Luke 23:32-43

32 Two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed with him. 33 When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. 35 The crowd watched and the leaders scoffed. “He saved others,” they said, “let him save himself if he is really God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” 36 The soldiers mocked him, too, by offering him a drink of sour wine. 37 They called out to him, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 A sign was fastened above him with these words: “This is the King of the Jews.” 39 One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!” 40 But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? 41 We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” 43 And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Why when we know that we are loved by God, chosen by Him and valuable to Him do we still struggle with living in the lie instead of living in His love? I think the answer to that question is found in the following story: A stressed out Christian went to try and seek some help because nothing in his life seemed to be working. The more he had, the more he achieved the more frustrated and afraid he felt. He lived with a nagging sense that no matter what he did it was never enough. He met a man who listened closely to him as he talked about his struggles and his disappointments in not successfully living the Christian life. When he was done the man brought out a basin and a picture of water. He said, “watch as I pour the water into the basin…” The water splashed on the bottom and against sides of the basin. The water swirled all around the basin but then it began to slowly settle down. Eventually, the surface became so smooth that the man could see his face reflected in the still water. As he stared at the now visible reflection of himself, the man told him, ‘That is the way it is when you live constantly in the midst of others. You don’t see yourself as you really are because of all the confusion and disturbance. You fail to recognize God’s divine presence in your life and the reality that you are radically and totally loved and valued by God slowly fades. What he was saying is that if you are ever going to define yourself as one radically loved by God. If God’s love for you and his choice of you is going to determine your worth. If you are ever going to be able to truly accept this truth and let it become the most important thing in your life. Then you must on a regular basis pull back and get away from the world and its performance-driven pricing system so that you can clearly hear God’s voice speaking to you. It is only when we pull away from the deafening splashing of the world’s value system that we will hear the voice of God saying I love you. When we linger too long in the world it’s not long before we start listening to the lie of the world that says our worth is found in our work. And we end up working to maintain the mirage of appearance so that we can be accepted. Mike Yaconelli the late cofounder of Youth Specialties tells about the time he was in a spiritual black hole. He was disappointed and discouraged about life, himself and his ministry and so he took off to a retreat center in Toronto Canada. Mike writes, “it took only a few hours of silence before I began to hear my soul speaking. It only took being alone for a short period of time for me to discover I wasn’t alone. God had been trying to shout over the noisiness of my life, and I couldn’t hear Him. But in the stillness and solitude, His whispers shouted from my soul, “Michael, I am here. I have been calling you, but you haven’t been listening. Can you hear me, Michael? I love you. I have always loved you. And I have been waiting for you to hear me say that to you. But you have been so busy trying to prove to yourself that you are loved that you have not heard me.” I heard Him, and my slumbering soul was filled with the joy of the prodigal son. My soul was awakened by a loving Father who had been looking and waiting for me.” 2,000 years ago a thief on a cross had an encounter with Christ the creator of the world and that encounter teaches us that we no longer need to prove ourselves by our performance or our appearance. Instead, we need to define ourselves as one radically beloved and redeemed by God. Only God’s love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth. If you try to build and measure your value against any other scale you will set yourself up for a great fall. Have you not only accepted this truth, that you are loved by the Lord, but are you embracing it and letting it become the most important thing in your life?

Luke 23:32-43

32 Two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed with him. 33 When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. 35 The crowd watched and the leaders scoffed. “He saved others,” they said, “let him save himself if he is really God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” 36 The soldiers mocked him, too, by offering him a drink of sour wine. 37 They called out to him, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 A sign was fastened above him with these words: “This is the King of the Jews.” 39 One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!” 40 But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? 41 We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” 43 And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

When we tie our worth to our work instead of His it leads to a performance based life instead of a peace based one. The question that we need to ask is do we really believe that our worth is tied to His word? Do we get it, have we got it because many of us struggle with being worthy, valuable and loved by God and when we do we are prone to be driven by performance. It becomes the corruptive cancer that eats away and kills our lives, because on days that we believe that we have perform well we feel like we are more valuable to God. We buy into the lie that the things we do and the things we stop doing are what make us worthy of the love of God. As a result we not only end up living a lie, but we end up pursuing the wrong things and pretend to be someone that we are not. A performance driven life leads to many forms of pain, one of them being the deadly disease of people pleasing. We end up trying to measure up so we can gain a sense of meaning in our life. Our value becomes based on what others say instead of God’s Word. We end up measuring our worth on our work, on whether we can please the people around us. That is why we so badly need this story in the book of Luke and why I am so thankful that the HS inspired Luke to put to paper this encounter with the thief on the cross. Because it is a powerful reminder that it’s not what I do, how much I have, how well I perform, or how good I look that determines my worth, or my value. No our worth and value rest firmly and securely on God’s unfailing, unconditional, unending love for us. Do you believe that, have you accept that, are you embracing and resting in that truth that the creator of the Universe is madly in love with you. Look don’t take my word  for it, take His, “Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. You are precious in my eyes, because you are honored and I love you… the mountains may depart hills may be shaken, but my love for you will never leave you and my covenant of peace with you will never be shaken.” Isaiah 43:1,4; 54:10. God calls you by name, you are precious in His eyes and His love for you will never be shaken. I believe Paul understood how hard it was for us to grasp God’s love for us that is why in Ephesians 3:17-19 he wrote, “And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Do you see and hear what Paul is saying about the love Christ has for you? It is deep, wide, long, high and understanding His love give fullness of life and power. In his book, Abba’s Child, Brennan Manning talks about a guy named John Eagan. John was an ordinary guy and a high school teacher in Milwaukee. He spent 30 years ministering to youth and struggling with seeing himself worthy of the one who is able to perform miracles with nothing more than spit and mud. But during an 8 day spiritual retreat, his spiritual director said something that pulled it all together, rocked his world and gives you and I something awesome to contemplate… John the heart of it is this: to make the Lord and His immense love for you constitutive of your personal worth. Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. God’s love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth. Accept that, and let it become the most important thing in your life. Later that evening John wrote in his journal…We discussed it. The basis of my personal worth is not my possessions, my talent, not esteem of others, reputation… not kudos of appreciation from parents and kids, not applause, and everyone telling you how important you are to the place… I stand anchored now in God before who I stand naked, this God who tells me, “You are my son, my beloved one.” Have you define yourself radically as one beloved by God, because God’s love for you and his choice of you are what constitute your worth. We need to embrace this truth which means that we not only accept it but that we let it become the most important thing in our life. Unfortunately many of us are defining ourselves by our sin and our failure instead of His sacrifice and forgiveness. Let me ask you this question has anything I have said so far shocked you? For some it may but for many Christians this is nothing new. I mean one of the first songs many of us learned to sing as a child was “Jesus Loves Me This I Know” and one of the first bible verses we memorized was more than likely, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son… John 3:16” But even though we have read it, heard it, memorized it, sung about it for years and even taught it, it is still hard to see ourselves as one radically loved by God. So let me ask you are you living in His love or are you living in the lie that your worth is tied to your work not His?