You were listening to a live city church podcast and we hope you'll experience Jesus today We are excited to have you join our extended online church family If you would like further information or wish to access more content, please connect with us on our live city church Facebook page Or visit us at live city church calm. I just feel like there's something good can happen here. There's gonna be this this revival here in this church It's coming possible saying this morning in prayer that you know the point of this whole thing that we do is to make disciples and As I was preparing for this this word this morning During the week I'll be praying God let this be a word that can be applied in some of his life Let it be applied and as you know saying God give you fresh men I want fresh men to get to the church and you know God spoke to me and said I'll only give you fresh men I've eaten the old manor Sometimes we're looking for fresh menor But we haven't applied the old manor yet. You know when the Israelites got menor From heaven they didn't just look at it and go wow look at that amazing manor They ate it and it sustained them and they grew the kids grew up on manor We don't want to be a church of believers that just grows in knowledge Because if you don't apply the word of God if you don't eat the word of God and apply it in your life You will not mature you will not grow you will just become spiritually puffed up And we don't want to be that church do we so when somebody brings a word I'm not saying this is one of these words, but if somebody brings a word and you go oh yeah well, you know I've heard that before eat it and Apply it and then God will change the character of your life So I hope this morning I bring something of worth to you and that kind of leads nicely segues into the topic of what this morning is and it's all about worth If you're taking notes this morning, I want you to title this message you are worth it L'Oreal L'Oreal in the 1960s Started one of one of the best advertising campaigns I believe is I'm an advertising person and it's been successful because they still use the same campaign today and no the girls and The woman know it goes something like this.
L'Oreal because you're worth it Because you're worth it and you know it's so successful because what it does it does two things It builds up the self worth of people the consumer But at the same time it tells you that if you are so worthy then you have to have a worthy product and so it sells products But this whole idea of worth and people is quite interesting Because we all know about it, but very often mostly we speak about self worth in a negative term We're always talking about low self worth or somebody is too confident over self worthy And today, you know, I know that it's it's probably I don't know whether it's more prevalent or whether it's more apparent because of this The tools that we use the life tools like social media or or you know movies we watch But I do believe that today there's a trend of growing low self esteem low self worth especially amongst the young people And I don't want to discount you know There may be somebody here that has low self worth and I don't want to discount that I acknowledge that it's real I acknowledge that That it's great pain for people that feel it But I also want to say that that that worthiness and self worth has a problem in this and that it's always internal looking We're always seeking something inside of us if you have a high self worth More than likely you're gonna have some of these sort of characteristics. You're gonna overestimate your ability You're gonna become puffed up with pride. You're gonna be hard to teach You're gonna have a sense of entitlement and be very self-absorbed and most importantly you will not be able to have Concerned for people outside of you if you have a low self worth worth you're constantly critical about yourself You're constantly beating yourself up You don't feel like you ever hope you don't feel like you ever purpose You don't feel like you have anything in your love and you you equally on the same place because you're constantly looking at yourself You have no concern for people outside of you But it seems to me that because we don't speak about healthy self worth that much It's because it's a very very difficult thing to do To constantly be in a place of self healthy worth It's almost like I feel it's like it's like the Old Testament laws that the people were always trying to to make right for their righteousness So that they could go to heaven, but it was impossible to keep money And maybe that's because we're looking at worth from the wrong perspective How do we give worth to people? Have you ever thought about this?
How do we give worth to people? Mostly we find that we give worth to people when they die Right, that's when we really give worse to people in the diet But in terms of a value that we give worse to people when they die typically happens when somebody dies from an accident say You know, let's say a business a window fell on somebody's head and killed them or terrorists act and the government was responsible for it And it brings the attorneys together You have the public defender and the self, you know the defender of the state and they basically sit there and try and work out Who is wrong and who is right? And eventually Normally the public defender will start to win and the self attorney will start going we better we better offer something and they will come and offer A sum of money, right? Maybe it's a million dollars or 500,000 and they will come and they will say we're gonna give you a million Dollars, you're so lucky so lucky million dollars if you'd better take it now because you might lose it all That's the way it works because it's a business But they forget about the person who really counts the person who's lost somebody Let me ask you something if somebody offered you 20 million would you give your child up for that?
