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Whenever I hear or sing that hymn, there's a lump in my throat.

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Do you feel the same way?

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And it's not allergies.

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There's a lot of emotion in that hymn, and especially with brass accompaniment.

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Thank you for singing that today.

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We're going to turn in our Bibles this morning to Genesis, that popularized psychology and

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self-improvement.

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Self-esteem is a popular theme on talk shows, radio and television.

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In fact, it is a theme that may be described as overshadowing most social and psychological

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thinking in America in the 90s.

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Self-esteem is a fad.

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It is a fashionable notion that we hear much about in the world.

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It fits nicely with the spirituality of contemporary Americans, because self-esteem, at least as

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the world thinks of it, exalts the chief god in the pantheon of American pop religion,

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which is ego and self.

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Anyone who understands much about the Bible or about Satan, our spiritual enemy, will

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recognize the origin of this worldly idea of self-esteem.

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Because of what Christians know about true reality and the biblical worldview, and what

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we also believe about selfless living, which our Lord taught us, we tend to overreact to

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the concept of self-esteem and proclaim that any notion of self-esteem surely is sinful,

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and that is simply not so.

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There is, in fact, a biblical and proper sense of self-worth, which is necessary for healthy

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living and for spiritual vitality.

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And so this morning I want us to think about this idea that a proper sense of self-worth

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is essential to personal health and spiritual growth.

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In other words, what I'm saying is that if one doesn't have a proper sense of self-esteem,

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self-worth, spiritual growth is not going to happen like it should.

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Now let me explain to you why that is.

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Self-worth does not come from within us, like the world likes to say, or from our accomplishments

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or our abilities.

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We do not find proper self-worth by looking inside.

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We discover proper self-worth by looking into the Word of God and seeing in it the truth

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about who we are, our origin, our purpose, our potential, and our destiny.

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Genesis 1, 27 is a key verse regarding biblical self-worth.

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It says, And God created man in his own image.

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In the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them.

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First thing I want us to think about as we ponder self-worth is that our personal worth

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is based on our creation.

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Our personal worth is based upon the fact that we are the creatures of an almighty,

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all-wise God.

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Man is a creature of God-given dignity.

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Never forget that.

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Even in his fallenness there is something in man of the image of God that remains.

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Now this key verse along with other texts that we could look at this morning that parallel

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it tells us that first of all we are made by God.

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We are not the result of evolutionary accident or of a theistic evolutionary plan.

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Evolution has nothing to do with the Word of God.

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The Bible says that our parents Adam and Eve were created by God and we are the result

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of that creation.

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Our original parents were formed by God, Adam out of dust and Eve out of Adam's rib and

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they were given the breath of life, the Scripture says.

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The same idea is found regarding creatures, animals and fish.

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Chapter 1 verse 24 verse 21 as well.

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We are not the only living creatures that are upon the earth obviously.

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There are many other creatures but we like them have been made by God.

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We are not accidents.

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Now that may sound very simple and even simplistic to some of you but that is a profound idea

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that challenges the very world view that dominates America.

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That we are the creatures of God and we as human beings possess it says in this verse

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the image of God.

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Animals share the breath of life with us in that they are living but they do not share

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the image of God that is uniquely in human beings.

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The image of God here refers to man's personhood, man's personality that we have intellect,

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emotion and will.

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And it refers to our moral abilities that we may choose right and wrong and we are held

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accountable for it.

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None of that can be said of the animals.

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That is true that they can be trained.

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They have a certain kind of intellect.

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They have certain basic feelings.

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They can choose to obey our command or disobey our command but it's all out of instinct.

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It's not out of the morality that is uniquely human.

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And animals are not held accountable to God for sin as humans are held accountable.

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That is because we alone of the living creatures on the earth are made in the image of God.

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The fact that we are the creatures of God made in his image gives us personal worth.

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But he goes on to say in this verse and in many other places that as God's special creatures

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we humans are given the right, indeed the privilege, to rule over the creation.

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We are commanded by God to subdue it, to develop it, to be good stewards of it.

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There is no greater argument for biblical environmentalism which is quite different

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than the pagan environmentalism which is in our world today.

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But there is no greater argument for biblical environmentalism than Genesis 1.27 and 1.28

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where God tells us to be fruitful, to fill the earth and to subdue it and to use it in

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a proper way.

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Man's dignity comes from his relationship to the Creator.

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Whether one is a Christian or a non-Christian, he has dignity as the creature of God.

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Whether one is redeemed or not redeemed, there is value to that life.

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And whether one is born or yet unborn, there is value to that life because we are the creatures

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of God and therein is the foundation for our personal worth.

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The second idea I want to talk about is this, that personal worth provides a basis for biblical

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self-esteem.

