Be free, and God is making you free to step in and make a difference, and so it is hope and so it is love. Thank you, that was great. Well, good morning. I'd like to start this morning to ask you a question Do you like your name? I mean, how do you feel about your name?

I remember, you know, when I was much younger, that I kind of felt like my name was boring and I don't know. I've talked to a few people and everybody, seems like, kind of went through that stage. We just thought I don't know if I like my name, I wish my parents had named me something different. My name is Ken, just boring old Ken, you know, and as a kid I just thought that's just so boring. And I had a friend whose name was Roger and I thought Roger, that's a cool name. Why can't I be a Roger? You know, roger, that's cool. But you know I was named Ken. And then when I was in high school I actually had an English teacher. I don't know if you those of you who know me you may not have noticed this, but my name is Ken Jensen, k-e-n-j-e-n-s-e-n, and I had a teacher, an English teacher actually, in high school, that she thought that was just so much fun, and every time I turned in a paper and regraded and sent back to me, my name would be scratched out and instead of Ken Jensen they would say like Jen Ken Sen or Sen Ken Jen or Ken Sen Jen or you know, just mix it all. She thought that was the funniest thing in the world. I'm glad you had fun with that, you know, but my name was Ken and I, you know, I wish it had been Roger, but Ken is what it is, and I found people. You know there's sometimes people go through that, and here's what changed it for me, though I think it was when I was in high school that I found out what the meaning of Ken is. Ken means handsome one. All of a sudden, it wasn't so bad after all. Okay, now, whether you like it or not, your name is a part of your identity and, depending on your interactions with people that might be good or that might not be so good, your name comes to mind and it conjures up thoughts and ideas and opinions about you, and even maybe in your own mind, when you think about yourself, there's this self-talk that goes on inside of you.

We're in this series called Hope and Help and it's really kind of identifying some of the issues that affect our mental health. And over the last couple of weeks, as we've been going through this series, we've identified what we call four different buckets of things that impact or have influence on your mental health and we've kind of broken them down into these four buckets. There are situations. The situational bucket it has to do with the seasons or the circumstances of your life. Going through a tough time can actually affect your mental health.

The second bucket we've called is the biological bucket. It has to do with your brain chemistry or wiring, and, by the way, all of these books, they're all interrelated. Very often, in fact, if you go through a period of high stress for a long period of time, that will actually start to affect you biologically and it starts messing with your brain chemistry and it has a huge impact, and so sometimes there might be some medications that are needed to kind of balance out the brain chemistry. Again there are what are called the clinical bucket and that's kind of our thought processes, that self-talk that we go through, the things that we talk to ourselves about, and sometimes that gets us in a bad state mentally and so therapy and with a therapist helping to change our thought patterns and thoughts and the way that we talk to ourselves. And then there's the spiritual bucket, which are matters of your soul and faith and sin and your relationship with God, and they're all interrelated. And today we're going to be talking about self-worth and I think those two really key in. On those last two, the clinical and the spiritual, because, depending on where you're at in your relationship with God, it influences the self-talk and the self-talk that goes on in your brain at in your relationship with God. It influences the self-talk and the self-talk that goes on in your brain will influence your relationship with God very often. And so today I want to talk about your identity and your self-worth, and it really is an issue for our day. It actually has been for quite a while. You go into any bookstore and there's a whole section on loving yourself and self-worth and self-identity. There are talks given, there has been research done in all of this and it's a really big thing. And particularly, I think, in our day, where do you get your sense of identity?

Throughout Scripture there are all kinds of examples of God calling somebody out into their true identity and in doing so actually changed their name. So you have in the Old Testament, abram, whose name meant great father, and God changed his name to Abraham, which means father of many nations, because it was a promise that he was calling them out to. You are going to be the father of many nations, and you have God changing Jacob's name to Israel, one who has now strived with God and won. You get into the New Testament and one of his disciples was a disciple named Simon, and he changed his name and he says you are a rock, you are Peter Now. At that time, peter didn't seem to act like much of a rock, but God was calling him into his true identity.

And then, further on in the New Testament and this is the one we're going to look at today is a man who was named Saul, who spent much of the early part of his life persecuting the church and trying to arrest Christians and bring them into punishment. And God changed him so drastically that his name was changed from Saul to Paul. Paul, by the way, means humble one Just completely changed him, called him into a new identity, and actually Paul writes about this change in a lot of his letters. The one that we're going to look at mostly today is in the letter to the Philippian church, and in Philippians 3, 4 through 9, he writes about this transformation. He says listen if someone else thinks they have reason to put confidence in the flesh. I have more Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.