100 million would you give them up for that? You would not give up loved ones You would not give up loved ones somebody gave somebody up there is that what happens? Okay, yeah, well, this is true. That's it's fine The point is that people who love people we cannot put a price on people it is priceless We have no value There's no amount of money that anybody would give to lose one of their loved ones a Presbyterian missionary in Germany had a clinic for handicapped children and a wealthy businessman who had been sponsoring the clinic came One day to find out where his money was going and he had a look around and he said these are very pathetic children And he asked the missionary what ratio of cures do you get?
How many how many of these kids go back to a normal life and the missionary very proudly said one and a hundred and he said one and a hundred? That's not worth it. That's not worth my money and the mission you said to him Yes, it is if that was one of your children it wouldn't be worth it. This is the perspective of worth from people What do you think God's perspective of worth is towards people?
Now I can give you some scriptures We know them so well for God so love the world that he put his one and only son on the cross to die for use that you will not Perish and that you will have eternal life. What about this one Katie Katie referenced it before to Matthew 626 look at the birds of the air They do not sow a reap or store away and bonds and yet your heavenly father feeds them Are you not much more valuable than they are? Are you not much have much more worth than the birds of the air and yet they are completely fed and looked after? This morning I want to look at probably the least expected piece of scripture that you would think are worth But I believe it's one that speaks volumes Into people's lives because we we hear these normal scriptures And we've got so used to them that we turn off from them And we forget that God is trying to speak worth into our lives any turn with me please to Z kill 43 We're gonna go from Ezekiel 43 5 to 7 and we're gonna go in two parts We're going from 5 to 7 and then we're gonna jump afterwards to 10 to 11 Marty or somebody you mind give me some water, please if that's okay Ezekiel 43 5 to 7 Let me read this for you The spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court and behold the glory of the Lord filled the temple Then I heard him speaking to me from the temple while a man stood beside me He said to me son of man This is the place of my throne and a place of the souls of my feet Where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever I said just now that we are looking from the wrong perspective I also think that we look from for worth from in the wrong places If you google worth self-worth You will find a couple of things and I've picked up seven of them which are kind of constant with what it says how to get a healthy Self-worth it says this identify and challenge your negative beliefs Identify the positive about yourself build positive relationships and avoid negative ones give yourself a break KitKat Become more assertive and learn to say no Improve your physical health and take on challenges Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with these things Okay, these things are good and they're healthy things to take on in your life But what I am saying is that we were made in the image of God not in the image of man and just as thank you so much Just as we we know that you know when somebody has not found Christ we say that they have a God shaped hole in their heart We know that when it comes to worth it's the heart that is missing something because we were made in the image of God You see it's the heart that transforms the mind that conforms the mind if you want to come to have your mind renewed You have to begin with the heart and it's only God that can do that when we take on man-made stuff Yes, we can train our brains and we can we can learn to live with things But the problem with it is that we're always pitching our self-worth against people We always looking at people and saying how do they see me and there's always problems with that because there's some people that will not see you The way you want to be seen and so you can be up and down up and I said It's constantly difficult to have a good self worth because we are looking to see how people show us whether we are worth it or not But the word of God says The spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court and behold the glory of the Lord filled the temple One Corinthians 3 16 says don't you know you are the temple of God Don't you know that you are the temple of God?
