed away at you on the inside, that you weren’t as blessed in that department as they were.

If you’re a girl probably what you envied was that other girl’s appearance. If you’re a boy probably what you envied was that other boy’s popularity, the fact that everyone seems to listen to him, he was the leader of the pack and you were just, well … you. At another level there was probably an adult that you wished and dreamed that you would grow up to be like. Perhaps it was a movie star or a sporting star or someone famous that you dreamed that one day you’d be like them.

I’m sure all of that brings back some memories for you, a few things you haven’t thought about for a very, very long time or perhaps you’re still thinking about them, perhaps you’re still comparing yourself with other people wondering why it is that you never quite seem to measure up to the ideal person that you see in them.

Do you find yourself comparing your marriage to your best friend’s marriage thinking ‘Why can’t my wife or my husband be as passionately in love with me as they are?’ Or perhaps that other person at work who seems to be so articulate and well liked. Whenever someone needs something they always go to that person instead of coming to you.

So why do we do that? What’s the matter with us that we’re constantly comparing ourselves to other people? Well in part it comes naturally in a sense and to some extent some comparison isn’t a bad thing. In fact when you think about it it’s by comparing ourselves that we learn.

We compare ourselves to our parents and we learn from them. We pick up their good habits and sometimes we pick up their bad habits too. And when we’re growing up, I mean I had a mentor in the work place for over twenty years, a man called Graham a couple of decades older than me. And I saw how he operated and the results that he achieved by operating that way and I modelled myself on him because I liked the results he was getting

Now that’s not a bad thing at all but there’s an unhealthy level of comparison that often goes on. When we just want to cherry pick the good things that other people have in their lives as though they don’t have any bad things in their lives. Of course that’s completely unrealistic because when we cherry pick the good things and ignore the bad things what we’re going to do is construct an ideal image that we aspire to which is totally unrealistic, an image we can never achieve and that feeds our insecurity and robs us of our identity.

When you think about it those comparisons are about wanting to be what the other person is or have what the other person has. So destructive is this that the Ten Commandments include a commandment specifically about this very thing. It’s the last commandment, number ten, have a listen, Exodus chapter 20, verse 17:

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife or male or female slave or ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

Why? Because when we covet, when we want the thing that our neighbour has it causes us to do one or two things. Either we do the wrong thing and we go and take it which is what adultery is all about, that’s what theft is all about or we don’t take it but the desire eats away at us like a cancer and we tell ourselves that we’re not complete without having it. We can’t enjoy our lives without it, unless we have that one thing that the next guy has we can never live a life full and contented and happy. What a load of malarkey.

There are some things that you and I will never have yet the desire of those things can end up ruining your life. Some people desire great wealth but they can’t attain it. That’s why God says in His Word, Hebrews chapter 6, verse 10:

The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from their faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

Notice it’s not money that’s the root of all evil, it’s the love of money, it’s the desire of money, it’s coveting wealth that becomes the root of all evil and ends up piercing us with many pains. It’s true, we’ll talk about that more another time but there’s an alternative and here it is, Hebrews chapter 13, verse 5:

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.

And that’s the key, contentment. Have a look around and consider all the good things that God has already given you. Your health, your life, the air that you breath, the roof over your head, the food you are eating, your family, just do a stocktake of all that you have. Oh, and by the way, the gift of eternal life through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, a completely new life through His resurrection. Come on add up all the good things that you already have, it’s amazing isn’t it how blessed you are?

Is it perfect? Is your family perfect? Are your circumstances perfect? No of course they aren’t, they were never meant to be perfect but the richness of God’s blessing is utterly mind-blowing. So here’s the rub, be content with what you have. Be content with who you are. Be content with your lot in life, give God thanks for that; keep blessing Him and praising Him and worshipping Him and living for Him.

And all of a sudden all those stupid, ridiculous things that you coveted, all those crazy comparisons will simply go away, they’ll pale into significance because all of a sudden you discover how rich you already are in Jesus Christ. Come on, what is it in your life that’s eating away at your self-image? Is it really worth it or is it time to focus on the good things that God’s already given you?