In regard to the law, a Pharise as for zeal, persecuting the church. As for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage. That I might gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, a righteousness that comes from God, on the basis of faith. He says everything that I had based my whole identity on, all of those things that I achieved, all of those things that I worked so hard for. He says now I look at that and it's all garbage, because I have found my true identity in Christ. It's a major transformation, and yours might not be quite so drastic, but I think his experience and the things that he learned and how he was called into his true identity and then lived into that true identity, I think gives us a pattern and some suggestions for us in terms of discovering our own self-worth. And I want to start with this idea that a healthy self-image begins with an honest encounter with God. That that's where you're going to find your true identity, in an honest encounter with God. That that's where you're going to find your true identity in an honest encounter with God.

Now, there are different ways that our culture tells us how to find self-worth. I'm going to give you a couple of them this morning. One is through accomplishment. Through accomplishment, I define myself by my successes. I am my successes and it's all about climbing the corporate ladder and moving up in my career and getting that job title in that corner office, or maybe it's in academia and it's advanced degrees and how many initials can I put after my name, and it's all about my success and my accomplishments.

Another way that we look to acquire self-worth is through acquisition. Another way that we look to acquire self-worth is through acquisition, which says I am what I possess and my life becomes all about building wealth and getting the best house in the best neighborhood and driving the flashiest car, or, if I'm really good at it, having somebody else to drive me in my car. Another one is appearance, and the lie is I am how I look. Another one is appearance and the lie is I am how I look, and it's all about my physical beauty and my buff body and the style and the fashion and the clothes that I wear. Another one is through admiration, which says I am for what I'm applauded, and it's about how many Facebook likes and Instagram followers and TikTok followers and YouTube followers and downloads from my videos, and it's all about I am known, and every one of those is inadequate, it's elusive, it's fragile and it takes constant propping up. If I define myself by my accomplishment, then I'm only as good as my last success and if I fail, my self-esteem goes in the tank. If it's all about acquisition, then all it takes is a market turndown, a bad investment, a job loss, a reshuffling of the corporation and my position is being phased out. My self-esteem goes in the tank. If I build my self-identity and self-worth through my appearance, it's only a matter of time. Gravity starts to take over, wrinkles start to appear, hair starts to take over, wrinkles start to appear, hair starts to disappear. It's fragile if it's built on admiration. What you begin to discover is my public persona and image is not who I really am, and you begin to feel this sense of imposter syndrome.

There's an article written actually not too long ago. I just came across it. A couple weeks ago, there was actually a survey done on behalf of Lenovo, and what they did was they surveyed 2,000 Americans, split evenly by generations, and what they found was that 46% of Gen Z respondents feel their personality online vastly differs from how they present themselves in the real world. In fact, 20% of respondents across all generations share this feeling 38% of millennials, 18% of Gen Xers, 8% of baby boomers all claim to live a double life online, and what that does is it went on. It says while it may seem easier for some respondents to express themselves online, half of the poll 48% admit they sometimes feel disconnected between who they are online and who they are offline, and again, the number was highest among Gen Z respondents and what it has led to is feelings of anxiety, loneliness and depression.

All these things that we look to define ourselves and to give ourselves a sense of self-worth are all shifting sand and the only thing that's going to change that is an outer, honest encounter with God, because with God I come to him, with who I really, because he knows who I am. See, every other measure that I use to judge my self-worth is always going to be based on comparison. If it's about appearances is, do I look better than the other person? If it's about admiration, am I, am I getting more likes than somebody else? If it's about appearances is, do I look better than the other person? If it's about admiration, am I getting more likes than somebody else? If it's about acquisition, do I have more than other people? And it's a comparison game and you will always find people that are worse than you, but you will always find people who are better than you and if your self-esteem is found there, it's going to go like a roller coaster up and down because it's all based on comparison.

That's actually what Paul talks about in his letter to the Galatian church. He says listen, you've heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. He said I was advancing in Judaism beyond many, my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my father. He said you look at me and, man, I was head and shoulders above everybody else when it came to my religious fervor. I was far beyond everybody else in my understanding of the Torah. In Philippians, he wrote if someone else thinks they have reason to put confidence in the flesh, I have more. He says if you're going to use all those standards, bring it on.

And if you're not familiar with Paul's story and what it took to change that, it was a real, serious encounter with God. He was literally knocked off his high horse. If you're not familiar with it, let me read a little bit of it. It's found in Acts, chapter 9, telling the story that Saul was breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so if he found any there who belonged to the way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners back to Jerusalem. And as he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him Saul, saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, lord? Saul asked I'm Jesus, whom you're persecuting For all of his religious fervor, for all of his study? When it came right down to it, his big question is who are you, lord? He thought he knew God. He thought he had it all in the bag. He didn't know God at all. It takes that honest. This is who I really am before God. And here's the thing. God is the one safe person where I can be completely honest. He's the one safe person with whom you can be completely honest because you won't catch him by surprise. He already knows, he's not impressed with your successes and he won't reject you because of your failures. You don't need to excuse or explain or minimize who you really are.

