Sermon on June 26, 2022
Andreas Latossek
God believes in you
This sermon is translated from German into English. You can find the original video here
We know from developmental psychology that it is incredibly important for children to see and hear that there is someone who believes in them, who trusts them and has confidence in them.
There is nothing worse than parents who convey to their children: You are nothing, you can’t do anything, you won’t become anything. But it is not only important for children, but also for teens, young people and adults.
„I believe in you“ from the mouth of the father, the mother, the teacher, the friends, the spouse, the group leader or the boss, that strengthens the self-confidence. It gives security, releases strength, motivates, and in a crisis it carries.
I think you’ve experienced that yourself.
Some time ago I stumbled across a video that I would like to show you right away.
Most people know such casting shows as Deutschland sucht den Superstar.
There is a jury and people doing something, in this case singing.
Sometimes it’s really embarrassing, and you often think when the person comes in that it won’t work. In this case, everyone is against it.
So watch this Video and try to take away as much as possible.
Because sometimes there are surprises.
Susan Boyle, you go back to your village with your head held high and 3 yesses
Susan Boyle, you can go back to your village with your head held high and three yeses.
This lady is now famous and has released several CDs.
At the end of her song she sings, loosely translated: I had a dream of what life would be like. He was so different than it looks now. Life destroyed the dream I dreamed.
I don’t know what your situation is.
Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes our dreams get shattered. We often lack people who show us that they believe in us and who motivate us and release the power within us.
I don’t know if you have such persons or not. Some don’t need it as much as others. But my impression is that many live their lives like in a casting show, always looking for a yes from others.
As Christians we always say: You have to believe in God.
I want to turn that around this morning : God believes in you.
God believes in you And my wish for you this morning is that you walk back home from this service with your head held high and three big yes’s in your life because you have understood that God believes in you.
And that this always gives you the necessary motivation and strength to tackle your life together with him, to shape it and to persevere in difficult situations, because there is someone who believes in you.
1 . The first yes of God over your life means:
God believes in you: you are his image.
In Psalm 139, 13-16 we read:
You created me body and spirit, put me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for that, it fills me with awe. In myself I recognize: All your deeds are miracles! I was not hidden from you as I took shape in the dark, deep down in the womb of the earth. When I was just born, you already saw me. All the days of my life you wrote in your book – even before any of them began!
God wanted you!
At the very beginning of the Bible it says that God created us human beings in his own image and looked at us and said: That’s… very good
You are very good.
God knows you, he knows what’s in you and he says, „that’s very good“.
He wanted you there. You are a reflection of God. Something of God is reflected in you, your kind, your nature.
Maybe there are days when you see something different. You get up in the morning, look in the mirror and think: I don’t know you, but I’ll wash you anyway. And you don’t like what you see there.
Maybe your classmates tell you every day that you’re shit and they laugh at you. Or you are being bullied at your place of work. Maybe even your parents made you understand that you are not really wanted and that you can’t do anything anyway and will never get anywhere.
Even if your parents were not insignificantly involved:
God designed you and created you. You are valuable and unique. You are not a coincidence and you are not a mistake. You are God’s image.
You are not a failure.
- You are wonderfully made.
- You are loved and accepted by God.
- It is not what we can and can afford that makes us important.
- God says yes to us unreservedly.
I was wondering how can I make that clear.
I immediately had to think of a woman.
I can’t understand how people crowd around this woman just to get a picture of her. She doesn’t look beautiful, she doesn’t look attractive.
Well, I admit it, I’m an absolute art philistine. According to the latest estimates, this painting is worth between $750 million and $1 billion. Whether someone pays that much , I don’t know.
Wikipedia , the most expensive paintings sold are these:
Salvator Mundi by Leonardo Da Vinci in 2017 for USD 450 million
And no . 17A by Jackson Pollock for $ 200 million
Jo, when I look at the picture, I think we could probably do something like that.
Only if someone wants to pay that much for it???
And that is precisely the question: How much is the buyer willing to pay?
How much are you worth?
You are an image of God. But how much is someone willing to pay for you?
I tell you, you are worth a god’s life.
You are worth a god’s life.
Because Jesus gives his life for you so that you can live.
When I imagine this:
There is this Almighty God seated on His throne right now, surrounded by thunder, lightning, fire and bright light, worshiped by 100 million angels.
And this God, who created all this here, sends his only son Jesus to this earth, and he dies on the cross and takes it all upon himself for you and me, to die for our guilt and to enable us to live with this to relate to the holy God whom we, with all our guilt, could never meet. And now we can talk to him and he wants to guide us.
If I imagine this, then this is not normal:
What crazy, incredibly great love of God is this?! You are worth a god’s life.
Wow.
God wanted you, you are his image. He created you, he knows what you’re made of, and that’s why he believes in you.
2. God’s second yes to your life means: God believes in you because he has gifted you.
God created you in his own image and endowed you with abilities and gifts.
Maybe you already know them well, maybe they are as hidden as they were with Susan Boyle and you ask yourself, what can I do anyway?
When Susan Boyle had her big performance, she was 47 years old.
She has said she tried to be a singer but it didn’t work out. Nobody saw her talent, nobody encouraged her, nobody believed in her. But God already knew what was in her.
Peter writes in his letter:
Each should serve the other with the talent that God has given them. When you use the many gifts of God in this way, you are using them properly.
In other words:
Everyone has been gifted talents and abilities by God. Everyone.
If you don’t know them yet, then you need to find them out.
Our problem with this is that we compare ourselves.
We see this woman and we think I wish I were like that too. What I can do is nothing compared to that.
I can sing, but not that well. Maybe I can do something completely different, but not as well and there are many who can do it better.
These thoughts prevent us from finding out and living out what we are capable of.
Funny how we never compare ourselves down.