And that’s the key you know, we can’t just wave a magic wand and miraculously all of a sudden overcome our insecurities, it doesn’t work that way. If we could we would but we can’t so we don’t. They just don’t seem to go away on their own these insecurities, that’s where thanksgiving comes in.

The Bible is packed full of exhortations for us to be thankful and for good reason, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 18:

Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in    Christ Jesus for you.

Psalm 107, verse 1:

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good for his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 50, verse 14:

Offer God a sacrifice of thanks giving and perform your vows to the Most High.

On and on we’re called to thank God for all the good things and let me tell you when we do that He changes us, He takes away that gnawing sense of inadequacy that comes from these silly comparisons and the terrible coveting and jealousy that He tells us not to have and He replaces it with an overwhelming sense of joy irrespective, let me say, of our circumstances. Even when things are going against us, in fact especially when things are going against us.

Let me be blunt here, if you’re desiring to have something you can’t have or to be someone you can’t be it’s going to be ruining your life, it’s giving you a distorted self-image and God’s command to you is clear. Stop it, just don’t do it anymore. Instead praise God and give thanks and let Him change you.

And see God’s already made provision for your deliverance and healing from this terrible disease through the simple and utterly delightful habit of giving thanks to Him. The only question is what exactly are you waiting for?

Money, money, money! Remember that old Abba song, most people think to themselves ‘If only I just had a bit more money, not a lot, just a bit more, then I’d be happy’. But actually it’s just not true.

That Abba song, most of us know it, money, money, money, is one of the catchiest songs of the last fifty years I reckon. The first verse starts off like this:

I work all night, I work all day
to pay the bills I have to pay,
ain’t it sad?
And still there never seems to be
a single penny left for me,
that’s too bad.
In my dreams I have a plan,
if I got me a wealthy man
I wouldn’t have to work at all,
I’d fool around and have a ball.

Hey that’s the dream isn’t it? To have enough money not to have to work at all or at least not to have to work as hard as we do, to be able to take life that little bit easier. There’s not one of us who hasn’t wished that at some time in our lives. But this desire for money goes a lot deeper than that.

There’s something about money, or should I say wealth, that taps into our sense of identity. The chorus of that Abba song gives us a hint. It goes like this:

Money, money, money,
must be funny in a rich man’s world.
Money, money, money,
always sunny in the rich man’s world.
All the things I could do if I had a little money,
it’s a rich man’s world.

You see for most of us having lots of money is about more than just being comfortable and not having to work so hard. For most people it’s about being able to play in that rich man’s world, being one of those rich beautiful people. Nowhere else do you see this on a day-to-day basis more than in the car that some people choose to drive.

I remember one of those financial guru’s on television, a guy by the name of Paul Clitherow once saying, ‘From a financial perspective you should buy the cheapest car that your ego will allow you to’. It’s true; people buy cars as an expression or an extension of who they are. If I drive a car worth this much with this brand’s logo on it that’s a statement of my wealth for everybody else to see.

We want money because in a sense it’s a scorecard as Donald Trump puts it, of our success. It’s a tangible measure that tells other people and ourselves how successful we are according to the world’s measure and when money starts to define our identity and our sense of self worth in that way that’s when it becomes dangerous, very dangerous because at that point it becomes an idol, it becomes something that we worship and pursue and sacrifice for and money, as it turns out, is a terrible master.

We saw yesterday that according to God at least money can end up causing you a great deal of pain, Hebrews chapter 6, verse 10:

For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from their faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

The alternative, Hebrews chapter 13, verse 5 is this:

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have for He has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.

And you see it’s in that second Scripture that there lies a very clear, a very distinct choice for you and me today. To what or to whom do you look for your self-image, for your sense of worth? To money and all that it buys – comfort, power, recognition, wealth – OR to God who will never leave you or forsake you.

Which one do you trust more? Which one is going to be more reliable and dependable and faithful and fruitful? God or money? It’s a stark choice, you can’t look to both to discover your identity, you can’t trust in money and in God because at that point you become a dog with two master’s. One says ‘go’ the other says ‘come’, which one are you going to listen to? Which one are you going to obey?

Jesus knew that which is why He put that stark choice before the people He was speaking with, He said:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on the earth where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth or rust consumes, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is there your heart will also be.