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Our culture has sought to base self-esteem on man himself.

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The idea is that we have to go through a process of self-realization.

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We have to look inside ourselves and out of that we are to find self-esteem.

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The result of that worldly process is really the destruction of human dignity because human

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dignity does not come from inside ourselves, it comes from God.

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On the back of the outline that you have in your bulletin today, there are two models

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of self-esteem.

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The top one is the model of biblical self-esteem.

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The bottom one, the model of the world's view of self-esteem.

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I want to begin with the top one.

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We've already written in there the key foundational idea of personal worth, who we are as the

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creatures of God and the dignity that is inherent in the fact that we bear the image of God

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in ourselves.

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That gives us personal worth.

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The next level up on that triangle you may want to label this way, a sense of well-being.

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Because you see our sense of well-being rests upon an understanding that we are specially

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the creatures of God.

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It's our personal worth.

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Our sense of well-being comes out of our relationships with God, with self, and with others.

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You notice on the right side of that triangle there are three spaces.

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Down on the bottom with personal worth write in the word unimproveable.

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You can't improve upon our personal worth.

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That cannot change.

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It is unchangeable.

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But when it comes to our sense of well-being, that is improvable.

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Our relationships with God, with self, with others can be improved.

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And so that can develop.

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And then at the very top of this model is a third triangle in there the word productivity

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belongs.

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Out of our personal worth and therefore our sense of well-being we obey, we manufacture,

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we develop, we have experiences, we're productive individuals.

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And once again this is improvable.

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We can all do things to improve our productability, can't we?

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That's the biblical idea of self-esteem.

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It's based on personal worth that cannot change.

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But take a look at the world's view and you'll see how significantly different what I just

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said is from what our world believes.

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In fact the three labels that we've used in the top are the same that we'll use in the

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bottom except they are reversed.

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Self-esteem in the world's view is based upon one's productivity.

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What can he do?

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What can she contribute?

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That is the basis of self-esteem in our world.

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And so what do we do when someone can't contribute?

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When someone is not productive any longer.

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I'll tell you where it's leading.

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It's leading to euthanasia.

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It all comes back to this idea of where our self-esteem rests.

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If one is not productive he's not worthy of life.

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He wastes our precious resources if he can't produce.

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And so people produce.

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And out of that sense of what they do there is a sense of well-being.

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People feel good about themselves.

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They have self-esteem as long as they perform according to their own standards or what others

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around them want of them.

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There's a sense of well-being.

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And out of that sense of well-being if I feel good about myself then I must have worth.

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But if I don't have a sense of well-being then I don't have a sense of personal worth

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which is the top triangle in the world's view of self-esteem.

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And all of this is changeable.

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And so man in his idea of self-esteem is in a constant state of flux.

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He is on a roller coaster ride one day feeling worthy, the next day feeling in the pits,

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and he never has a stable idea of himself and his value.

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Do you see how contrasting these two views are?

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Personal worth as we've defined it from Genesis 1 provides a basis for biblical self-esteem.

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Now the third idea I want to talk about is that personal worth is a common target for

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spiritual attack.

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Satan resents man's place.

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He resents man's place in creation.

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And he seeks to spoil man's God-derived dignity by marring or even obliterating the uniqueness

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of the image of God in him.

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I'm talking about every person, not just the Christians, the lost as well.

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Even those people who are deceived into serving him.

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He hates them.

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And he does everything that he can to spoil their God-derived dignity, to mar the image

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of God in them.

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So what does he do?

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Well he attacks the physical body.

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He encourages addictions or behavior that destroys the body.

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That's satanic.

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He seeks to destroy the physical bodies of people because that's part of what it means

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to be human, and he hates humans.

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Do not wonder that there are people in our world today who carry on self-destructive

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behavior without thinking about it.

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They are under the control of the influence of Satan who hates human beings, and he wants

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to destroy their bodies.

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But he especially attacks the mind.

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He especially attacks the mind.

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In fact, he begins there.

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He devises thought patterns based upon lies that corrupt the soul.

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When we listen long enough to those thought patterns, they become beliefs.

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We didn't used to believe that, but we've had these thoughts so long that now having

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listened to them over this period of time, these thoughts have become our basic beliefs.

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And our false beliefs lead then to false behavior.

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Neil Anderson says, no person can consistently behave in a way that's inconsistent with

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the way he perceives himself.

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In other words, the way that we perceive ourselves determines how we behave.

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At the very heart, at the very root of all of the violence, the animal-like behavior

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in America today is the belief, I am an animal.

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I am an evolved animal.

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I am an accident in this world, and life really has no significance beyond this life.

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And that false belief produces the ungodly behavior that so alarms all of us.