Why does he say don't you know? It says don't you know because you keep on forgetting Don't you know that you are the temple of God? For true worth can only be found in the one who created you You are the temple of God Then I heard him speaking to me from the temple while a man stood beside me and he said to me son of man This is the place of my throne Don't you know that God has chosen you a brick that was lying on the floor doing nothing a common brick or a common brick in A wall and said you will be my temple you are my temple not only you are you my temple But I will build my throne room in you not only will I build my throne room in you But I will choose you as the place that I rest the souls of my feet. I will lay my feet up In you whenever God rests He says something what did God say on the seventh day of decoration and he said it is good When God is resting it is good Now that's real worth We keep on forgetting it We're going to jump down to Ezekiel 8 to 11 And I have to confess There's times when I preach where I'm you know I'm going through scripture Maybe other people other preachers will say this too and and I'm and that's a good scripture This is good, you know, and I can feel I can feel you know God's giving me stuff And then suddenly the next part of the scriptures like oh, I don't know if I should bring that pot That pot's gonna just bring it all down and we gotta go crumbling down I don't know if we should bring it but got you know I feel like this is what this is what the Lord says if I bring the good parts to you And I don't bring the other parts to you you will never have the good parts Because the thing works in it completeness So this piece of scripture when you read it with me you might be going what is this what's going on Yeah, what's the reverence and we'll go through this.
Let's read together Holy Spirit speak to your people this morning speak to your people this morning Ezekiel 8 to 11 the people of Israel will never again defile my holy name Now that they know the kings by their prostitution and the funeral offerings of the kings at the death When they place their threshold next to my threshold and their door posts next to my door post with only a wall between me and them They defiled my holy name by the detestable practices So I destroyed them in my anger Now let them put away from me the prostitution and the funeral offerings for their kings and I will live among them forever Son of man describe the temple to the house of Israel that they may be ashamed of their equities And let them measure the pattern and if they're ashamed of all that they have done make known to them The design of the temple and its arrangement its exits and its entrances its entire design and its all its ordinances all its forms And its laws write down in their side so that they may keep its whole design and all the ordinances and perform them This is the law of the temple all the surrounding area on top of the mountain will be most holy such is the law of the temple There's another word alongside worth which is called worthy And sometimes we get a bit confused between the two you know We think maybe they mean the same thing but they actually don't mean the same thing at all although they are joined at the hip The word worthy means deserved or Deservable if that's a word If I say god you're so worthy what I'm saying is you deserve my praises for you are so good Likewise if somebody is is is not trustworthy What I'm saying is you do not deserve my trust because you have shown to me that you cannot be trusted But the word worth is a totally different meaning the word worth means value If you have worth then you have value But just because they're different words Very often what actually happens is we we feel like we undeserved And we're not worthy and so what it actually does is it affects our worth In our own eyes so we have a low self worth because we feel like we are undeserved of what's happening If I had to take a hundred dollar note And I said to you what is the value of this hundred dollar note you would say hundred dollars right? Some of the smart people are being confused You say say it's very valuable. No, it's it's it's value is a hundred dollars, right? But if I scrunch that hundred dollars up and I make it look unworthy to you and I tear it in half What is its worth?
It's still a hundred dollars Even though it may look unworthy. It's worth it's still a hundred dollars So even though like I might say to somebody more than my children for instance Like if they keep on lying to me and I say you're not worthy of my trust Does that mean that they have no worth for me? I would put my life on the line for them, but they still may not be worthy Isn't this the point of the gospel? Aren't we broken people?
