Value Part 3

In part one we wrestled with the truth that everyone anchors their value to something. In Part two we saw how we wound each other by the things that we worship.

When I was about 11 I had a mountain bike. It was my prized possession. I road that bike everywhere. I loved to do "tricks" on my bike. Amazing stuff that would blow your mind like:

• No Hands!
• Standing on the bar in the middle (holding handlebars)
• Popping a Wee-lie

By far my favorite stunt was jumping. This was the holy grail of bike stunts; defying gravity as I soared through the air mere inches off the ground. But that didn't last long.

Soon I was plotting how I could get "Big Air". I found some cinderblocks and a scrap of plywood. I started with one cinderblock and when I hit the jump the board broke and I went flying off the bike.

A more intelligent young man would have realized only greater injuries were down this road, but I was not to be deterred by reason or sanity. I put another block to brace the middle of my ramp and "Got back on the bike". Note: Good advice without context is bad advice.

I hit the jump with all my might and it was AWESOME! I landed without a scratch. Now I had experienced a whole 8 inches of air! Gateway drug is the proper term. Because over the next week I added a block every day making the jump higher and higher. Two weeks later I had built a monstrosity of a ramp. I was sure this is what I was put on the planet to accomplish. My destiny awaited.

I petaled with furious intensity and hit that ramp like a BMX Rock Star! I swear I heard Bon Jovi and saw flames as I was flying through the air. I landed the jump and it was the most thrilling ride of my life! Then I tried to petal. My bike made an awful clicking sound ceased up and dumped me face first the ground. I was in much pain, but I was more concerned about my bike. As I gathered my self together and examined the bike

I realized the entire back gear mechanism had sheered off. It was completely trashed. That day I learned why BMX Rock stars do not purchase their bikes at Walmart. I had lost my prize possession for a few moments of pleasure. I would have given anything to go back and not take the jump.

So many of the things we chase after end with disappointment.

Even success isn't enough. I wanted a bigger and bigger jump until it broke me. In an interview with Kevin Durant the "Second best" player in the NBA admits being a top three player out of 7 billion people is pretty good. But it's not good enough. Talk to any top performer and they will all tell you they are "hungry". The truth is we all have an infinite desire inside us.

God knows the only thing that can satisfy our infinite desire is an infinite God.

In the book of Jeremiah God says it like this:

"Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit."

He explains the result a couple verses later:

"for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water."

God is angry in this passage. He has freely offered Himself the infinite source of love, joy, peace, and everything good, but his people instead picked an inferior cheap knockoff.

True value is measured by what someone is willing to pay. God paid for you with his only son. He wants you that bad. When I broke my bike I was disappointed because I knew I didn't have the money to fix it. I knew my parents didn't have the money to fix it. In the same way we have broken ourselves, and we don't have the payment to fix it. Our brokeness is a result of sin. We have "changed our gods". We have all worshiped and pursued things that could never satisfy. And we are left holding the broken pieces. Paul wrote to the church at Rome:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The price to repair our broken lives is death.

You can see the problem. If I could fix my bike by amputating my leg that wouldn't do me much good. So God sent Jesus, and Jesus paid it all. He died for you and me to purchase our broken lives and make us brand new again. You can be made new by accepting this gift of God.

"Dear God, I admit I have sinned against you by chasing my own gods. I ask you to forgive me. Please come into my life and by my Lord, my Savior. In Jesus name Amen."

If you pray that to God and you mean it. Then you are made brand new. This is the first step to getting your value from God. If you already have accepted God's gift of salvation, but still can't get your self-worth from God. I'll explain how to do that in Part 4.

Questions & Answers Episode 1

Every few weeks we will be doing a segment in youth group called Questions & Answers! I'll answer questions submitted to my website. Ask your own question at pastorhudson.com/question. These can be serious or silly.

This week's questions:

1. Me and my boyfriend are having problems .. Should I punch him it act like I don't care? Hmmmm

2. Why do I keep loosing my hair? -Baldy

Value Part 2

In Part 1 we learned "Everyone anchors their value to something." I often anchor my value to performance. It's not enough to do good or even meet expectations. I want to exceed expectations. I don't want to just exceed others expectations, but I want to exceed my expectations. When I exceed my expectations I feel amazing. I feel like all is well with the world. When I don't exceed my expectations then I feel pretty worthless. I know it's stupid, but lets be honest you do it too.

Maybe it's performance like me. Maybe it's something else like

• Being in a relationship
• Getting on a team
• Getting a job or promotion
• Your image or reputation
• The clothes you wear or what you drive
• How others feel about you
• How others treat you

We all anchor our value to something. Most things we anchor to cause our value to rise and fall like a nausea inducing roller coaster.

I caught myself judging someone the other day. They were doing a devotional and using some object lesson and it was just bad. It was one of those presentations that make people hate public speaking. The poor persons nerves were shot. I could tell he was not enjoying his talk and neither were we. In that moment I realized I was judging his self worth based on how he was performing. Lets be honest. This guy was older than me, and chances are good he has more experience in his left pinky than I do in 17 years of doing ministry. He's seen more life. He's probably a better administrator, better counselor, better lots of stuff. But all I measured was his performance at this one talk.

We get others value from what we worship.

Not only do we get our own value from what we worship, or anchor our self-worth to. We get OTHERS value from what we anchor OUR value to! This whole system is seriously messed up!

