Why do we make the mistake of thinking that the sports teams we like, and the places we come from, and how pretty or handsome we are, or how athletic or smart we are make us better than the people around us? And how do all those things take the place of belonging to Jesus? How important are all those things and what is the difference between obsessions and addictions and likes, interests, and hobbies?
Parents, this is the sixth in a series designed to help kids deal with identity and gender confusion by showing them that no matter what they like or what they look like or what they are good at, they are still boys and girls. When we try to push kids into filling stereotypical roles, we’re often the ones creating the confusion that they are forced to find a way to live with. I do this without making any mention of sexuality whatsoever.
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
I am going to start out this week by talking about something Paul said after learning about Jesus, “If anyone else thinks he has grounds for being a big shot, I have more: I was circumcised the eighth day; I was born into the nation of Israel (God’s chosen people), of the tribe of Benjamin (King Saul, Esther and Mordecai were my peeps), a Hebrew born of Hebrews (no gentiles in my family tree!); as far as keeping the commandments goes, a Pharisee (which means I know stuff and have always been more serious about religion than most folks); in fact, I cared about our religion so much that I persecuted and jailed all of my fellow Jews who believed Jesus; I kept the commandments perfectly. But everything that made me a big shot in the world, it’s just nothing compared to Jesus, the Messiah. More than that even, absolutely everything that I ever took pride in was just stuff that means almost nothing compared to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have lost everything, so I had to think of all that as dung, so that I can have more and more of Jesus and belong completely to Him!” (Phil 3:4-9)
And we could look at others in the Bible and say the same sort of thing as well. Sometimes, following God means saying goodbye to everything we are, everything we have, everything that was once important to us. A lot of people in the Bible even lost their families because their families weren’t interested in following God and kicked them out, which is sad. I have personally given up so much of who I was before I met Jesus, but I am glad because that stuff was really holding me back from knowing and loving Him and being able to do what He wants me to do. What about other Bible people? Abraham left his home, and his family too (they were idol worshipers Josh 24:2) so that he could follow God into the Promised Land. Moses grew up a big shot in Pharaoh’s palace but after he killed a slave master to save a slave from being beaten, he had to run away and found God in the wilderness, and God told Moses to leave his life again and to go back to Egypt to deliver the children of Israel. Think of all the Egyptians who left Egypt during the Exodus to follow God into the wilderness—people who had no guarantees of surviving the journey and had to just trust God. John the Baptist was a priest and had the right to eat tithed foods and to wear linen and serve in the Temple but instead He served God out in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey and wearing camel hair clothes. The early Christians often lost their families and the ability to buy and sell because they had to turn their backs on the Roman Empire’s Imperial Cult religion.
Of course, the best example of losing everything is Jesus. John said that Jesus was with God in the beginning, and that when He came to earth as a baby, he lost everything that He had known for eternity, living a perfect and wonderful life. When He came to save us, He became a human and had to deal with all the stuff we have to deal with. Almost everyone abandoned Him at the end of His life and the soldiers even took everything He had. Obeying God cost Jesus absolutely everything. Of course, we all know the end of the story. Jesus got everything He ever had back, and even more because now He is the King of kings and Lord of lords and God put Jesus over everything and everyone. And all of us who have given things up will get far more. Jesus talked about that once, “Peter began to tell him, “Look, we have left everything (our jobs and our families) and followed you.” “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said, “there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, who will not get a hundred times more, now at this time —houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions (because when we follow Jesus our family is everyone who loves Him) —and eternal life in the age to come. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mark 10:28-31)
Now, most of us will never have to suffer like that but Christians in some places do. We must always pray for our brothers and sisters, fellow believers, in places like Asia and Africa where in some of the countries it is still very dangerous to follow Jesus. Jesus has really changed so much of the world but there are still places that need to know His love, and until they do, people still have to give up everything for Him. And so, you might ask, “Well, what does that mean for us? What do I have to give up?” The Bible tells us that we can’t just live any way we want anymore, not once we know Jesus. The Holy Spirit helps us to begin to make changes and helps us to begin to really love other people.
The prophets, hundreds of years before Jesus, were yelling at the people who were hurting those who were weaker than themselves. They might hurt them physically, by beating them, or might hurt them financially, by not paying them the money they have earned for working, or might not set their debt-slaves free after six years like they were commanded, or maybe they trick people, or leave their wives for no good reason at all. These things are all called oppression, and oppression is when someone powerful is hurting someone who is weaker. And so, the first thing a lot of people do when they know Jesus is stop hurting other people—there will be no bullies in the Kingdom of Heaven. And so, strong people aren’t allowed to use their strength that way anymore. Rich people aren’t allowed to use their money to hurt others. Powerful people aren’t allowed to use their power to harm people who can’t defend themselves. Smart people aren’t allowed to trick people who aren’t as smart. Instead, strength, money, brains, and power are to be used to help those who need it. If being a big shot means that you have to hurt someone to prove it, then being a big shot is not something Jesus wants for you. We can’t do those things without giving up a lot of Jesus.