No one can serve two masters for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matthew 6:19-24)

Can I ask you something? Where do you go for an identity check? When you’re kind of figuring out what you’re worth or where you fit in the big scheme of things or how your life is going, what mirror, if you will, do you turn to, to look at yourself through? Do you kind of look at where you are in life and what you have to get that assessment?

“Yeah, well, you know, it’s pretty good. I’m forty-two now and I have a nice house, okay a bit of a mortgage but I’m paying that off and I’d like to get that new lounge but that dining suite is really nice. Yeah I’m happy, kind of, with my marriage and the kids, they’ll turn out okay I think and I think my salary is pretty good given where I’m at.”

Is that how you reckon up your success or are you more interested in your walk with the Lord? In revelling in the grace that you have with Jesus Christ? In tackling this particular sin that you’ve been struggling with through prayer and through the power of the Holy Spirit in taking another step of faith, another step of sacrifice to follow Jesus?

Come on, which one is it? How do you take stock of you? Because that’s going to tell you what’s the most important thing to you and for the person who is wrapped up in wealth and money, if that’s what’s most important to you then you know that you’re struggling with your self-image because enough is never enough. Your desire for wealth can never be satisfied by more wealth and so the inability to be satisfied eats away at your self-esteem.

Back in the eighteenth century a man by the name of Jonathon Swift said this:

A wise person should have money in their head but not in their heart.

That sums it up in a nutshell for me because when money reigns in your heart it pierces you with many pains; it robs you of who you really are. So then let me ask you, who or what is it that reigns in your heart? To what extent is your identity wrapped up in what you have or what you aspire to have?

Can I say these are tough questions to ask ourselves because the lure of wealth has its tendrils wrapped around many a human heart, gripping it in a vice-like grip, holding it captive but these are the questions we need to ask. If God asked you to sell up everything and follow Him to some far-flung part of the world and start again, live in relative poverty and serve Him without any worldly recognition, how would you answer Him?

I know that one is making the odd person squirm. Come on, how about you? What really matters to you? What’s valuable to you? Which master are you serving, wealth or God? You can’t serve them both and the reason I’m posing these rather awkward, rather inconvenient, rather probingly rude questions for you to ask yourself today is that God wants to set you free from any hold, any power, any control that the false idol of wealth has over you.

Jesus came to set you free, remember and when the Son of man sets you free you are free indeed, remember. He loves you enough to use this message today, I guess, to put these questions before you, to share Gods Word and challenge you because the only way that we gain true freedom is discovering our true value and our value is in Christ and that, that’s something that money simply can’t buy.

Any real estate agent will tell you that no matter what you think, your house is only worth what someone else is prepared to pay. That’s not a bad maxim. The market sets the price. So when it comes to you what are you really worth?

Over the years I’ve bought and sold a few different houses. As a buyer inevitably what you want to do is pay as little as possible for the house of your dreams. I mean why would you want to possibly part with a single penny more than you have to, to get that house? And so, depending on the market, you negotiate. If the market’s a little bit flat, if the house has been up for sale for a few months you put in a low offer and hope the vendor’s will accept, and if they don’t hopefully they’ll meet you somewhere between their asking price and what you offered.

On the vendor’s side, well when you’re selling you always believe that your house is worth more than what the market does. It’s your house after all, you’ve put your blood and sweat and tears into decorating it and making it all that it is today, it’s personal and so often vendor’s can be just a little bit unrealistic about the true market value of their property. But as every real estate agent will tell you, it’s only worth what someone is actually prepared to pay on the day.

That’s how value is determined; the market value equals the price that someone else is prepared to pay for your house. So let me ask you this, what’s your market value? What are you really worth?

The world out there often wants to discount your worth. The world out there tells us what beautiful looks like, what talented looks like, what successful looks like, what wealthy looks like, what popular looks like and I for one have never been able to measure up to all those images of what I should look like. How about you?

As a result we end up with self-doubt, feeling inadequate because we can never measure up. Self-doubt is an awful thing. I don’t mean that we all should be proud and full of ourselves, not that, but delighted with who we are, realistic about our limitations, prepared to learn and to grow and develop for sure but being comfortable in the skin you’re in. Are you comfortable in the skin you’re in? Do you like who you are or are you a walking bundle of insecurities?