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It goes back to one's philosophy of life.

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Robert McGee in his fine book, The Search for Excellence, talks about some of the false

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beliefs that we believers, as well as people in the world, can fall into.

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Here's one false idea that has become a belief in some people.

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I must meet certain standards in order to feel good about myself.

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I must meet certain standards in order to feel good about myself.

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Maybe those standards arise from within me.

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I have a perfectionist kind of a spirit.

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Or maybe there are others around me who are establishing standards.

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But I must meet these standards to feel good about myself.

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Now what's the result of that?

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What's the consequence of false belief?

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In this case, it's the fear of failure, it's being driven to succeed.

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It's manipulating others in order to achieve success at any cost.

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False beliefs lead to false behaviors.

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Another false belief.

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I must have the approval of certain others to feel good about myself.

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Maybe it's my husband, maybe it's my wife, maybe it's my parents, my girlfriend, my boyfriend,

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my fellow students, but I have to have their approval in order to feel good about myself.

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So what's the result of this?

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False belief.

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Well, it includes the fear of rejection.

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Do you know how many people are controlled by the fear of being rejected?

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That's the greatest fear teenagers have.

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Most teenagers.

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The fear of being rejected by their peers.

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Attempting to please others at any cost is another consequence of this false belief.

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Or being overly sensitive to criticism.

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Or withdrawing from others to avoid their disapproval.

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People's worlds just get smaller and smaller and smaller because they're so afraid that

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they won't be approved by others.

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Another belief that's false is those who fail, including myself, are unworthy of love

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and deserve to be punished.

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You know there are people who believe that?

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They have failed and because of their failure they deserve all the problems and all the

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punishment that comes to them in life.

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The consequences of this false belief including the fear of punishment, propensity to punish

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others, be overly harsh, to blame oneself and others for personal failure, withdrawing

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from God and from fellow believers and being driven to avoid punishment.

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All out of that false belief.

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A fourth false belief is this, and I'm just going to use this, this is the final one.

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I am what I am.

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It's the old Popeye statement.

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I am what I am.

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I cannot change.

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I am what I am.

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I am hopeless.

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Rising out of that false idea comes shame, hopelessness, inferiority, passivity, a loss

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of creativity and isolation by withdrawing from others.

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That's what I'm talking about when I say that Satan attacks our minds, devising thought

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patterns based upon lies that corrupt our souls.

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These thought patterns then become belief systems out of which come our behavior.

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What is the answer when we are attacked by these kinds of lies?

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When they have wormed their way into our beliefs?

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When they have contaminated our lives?

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What is the answer?

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The answer is the truth.

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The truth of God.

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Let me just quickly explain and illustrate this.

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For the idea that we have to meet certain standards in order to feel good about ourselves,

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what is the biblical truth?

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Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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What is the truth there?

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Justification.

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That I am completely forgiven by God and fully pleasing to God.

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I don't have to fear failure.

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God has declared me right with Himself.

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I am pleasing to God.

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I am justified.

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You and I need to put that into our minds and allow our minds to be transformed so that

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we don't believe the lie anymore.

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What about I must have the approval of certain others to feel good about myself?

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Here we have the biblical truth of reconciliation, which says that I am reconciled to God.

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I am fully accepted by God.

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I don't have to fear being rejected.

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God has already accepted me.

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I am restored to God.

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God embraces me in Jesus Christ, and I don't have to be afraid that I won't gain the approval

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of others.

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I've already got God's approval.

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What about those who think that if they fail, they're unworthy of love and deserve punishment?

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What biblical truth do we have here?

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It is that God loves us and sent His Son as the sacrifice for our sins.

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It's the idea of propitiation, you know, that key word in 1 John that means that God is

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satisfied, His justice is satisfied, my sins are no longer held against me.

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I don't have to fear punishment.

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I don't have to punish others.

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I am deeply loved by God.

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What about the one that says, well, I am what I am.

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I can't change.

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I'm hopeless.

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There's no use.

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The biblical truth is that in Jesus Christ we have been regenerated.

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We have a new life.

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If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.

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The old things have what?

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Passed away.

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The new things have become new.

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I am a brand new and complete person in Jesus Christ.

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I don't need to experience any longer the pain of shame.

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I'm not hopeless.

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I have life in Jesus Christ.

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Do you see the point?

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Personal worth is a common target for spiritual attack.

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Some of us are sitting here today and we have been attacked by Satan in our thinking.

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There are false ideas that we have accepted and we've accepted them long enough that they've

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become a part of our belief system even though we're Christians.

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We have believed lies about ourselves and about God.

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And the result of that is that we're unhappy.

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And we have fears that control us.

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We're not experiencing the joy that God wants us to have because we have believed lies.