But maybe you don’t have power, money, strength, or genius level intelligence. There are still other ways that we can try to be big shots. And wanting to be a big shot is a terrible thing because it will always get us into trouble—and the people around us. There is only one big shot in our lives and that has to be Jesus. That doesn’t mean that you can’t admire and respect other people, as long as they deserve it, but wanting to be all that and a bag of chips leads to us making the wrong decisions in life and valuing the wrong things. And that’s what this week is mostly about—what is important to us and how do we try and make ourselves part of things that don’t really matter so that people will be impressed with us? And how do those things swallow up our lives and our identities (which is who we are) and take away from whom Jesus wants us to be? Our identities are important and when we don’t know who we are or what we are and when we don’t value who we are, sometimes we will want to make ourselves into something or someone else that isn’t who we are. That’s why it is so important to know that who we are is enough.
We are what we do, not what we think of ourselves. And so, it’s good to always be talking with the people we love about what is most important to us and how it makes us who we are. Some things are good and others are very bad. But everything changes us one way or the other. One of my favorite books in the world is called We Become What We Worship by GK Beale (affiliate link). And he goes through the Bible showing how whatever it is we want to be like, that’s who we become.
Now, what does that have to do with your identity? How are worship and obsessions (things you can’t stand to get away from) and addictions different than likes, interests and hobbies? What is there in your life that wants you to represent its image instead of the image of God? What things make it impossible for you to show God’s image to the world? Who wants you to look more like them than like Jesus? What wants you to love it more than you love Jesus? Oh my gosh, so many things! I can tell you so many things I have had to give up because there was no way for Jesus to get in a word edgewise. All I wanted to do was to think about those things, and participate in those things, and that’s where all my time and money went. Do you have something like that? Hey, we all do or have had things like that in our lives and so I don’t want you feeling horrible about yourself or like you are alone. God knows that’s how we are and He loves us enough to fix it. The things we are obsessed with and the things we think we need to become like don’t usually make us happy, they just make us greedy for more of it.
Being the age I am, getting wrinkled and a bit plump and all that, I see a lot of women my age who are so focused on looking good that they are never really happy with themselves. But needing to look good starts younger and younger and kids and adults can be really cruel to us if they think we are not pretty enough or handsome enough. They want us to think that who we are on the inside isn’t as important as what we look like on the outside and so people spend all of their money on buying products to make them look like movie stars when even movie stars don’t look like that in real life. They have a whole team of experts dressing them and putting makeup on them and doing their hair so that we have no idea what they really look like. And when they are in magazines, there are always folks airbrushing their faces to make them look better. But people think that they need to change themselves so much to be acceptable to people. God didn’t mean for us to spend all our time at the gym or in front of a mirror. We should take care of our bodies, but valuing beauty and big muscles and being so thin that you can’t eat anything never made anyone look like Jesus. I hope with all my heart that you know how wonderful you are, just the way you are, and that you will make your decisions about what you want to look like based on healthy choices and not what the world thinks. Even those movie stars are told that they don’t look good enough. So, valuing beauty and trying so hard to be whatever the world thinks is beautiful this year will often make you miserable. And everyone gets older and few of us do it while still looking amazing—beauty and muscles aren’t forever.
Sometimes the things that we value, the things that we think make us big shots, are the sports teams that we follow and, when we are adults, our political parties. I was born in Pittsburgh, PA which means that my hometown boasts three amazing sports teams. The Steelers, the Penguins, and the Pirates. It’s easy to be a fan of those teams—not every year but usually—and I used to be really obsessed with the Steelers back in my twenties. Oh my gosh if they didn’t win, then I was just a mess. I felt good about myself and bragged it they won and if they didn’t win, then I was angry and embarrassed. Isn’t that silly? Why on earth was I so interested in what people who have nothing to do with my life were doing. Did Pittsburgh having a good team mean that I was a better person or a big shot? Does it mean that Pittsburgh is a better place to live than anywhere else or that people from Pittsburgh are better than people from other places or better athletes? No. How the sports teams did said nothing about me at all. I am not a better person because of the sports teams that I watch. How well they do is all about them and how hard they work together and that’s it. When they win the Superbowl, I don’t get a ring because I didn’t earn one. It took me a long time to understand that feeling better about myself because I sat on the couch watching a certain football game was just ridiculous. That’s their accomplishment and not mine and so I have no reason to brag. I can enjoy the game, fine, but whoever wins has nothing to do with me.