Chances are if you’re not comfortable with who you are, what you’re capable of and what you’re not capable of, you’ve been listening far more to what the world has to say about you than what God has to say about you. And the first thing I want to share with you is that you are worth what someone else is prepared to pay for you and here is what God was prepared to pay for you through Jesus, Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 to 8:

Who, though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The matchless death of Jesus on that cross! Now if Jesus was just a man that would be stunning enough but although Jesus was a man He wasn’t just a man, He was much, much more.

One of my favourite songs of all time is the Michael W Smith song Above All. I can’t sing it but have a listen to the words of the first verse and the chorus.

Above all powers, above all kings,
above all nature and all created things,
above all wisdom and all the ways of man,
you were here before the world began.

Above all kingdoms, above all thrones,
above all the wonders the world has ever known.
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
there’s no way to measure what you’re worth.

Crucified, laid behind a stone,
you lived to die rejected and alone
like a rose trampled on the ground.
You took the fall and thought of me above all.

Do you get it? Do you see what you are worth in the eyes of God? He gave His Son for you, not just a man but also the very Son of the living God who is above all things, above every power, above the whole creation, above all our wisdom and every kingdom and every wonder and all the wealth and the treasures the earth has. Put it all together, there is literally no way to measure what Jesus is worth.

And it was this Jesus, this very One who was crucified and laid behind a stone. It was precisely this Jesus who died rejected and alone for you; He took the fall for you. This Jesus whose worth is immeasurable placed you above all else even above Himself. You know what that makes you? Absolutely priceless! Do you get it?

What the world tells you you’re worth, what other people tell you you’re worth doesn’t hold a candle to what you’re really worth. And Jesus didn’t just use words to tell you what you’re worth, He showed you what you’re worth by allowing Himself to be nailed to that cross, to take the fall for you, to pay for your sins so that you could spend eternity with Him. That’s how much He loves you. That’s how much you’re worth.

For while you were still weak, just at the right time, Christ died for you. Indeed rarely will anyone die for a righteous person though perhaps for a good person someone might actually care to die but God proves his love for you in that while you were still a sinner Jesus died for you.

Much more surely then now that you’ve been justified by his blood will you be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while you were his enemy you were reconciled to God through the death of his son then much more surely having been reconciled, you’ll be saved by his life. (Romans chapter 5, verses 6 to 10)

He thought of you, He thought of me, He placed us above all else. Not because we loved Him or honoured Him but because the exact opposite is true of us and He saw us, He knew us before we were born, and He knew how desperately we needed to be forgiven and to be reconciled back to God.

So whenever you feel inadequate, worthless, simply not able to measure up to the images of beauty and wealth and success that the world tells you you should measure up to, whenever you start to discount your worth my prayer is that you’ll believe what God says about you through the cross of Christ, above and beyond the lies of this world.

It was battered and scarred
and the auctioneer thought
it scarcely worth his while
to waste much time on the old violin
but he held it up with a smile.
‘What am I bidding good folks’ he cried,
‘who’ll start the bidding for me?
A dollar, a dollar, then two, only two?
Two dollars and who’ll make it three?
Three dollars once, three dollars twice,
going for three’ but no,
from the room far back a grey haired man
came forward and picked up the bow.

Then wiping the dust from the old violin
and tightening the loosening strings,
he played a melody pure and sweet
as carolling angels would sing.
The music ceased and the auctioneer
with a voice that was quiet and low
said, ‘what will I bid for the old violin?’
And he held it up with the bow.
‘A thousand dollars, who’ll make it two?
Two thousand, who’ll make it three?
Three thousand once, three thousand twice
and going and gone’ said he.

People cheered but some of them cried,
‘we don’t quite understand,
what changed its worth?’ Swift came the reply,
‘the touch of the Master’s hand’.
And many a man with his life out of tune
and battered and scarred with sin
is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd
much like the old violin.”

A ‘mess of pottage’, a glass of wine,
a game and he travels on.
He’s going once, he’s going twice,
he’s going and almost gone.
But the master comes and the foolish crowd
never can quite understand
the worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
by the touch of the Master’s hand.