For years now I've had a practice, actually from even before I started in pastoral ministry, because someone suggested this to me and I thought okay. And I've kept a prayer journal all of these years and what I find, even to this very day. I've carried it through even after I've retired, and one of my morning routines is I get up, I do my exercise, shower head off. Well, I get dressed, then I head off and I usually pick up coffee and a muffin or a bagel or something, sit in my truck out at the water, I read my newspaper, I drink my coffee, have my bagel and have my quiet time and at the end of my quiet time I write in my prayer journal. And to this day I find myself sometimes, as I'm writing in my prayer journal, kind of shading things to make me look a little bit better, just in case somebody reads this prayer journal later on. Here I am trying supposedly being honest before God, but I find myself kind of shading things just a little bit so I don't look so bad. That doesn't pay, because you're not going to surprise God, you don't have to excuse, you don't have to explain and you don't minimize it, just be honest.

I came across a book title years ago. I love it, it's one of my favorite books. The title is yes, lord, I have sinned, but I have several excellent excuses. And isn't that the way we are? Listen, if you are honest before God, what happens is now you begin to discover and embrace God's truth about you, because he knows you and he fashioned you and he has a purpose for you. And it goes all the way back to the first chapter of Genesis, when God creates mankind. Genesis 1, verse 26, says God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image and, in case you didn't get it, in the image of God, he created them, male and female. He created them. You have been created and fashioned by God in his own image and that is unique from any other aspect of his creation.

Tim Keller talks about this. He says there are a lot of different aspects of what it means to be created in the image of God. He says there's a rational aspect that there's something in human beings that have a hunger for knowledge, a thirst for knowledge. No other animal in all creation has that. That's part of being in the image of God. There's a personal aspect to it that we have a hunger to love and to be loved. That's part of being in the image of God. That there is a creative aspect to it, that we have a hunger for beauty and creating beauty. And there is an eternal aspect to it as well, that there is within every one of us a hunger to last, to endure. There is an eternal aspect to who we are, and God created you that way and he knows you intimately.

Psalm 8, the psalmist put it this way what is mankind to God? What is mankind? That you are mindful of them, human beings, that you care for them. You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. That God is mindful of you, that God thinks about you, and I've been thinking about that this week what that means. And you know, when you think of all the people that there are on this earth and how many generations there have been over thousands and thousands and thousands of years. And yet God knows you personally, individually, that you are on his mind. How does he do that? That's what makes him God, I guess. But he knows you and he knows me Again. The psalmist 139, you created me in my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. He says you know what gives you the greatest sense of worth and value and self-esteem is in the one that gives you worth. That the creator of the universe sees value and worth in you and you are on his mind. He fashioned you in your mother's womb and the greatest sense of self-worth depends on the worth of the person that gives it to you.

Growing up I had the pastor of our church, jack Weitzel, and he was a man I looked up to. He knew so much of the Bible and he was just a wonderful pastor. He was our pastor for over 15 years. I think it was so all of my growing up years he had been my pastor and then he was kind of actually very influential in me moving into pastoral ministry and I talked with him often about what it means to be called to the ministry and all of that and he encouraged me along that way, anyway. So years later I ended up coming back. He retired, he became actually a consultant for other church pastors and came back. I ended up on the pastoral staff of the church in San Francisco that I'd grown up at.

It was out of that church that we moved here to Benicia and planted Northgate, and it wasn't long after that we had planted and we were still kind of in the really early stages of it and he took me out to coffee. He said you're doing a good work. You know how much that meant to me, because, see, if there's somebody that I don't really care about and don't really care much for, or somebody that I really don't have any esteem for but they have esteem in me, well that's okay. But if someone that I value and whose opinions I value and who I hold in esteem, says they have esteem for me, that makes all the difference. And when God says he has you in mind and he cares for you, that's something. But it's even more than that, because now he demonstrates his great love for you and the value that he places on you by sending his son, jesus Christ, who gives his life on your behalf so that you can be made right with God. That is how much worth he has for you.

Romans 8,. At just the right time, when we were still powerless, not when we got it all together, not when we figured it out, not when we cleaned up our own lives, no, when we were still powerless. Christ died for the ungodly. That God demonstrates his own love for us in this that, while we were sinners, christ died for us. See, god's grace gives value and worth that is different than any other value and worth, because it is a value and worth that is different than any other value and worth. Because it is a value and worth that is received, not achieved. It's given, not earned, and because there is a unique source for that sense of self-worth. There is now a unique basis on which I have that self-worth. It's not because I've earned it, it's not because I've done it.