I remember when I was canvasing a neighborhood with some students inviting people to come to a community event. I was driving a midnight blue Ford Focus back then. It was the first new car I bought. It didn't have A/C but it was mine and it was reliable. I was parked on the side of the road and a lady came buy in a giant Cadillac Escalade. She rolled down her window and screamed at me to "Get my piece of expletive car out of the road." She glared at me like I was the lowest scum of the earth. I was thinking "Do you know who I am?" I'm with students doing this community a service and you're treating me like this? She was measuring my value through what she worshiped, and it hurt.

God knows how deeply we wound each other because of the things we choose to worship.

This is why God makes a big deal Exodus 20 about only worshiping Him.

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."

3 “You shall have no other gods before[a] me."

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands[b] of those who love me and keep my commandments."

God is not jealous of you. God is jealous for you. This is why Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount equates Anger, contempt, and insults with murder. We wreck ourselves and others when we anchor our value to anything but God. This is deeply offensive to the God who created all of us.

Imagine you can go back in time 1628-29. And you get to go to a gallery viewing of young artists. You walk in and see this hanging on the wall.

As you are viewing this a young man walks up and introduces himself as Rembrandt. You barely acknowledge his presence. He asks how you like the painting. Your eyes never leave the painting as you reply with a snicker. "This? This is not a painting! My 3 year old could do better blindfolded. I wouldn't give $2 for this piece of crap!" You then turn to look at the artist and as the blood drains from your face you realize his face is the same as the one in the painting. . .

We are all created in God's image.

When we devalue others based on our own idols we worship. We are devaluing the artist who created the person in front of us. We are insulting God when we devalue others. It's offensive. It has to stop.

Value Part 1

I really care what people think about me. I know I shouldn't, and I know that I'm suposed to lie about it. It's bad form to admit to caring what people think especially in our culture. You probably care too. That's why phrases like this exist.

• "You don't know me!"
• "Who do you think you are?"

If you didn't care what people think about you. You wouln't need to tell anybody how much you don't care what they think about you.

The whole point of telling people how much you don't care what they think is so they will think of you as a person who they have no power over. You are trying to change the way they think about you, and injure the way they think about themselves in the process. Which means you care what they think.

Everyone anchors their self worth to something.

I too often anchor my self worth to my ability to perform. I think I'm really good at what I do. Much of the time this works for me, but I don't always perform well. When I FEEL like I didn't exceed expectations then my self-worth drops like a bad stock. This is a problem.

Too many of us measure our self-worth with things that rise and fall like the the stock market.

Jesus tells a story about a man that finds a treasure in a field. This man thinks this treasure is so valuable that he goes home and sells everything! His house, his car, his dog, his extra clothes, EVERYTHING! And with only the clothes he has on he goes and buys the field.

The Man is trusting with his whole heart and his whole life that the treasure in the field will be worth MORE than his entire life to this point.

We all sell out.

We all pick somehting in life and then sacrifice to get it.

• Career
• Relationships
• Wealth
• Kids
• Athletics
• Inteligence/Academics
• Fame
• Disposable time / Not working

We all choose to anchor our value to something or someone.

What is that thing for you? Can you trust that it will pay in the long run? What do you wish you were anchored to? What do you wish the people you care about would anchor themselves to?

Let me know in the comments!

Different is not wrong it is just different Part 1

I grew up in Japan. Most of the time I was the only white person around. This experience taught me "Different is not wrong it is just different."

I remember one of our first trips to a McDonnalds in Japan. My dad ordered our food and we received one packet of ketchup for each order of fries. In Murica' we are accustomed to swimming in ketchup. Excess ketchup is basically a civil right. We like to smother our fries in ketchup. We are entitled to this gross excess because this is America! We are the customer. And the customer is always right! We were used to getting extra ketchup and taking it home. Our fridge had a bag of excess condement trophies from a host of restaurants that we would never use. These trophies documented our shrewd food conquests. We always ask for extra. It's just what we do. If we don't get a gross excess of ketchup from McDonnalds, then we got ripped off! This was my world view.

Dad asked if we could have more than one ketchup per order of fries. They looked at us with shock. They said "No". My dad tried to explain that one packet could not possibly satisfy our condement needs. They looked at my dad like he had requested world peace and replied "It's just not possible". My dad spoke slowly thinking maybe this was a language problem. We just need another couple packets of ketchup. They asked exactly how many we would need. Dad generously responded we would make due with 5 more packets of ketchup. They disappeared to the back apparently having a short conference with management to discuss this extraordinary request.

The cashier returned with the answer "I'm sorry. It is just not possible". We asked why and the response was if we gave you more ketchup then our inventory of ketchup to fries would be messed up.

That day I learned that in Japan the customer is not always right. It felt like a slap in the face. I felt like I had been cheated. I felt like I was in crazy town and the whole world had been turned upside down. How could they be so WRONG? How could they not see we were RIGHT!?

This was the beginning of an education. Over the years I learned that Japanese do many things different than Americans. I love heated toilets. I'm drinking green tea from a traditional Japanese cast iron tea pot as I write this. I can't stand what passes for rice in America, and I drive an hour to Pittsburgh just to get a good bowel of ramen. I miss sleeping on the floor. I miss the convenience of riding the train. Part of me is Japanese. I'm so thankful for the friends I made, and the rich culture of Japan I experienced.

Different is not wrong it is just different. Sometimes different is better. Sometimes different is rich and nuanced. Sometimes different is just different. We have to examine ourselves for cultural bias. Because it hides. I'll speak to this in the next post.

What cultural biases have you been able to identify in yourself? Let me know in the comments.