Aren't we are we are not worthy of Christ? We are not worthy But God's great worth over us has shifted and changed that and and God's grace has come through to rescue us from our unworthiness Perhaps no composer has captured the musical heart in solid America as did Oven Berlin In addition to familiar favorites as God bless America Easter parade and I'm dreaming of a white Christmas I know you all know that one Which still ranks as the all-time best selling musical stores scores In an interview with San Diego Union Don Freeman asked him Is there any question you would never be asked that you would like someone to ask you And he said well, yes, there is one It would be this what do you think of the many songs you've written that didn't become hits And my reply would be that I still think they are wonderful God too has an unshakable delight in what and whom he has made He thinks each of his children is wonderful And whether they are hit in the eyes of others or not, he will always think they were wonderful We will only ever find complete self-worth When our focus is only on he who is worthy I heard this wonderful description explanation about humility We often the word God tells us to humble ourselves And I've heard things like I must become less and God must become greater I want to say I don't really buy into that This is what I buy into humility is when you think of yourself Humility is not when you think less of yourself Humility is when you think of yourself less There's a big difference in that What it's saying is the more I take the focus of myself and I put it on God The more humble I become and the more my worth is established I don't believe that we should be looking at our own self-worth I believe it's not even a thing that we should be focused on When we are focused on God, we don't need to focus on our own self-worth The word of God says Son of Man, describe the temple to the house Sorry, let me just take a step back I just wanted to go through that scripture, I should have done this and I think I lost a lot of you It got talks about some things here, it talks about prostitution And it talks about how you destroyed my temple What he's referring to there is that these lights were chasing after other gods He wasn't talking about actual prostitution, he was you prostitute yourself I am the one true God and yet you are following other people's gods And you are raising them as idols What we do today can be very similar We can make idols wherever but mostly we make idols of ourselves We don't even realize the word of God says you That you made your threshing floor next to my floor You put your door post right next to my door post What he's saying is that you give me lip service You make out as if you're in my temple but you're not You're in your own temple right next to my temple You're sitting there on your own throne thinking that you have it all But you don't You see we're talking about the temple of God I want you to just remember you are the temple of God You are the temple you can be a Christian but you've created your own temple And see we have to get this right and then he goes on to say that you can only face You can only get your true self-worth if you face your iniquities If you look at your temple and are shamed of what you are and what you're doing That's the only way you can do that and get back into the right set of temple The framework of the right temple is by facing Because if you don't what we're doing is we run from the sin We never want to look at the sin that's behind us We always going forward so we carry on sinning We carry on thinking that we're doing But God's saying turn around and face your iniquities And if you are ashamed then I would dwell with you forever You see there's a pattern in a design for right living There's a design for what what means to be the temple of God The possible says do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Shall I then take the member of Christ to make them a member of a prostitute? Never Or do you know do you not know that he was joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her As it is written the two will become one flesh You know we often think of that in terms of you know marrying somebody else and making sure that they're The link but when you when you are worshiping yourself or worshiping other gods You become one flesh with that you no longer one flesh or one spirit with God But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one in spirit with them flee from sexual morality Why because every other sin is a person commits is outside the body But sexual immorality is inside the body It's inside the temple Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy spirit within you whom you are from God You are not your own for you were brought with the price so glorify God in your body And all of this begins with placing our worth on our lord and saviour The word at the bottom at the end of that scripture says this is the law of the temple All the surrounding area on the top of the mountain will be most holy Such is the law of the temple. Remember we're talking about our temple.
What is God saying? Look up Look up The law of the temple is that the most top part is holy when you're looking Outward to see what people think Or you're looking inward to reflect on your own self-worth. You've missed it God says look up This is the law of the temple of God This is the framework and the design that God has made for us It says you show them the design and the pattern the entrances and the exes what comes in that it's holy will go out That's holy what comes and that is not good is going to come out. That's not good We are the temple of God Lorryell says Because you're worth it God says You may not always be worthy But you're always worth it Remember when you have overwhelming feelings of insecurity or low self-worth God considered you worth it to hang on across for you God considered you worth it to rub out and forget every sin you have made and every sin you will make in the future God considered you worth it when others did not God considered you worth it to make you his throne room and rest place for his feet You are worth it Amen Thank you for joining Life City Church And we hope that you were blessed and inspired by today's message If this ministry has made an impact on your life We'd love to hear from you Please drop us a line and share your story at thanks at lifecitychurch.com Or email us your prayer needs at prayer at lifecitychurch.com We'd love to connect with you and hear more about your story If you love the ministry of Life City Church You can make a financial gift to help us spread the good news of Jesus by going to lifecitychurch.com And clicking the giving tab We hope today's message has spoken into your life and look forward to your next visit