If your boss were to call you
in for an evaluation, and you're going to sit down, let's just
kind of go over things. And let's talk about what's working, what's
not working, that kind of thing. And if he or she has like, let's
say, five things. He says, you're doing just an
amazing job at this. You are incredible at this. You're
so gifted in this area. You're doing an amazing job at
this. I want you to keep up the good work. And he's got five things. And there's
one thing, though. There's one thing I kind of want
you to work on. There's one thing I think you
could probably do better at. As soon as they bring up that
one thing, that you could be better at, suddenly his whole
list of five things, 10 things, might as well be a hundred things,
suddenly are muted out. Some of us have like that voice
of like criticism. Like maybe when you were a kid,
right? You were told you're not good
enough. You'll never be good enough.
Why can't you just be more like your sister? Why can't you be
more like your brother? Why can't you be better? And
then that has had so much power over you that any time that you
go to do something powerful in your life, you can't get that
voice out of your head. That fear of inadequacy, of I'm
not quite good enough, I'm not acceptable, That's a fear of
not being righteous. That I have a fear that I'm not
quite right. We begin to look to other things
in order to sort of fill us and to make us acceptable. We say,
hey, if I were to get this, if I were to get that, if I were
to do this, what have you, fill in the blank. We look to our
past. We look to achievements, money, jobs, relationships, just
all, anything really in this world we can look to and we say,
hey, this is what will make me acceptable. The scariest thing,
one of the scariest things I should say, about those things that
we hold on to, that we think make us acceptable, they don't
work and they don't matter. And it means that you and I,
in here tonight, could be living for things that one day you and
I could find ourselves on our deathbed thinking to ourselves,
I have lived for a bunch of things that don't even matter. It's very easy for us to, in
one moment, confess Christ. and believe that Jesus, He lived
for us, He died for us, He rose from the dead for us, but not
really understanding how that applies to my life on a daily
basis. And I can understand that he
objectively, right, did something for me. Like 2,000 years ago,
Jesus did come out of heaven and into time. He came from heaven
to earth, out of eternity, into time, and he died on the cross
for my sins. And I can believe that. And then
oftentimes, people just go right back Rather than living like
a child of the one true King, in all the freedom that that
brings, in the status that that brings, instead we continue to
live like orphans, slaves. Slaves to our past, holding on
to things that don't really matter. But if you and I can actually
get to this place where we understand that in the gospel, Not just
the day that maybe you believed and you received eternal life
or what have you, but if you like right here and right now
can understand that the fact that Jesus died for your sins,
that that means that you can hear the voice of God over your
life, over your heart, like right here and right now where God
can say over you, you are my son, you are my daughter, in
whom I am well pleased. I am well pleased with you. You
are acceptable. You are accepted. You are approved. You are good enough. Come into
my presence. I want to be with you. You can
rest. You can rest in my presence.
You don't have to measure up anymore. You don't have to try
to be good enough anymore. And the great news about the
gospel is, is that I'm not good enough. You and I aren't good
enough. The reason why we struggle with rightness is because we're
not right. But the gospel teaches us that
there is free righteousness. That in believing in Christ,
I am good enough, not because of what I've done or what I haven't
done, but because of what Jesus did for me.