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So our need is to isolate the lies, to focus on the lies that we have accepted and to bring

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the truth of the Word of God into our minds to destroy the lies.

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The truth is always stronger than the lie.

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All you have to do is apply it.

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You have to find the truth of the Word of God and bring it into your mind.

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Romans 12 2 says, be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of

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your mind.

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You know what our tendency is in evangelical churches, especially in the last 10, 15 years?

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We say I want practical teaching.

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Don't give me all the doctrine.

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I just want the practical stuff.

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Give me a seminar with the 10 steps as to how to be a better parent.

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Give me the seminar with the 15 steps how to have good feelings about myself.

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Give me the practical stuff.

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You know the problem with that?

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There's nothing wrong with being practical.

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The problem is we want to skip over the doctrine to get there.

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Inevitably the Apostle Paul always talked about doctrine to get people's thinking right

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before he applied that to their lives.

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We have this worldly tendency to want a quick fix.

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What God wants us to do is first get our thinking straightened out.

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To understand doctrine, to personalize, to internalize doctrine, what is true so that

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our thinking is transformed.

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Once our thinking is transformed, then our lives will begin to follow in step.

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Personal worth is a common target for spiritual attack.

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And yet there's somebody here saying how can I be sure that I'm a valuable person?

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How can I be sure that I, me, that I am a valuable person?

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That's fine what you've said for others, but what about me?

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Well let me give you some evidence that you are a valuable person.

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Number one, God created you.

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I don't care who you are.

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I don't care what you like or dislike about yourself.

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God made you the way you are.

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The fact is there's something that all of us dislike about ourselves.

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We need to learn to accept who we are as God's creation.

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Psalm 139 assures us that while we were still being formed within the wombs of our mothers,

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that God knew us and he put our chromosomes together.

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He's the one who fashioned us just the way that we are so that there's no one who's

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just like you.

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No one.

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God's universe would be different without you.

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You have been designed by the creative wisdom of God.

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You.

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You're valuable.

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Secondly, Christ died for you.

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God proved his love for us.

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He demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

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Are you valuable?

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Yes, you are.

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Christ died for you.

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I don't care who you are.

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This morning Christ died for you for your sins.

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God sent his son to the world for you.

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And if you were the only one in the whole world who needed salvation, the son of God

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would have come and died on the cross.

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That's how valuable you are to God.

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Now the next two things I'm going to say refer to only believers, only to those who've

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trusted the Savior.

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The third idea is that the Holy Spirit dwells in you.

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That's why you're valuable.

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The Spirit of God dwells in you, says Paul, 1 Corinthians 6.19 and many other places.

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The Holy Spirit comes to you and he joins you with Christ and he gives you a new identity

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in Christ.

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You're a new person in Christ.

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The Holy Spirit dwells in you.

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You're valuable.

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And fourth, you have a noble destiny.

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Are you valuable?

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Yes, you have a noble destiny as a child of God.

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You will reign with Jesus Christ.

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You are part of the royal, eternal family of God.

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You are valuable.

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So when you're tempted to believe a lie about yourself, reject it.

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Throw it off.

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Let the truth of God transform your thinking.

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When Satan comes to attack your sense of personal worth, understand who you are and that personal

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worth of yours cannot change.

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It's permanent.

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It's fixed.

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It's stable.

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It's forever.

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And nothing you do, nothing you say, no failure you have in your life can ever change your

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worth to God.

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I can almost hear somebody out there saying, boy, I would like to believe that.

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Then why don't you?

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It's a choice you can make.

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It's a choice you can make.

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You have a will.

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You can choose to believe the truth and reject the lie.

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Do that today.

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Let's pray.

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What is the lie that you have believed that eats away at your soul, that corrodes your

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relationship with God, that corrupts the joy that God wants you to know in life?

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In this spiritual warfare, this invisible war, Satan will do anything he can to rob

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you of your inheritance as a creature of God.

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He hates you because of the image of God in you.

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Isolate the lies.

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Find the truth of God's Word that will transform your thinking so that you will no longer believe

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the lie and live it out.

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I pray that God will help you to begin that process today.

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If you need someone to sit down with you, that's why we're here.

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We and the pastoral staff and other counselors can sit down with you and talk and discover

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with you what God has to say about your worth in His sight.

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Father, I pray that we may be the ones who live in the joy of true self-esteem in our

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world.

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The culture out there is so messed up in this whole idea, and yet it craves it.

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It craves it.

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Help us to understand the biblical truth about self-worth and to share that good news with

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others.

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But I pray also that we may live in it ourselves and understand who we are in Jesus Christ,

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who we are as your created beings, what our destiny is, and live in the joy and the sense

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of well-being that comes from that personal worth we have.

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Amen.