Because there are definitely always people who can do something worse than us or not at all.
If you can sing you can compare yourself to Susan Boyle, you could compare yourself to me.
But we always strive for the big, because then we will be seen and hope for a big yes from the others. In doing so, we are in danger of overlooking and living out what we can. And we forget so easily that most people started small and nurtured and built on their gifts and that’s how they got better.
God has gifted you and a place for you that only you can fill.
To make this clear, Paul uses the image of a body.
Not everyone can be an eye, not everyone can be hands and feet.
Imagine if my foot said: I’m always stuck in this stinky sock. It smells bad in here and I don’t see anything of the world either. Only the bed under the covers when it’s dark.
I want to be an eye now too. And then the foot would be eye. And my body suddenly consisted only of eyes, because everyone wants to be eyes.
How bad would that be for me?
All are equally important.
Whether you stand in front or work in the background. Our community and life can only work if everyone works together. That’s why we should say thank you more often to those who aren’t so prominent.
Ultimately, it is not about the yes of the others, but about using one’s gifts for the glory of God.
He loves you no matter how much you can. And he already gave you his yes.
He believes in you because he gifted you.
God makes this clear by entrusting something to us.
We read at the beginning of creation that he entrusted this earth to Adam and Eve:
And God blessed the people and said to them: »Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the whole earth and take possession of it! I put you in charge of the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, and all the animals that live on the earth, and entrust them to your care .”
And the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it.
But not only the earth with the animals, but also us humans mutually, that we take care of each other, encourage each other, help us to be on the right path:
And let us take care of one another and encourage one another to love and do good deeds.
And finally, Jesus gives us a commission that he entrusts to us:
“All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go to all nations and make people my disciples; baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey all that I have commanded you. And be sure: I am with you every day, until the end of the world .«
Do you think God would just give us his earth, his loved ones and this commission?
As the boss, I would take a very close look at who I chose for an important job. Because I want to make sure it works.
When God gives us this assignment, it’s exactly the same
God knows what’s inside of us because he gifted us. At the same time, he also sees our limits. But he doesn’t leave us alone and wants to help us with his possibilities. I am with you, all power has been given to me.
That’s why it’s always about doing what we do in connection with God.
Anywhere we lose that relationship and think we can make it on our own, it goes wrong.
Unfortunately, that’s what we’re seeing. But it doesn’t change the fact that God entrusts us with something and believes in us because he has gifted us
In our free time together, we saw that this is always connected to a mission.
3. The third yes means: God believes in you because he himself lives in you.
Do you know what this is?
There is the new Berlin Airport. A joke for a long time, now finished, even if things are still not going smoothly and you read something from him from time to time.
In the meantime, a list of 66,000 defects was drawn up. There must have been more wrong than right.
Maybe you sometimes feel like this Berlin Airport yourself.
Like a building ruin. You despair of yourself. Things annoy you that you can’t get rid of, and you keep bumping into rough edges in your character and asking yourself:
will i ever finish And what does God actually think about this?
Perhaps, like the prodigal son , you are thinking, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you, I am no longer worthy to be your son.”
First of all, God cannot shock your condition.
He knows you through and through. Even though we are in his image, even though a fallen image, and he has gifted us, he knows what we are like.
That is why Jesus came to this earth, to die for and forgive our sins, everything that is not going well in our lives.
Christ died for us at a time when we were still powerless to sin; he died for people who had turned their backs on God.
It says in Romans 5: 6
fact that Jesus died for it does not immediately change your whole character when you accept this gift.
But it changes your stance. That’s what it was about last time.
- You now wear white clothes as a symbol of purity.
- You have put on Christ and when God looks at you, he no longer sees you but Jesus.
- You are his child and you will remain his child.
Your character is still the same, but God Himself lives in you now.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
The Holy Spirit lives in you, you are a temple, that is, a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. And that’s why God also believes in you, because he himself lives in you and begins to change us from within.
I’m starting to think like Jesus.
- I’m beginning to see sin the way Jesus did.
- I’m starting to hate what he hates.
- And to love what he loves.
- And then my behavior changes.
In some areas it takes years, it doesn’t happen overnight. But it means that instead of trying hard, I need to let the Holy Spirit work and help in the process by listening to His voice and doing what He says.
In our everyday life we hear his quiet voice, which will tell us again and again what is good and what is not.
Our responsibility is to listen and do what he says. Sometimes that won’t be a problem, but sometimes it will be quite a challenge.
for all those who sometimes, maybe even this morning , feel like a ruined building:
Philippians 1:6: That’s why I’m also quite sure that God will finish the work he started with you until the day when Jesus Christ comes.
That’s a promise. God believes in you, you’ll get it done.
Why? Because he himself lives in you. Because he himself makes sure that you finish.
That’s why he even calls the Holy Spirit a pledge. A pledge that lives within us.
The Holy Spirit is in a sense a pledge, a down payment that God makes to us, the first part of our heavenly inheritance; God thereby guarantees the complete redemption of those who are his property.
And one day you take back a deposit, with the cover, with us. Just like deposit bottles. We will arrive because the Holy Spirit will take care of it.
God believes in you because he himself lives in us
3 big yeses of God in our lives:
- god believes in you
- You are his image
- He gifted you.
- He himself lives in you.
Our challenge is to keep listening to God’s Yes and not what the other people around us are saying.
And as one judge at Susan Boyle said: This is the biggest wake-up call not to be quick to judge and judge others.
Because these three YES also apply to them (you).
The other is also made in the image of God, the other is also gifted by God and his Holy Spirit also lives in the other if he belongs to God.
This should encourage us to lift each other up and help discover those three YES’s in our own lives, rather than beating one another down or talking negatively about one another.
god believes in you
Amen
Bible verses courtesy of: ERF Bibelserver