In fact, paul wrote about it. He says I consider that all garbage that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ. He knows me and I want to know him. And the thing is, the more that you know God, the more that you begin to know yourself, the more that you know Jesus, the more you know about yourself, and the more that you know about yourself, the more you're going to want to know God.

Tim Keller put it this way Only as you see yourself as you truly are a sinner will you turn to God, and only if you actually know God's love, can you see and admit that you're a sinner. You see how it works as I get to understand God's love for me and what Christ has done for me and I put my faith in and at that moment that I say I am tired of trying to earn it, I'm tired of trying to figure this all out on myself. God, all I need is your forgiveness. I surrender and in that moment he now sees you in Christ. And in Christ Scripture says we live and move and have our being. And in that now you can be drawn to your future, not driven by your past. So many people are driven by their past and it affects their sense of self-worth. And your past can just eat away at you and it can drive you, it can influence you, it can impact your sense of self-worth. Past successes, past failures, past disappointments, past hurts, and so many people are now driven because of their past. And in Christ now we have a future and now you can be drawn to that future instead of driven by the past.

This is what Paul talks about in Philippians 3 when he says I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I don't consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. What he's saying is that God now takes and redeems and restores us to our true identity, all of that raw material that is you, that God created you in your mother's womb. He takes all of that raw material and now what he does is he redeems it and he restores it and he brings out your best version of you, in the same way that silver ore is mined from the ground, that gold is panned, maybe in the river, but it has to be refined to give it its true and best worth and value. And that's what God does with your life, your past, whatever it might be. He takes all of that raw material, all of that stuff, and he changes it and refines it. And that, by the way, is a lifelong process.

That's why Paul, even at this point in his life, after all he has done, says I've not yet attained it. After all he has done, says I've not yet attained it, I just press on. It is something that we live into that. Our true identity is that future that Christ has for us, and we live into it. And the way that we do it is this repeated process of honest encounters with God, hearing his truth about me and then moving forward and living in that Just show of hands. How many in this room would say there's still one or two things about me that I could use some improvement on? Okay, good, we've got an honest crowd this morning. Now, if you didn't raise your hand, you need more help than you think.

Okay, the truth is, none of us are perfect, but he says I press on to that. This is what God has called for my life and instead of being defined by my past and my flaws and my failures, I move into that future and in Christ's grace, we become the best version of ourselves and in that you find and fulfill God's calling on your life. This is what Paul said I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me To the Galatian church. He said God, who set me apart from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles. He said God knew my future long before I did. He called me to that future long before I even knew it existed. He set me apart from my mother's womb and I spent the first half of my life doing it the wrong way. But he called me to something better. He called me to what he really intended for me. He took that raw material, he refined it, he repurposed it and now I am fulfilling what he called me to do.

And that is also true for you, because you think well, that's only for pastors who get called, or missionaries who get called, or apostles who get called, or disciples who get called? No, no, no, it's for every one of us. This is what Paul wrote to the Ephesian church. We, all of us, are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. We all share in that In Christ. We are God's handiwork.

The Greek word is poema, which is where we get our English word poem a work of art, something that is crafted and fashioned and made beautiful. He says that's true of you. God is crafting and fashioning. He's taken all that raw material that he gave you at birth and he's using that and he's fashioning that. You have talents and abilities, you have a personality, there are things that you are passionate about. All those things are part of who you are, and God gave you that stuff from the very beginning of your life. And now, when you're in Christ, he adds to that a calling and spiritual giftedness to fulfill those things.

He wrote to the Corinthian church. Paul put it this way there are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we all serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but is the same God who works, who does the work in all of us. And the greatest source of your self-worth will not be in the things that you attain and achieve for yourself, but in how you take the worth that God has given you and bring worth to others.

So if you get nothing else, I want to leave you with these two truths you are loved and valued by the creator of the universe, and he has given you something of great value for you to now use to bring value to others. Let me say that again. In fact, just bow your heads for a moment. I want you to just sit in this. These two truths. You are loved and valued by the creator of the universe. Someone of the greatest worth sees worth in you and he has given you something of great value for you to use to bring value to others, for you to use to bring value to others. Think about that, dwell on that.

Now, maybe you're here today and you don't know that reality. There is a God who loves you, who gave his one and only son, who then came and gave his life on a cross for you so that you could now be found in him and you could experience that kind of love of God, that value and that worth from him. Maybe you're here and you've made that decision, but you look at your life and you say, man, I am just still so messed up. He says just live in it. Just live in it. Join me in this prayer. Thank you for your great love, thank you for the worth and value you saw in me that you would give your life for me. Take on yourself all of those flaws and faults and sin and failure. You've forgiven me, lord. Let me live in that and then take that great gift of great value and use it to bring value to others. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.