Being super proud of our ancestry can also be a problem. There are groups all over my country where only certain people can join—like Daughters of the American Revolution—which I could join because I had at least one ancestor who fought against the British in the Revolutionary war. But does my ancestor make me special? Or more special than anyone else who lives here? Does it make me a big shot or more American than someone else who came here more recently and got their citizenship? No way. That’s what my ancestor did, not what I did. I didn’t do squat to help win that war just like I never helped the Steelers to win a football game! But there are a lot of people who are very, very concerned about being related to important people and some think it gives them bragging rights. I once had a neighbor who hated people who came from a certain country and who were now living here in America. I was just a kid, but he told me that he was more American than they were because his ancestors came over on the Mayflower and they just got here a generation ago. I was really shocked even though I was just a kid. How can he be more American than someone else who was born American just because his relatives had been here for a lot longer? They were both born here, no matter where their parents came from. I thought it was silly but he was very proud about it and thought it made him better than anyone else. My ancestors don’t tell you anything about me and I don’t get extra credit because of whatever it was they did.
Other people are very proud of their genetics, but that is silly too. Genetics is the study of a person’s DNA, which tells us where their ancestors are from. I am 38% Irish but what does that tell you about me—other than the fact that I probably sunburn easier than you do? Absolutely nothing. I have never been to Ireland. I can’t speak the language. I don’t get to ride on top of a float at the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. There is no end of the rainbow with a pot of gold in my backyard, unfortunately. My genetics only tell me where my ancestors lived. That’s it. I am not a big shot for being Irish even though some people think it’s cool. I have no idea why. It isn’t better than being from anywhere else. But there are more rocks than most places. Sometimes, people can be really scary about being proud of their genetic background. Hitler wanted to make what he called a “Master Race” based on German genetics. He wanted people to be as pure Germans as possible, and not just German, but not Jewish or Black or Disabled or Gypsies. Anyone that didn’t meet his qualifications for being German enough, he got rid of because he really did think that Germans were better than everyone else. Being proud of our DNA and thinking it makes us better than other people just doesn’t make any sense—not like we were all sitting on a cloud before we were born and that God looked at all of us and said, “Wow, that one has really earned the right to be born into a rich, powerful, awesome family with just the right genetics and let’s make them athletic and beautiful too because I can see that they are better than all the other babies.” Nope, never happened. But people act like it’s true. It’s weird.
And there are so many other things that people think make them big shots or better than everyone else but Jesus taught us a better way, He taught us the truth. Paul understood that truth because he could look at everything he thought made him special and realized that compared to belonging to Jesus, it was all poo-poo (that’s what dung means). When we belong to Jesus, we are all equals—he said there is no male or female, no slave or free, no Jew or Gentile. All the things that make people more important out in the outside world are unimportant in the Kingdom of Heaven. In the Kingdom, we are all brothers and sisters, equally loved by God and we all have the exact same job of becoming more and more like Jesus because when we are more like Jesus, the world becomes a whole lot more like the Kingdom of Heaven. And what’s more, we become happier people because we know that being beautiful, strong, rich, smart, famous, from the “right” family or country, or following the winning team or being good at sports or whatever it is that the rest of the world thinks is important—well, we know that those things aren’t about us at all. They are distractions from God’s love and from becoming like Jesus. He is the best.
We are the people who are so precious to God that Jesus died just to defeat sin and death so we could be free of everything that the world tells us we ought to be. Before we knew Jesus, our identity (who we really are) was whatever the world told us it is. We had to try to be all those things that are important to the world. But Jesus teaches us that there is nothing more important than belonging to Him and being children of God. I mean, just think about it—the world tells you that you are good if you wear the right makeup, work out enough, smell right, have a stylish haircut, wear the latest fashions, belong to the right political party, follow the right sports teams, blah, blah, blah and Jesus just says, “Follow me.” Jesus teaches us what is really important and when we really understand what following Jesus means, the other things that the world is telling us are so important just don’t seem like they really matter.
Makeup and fashion never made anyone a good person or more like Jesus. Being a star athlete never made anyone unselfish or peaceful. Being famous never made anyone more gentle or humble. Being rich doesn’t make people more generous or honest. Being smart never made anyone more forgiving. But belonging to Jesus does make those things happen, little by little as we listen to the Holy Spirit and become Jesus people. And I know it is hard to want that more than you want to be a part of the in crowd. I understand. All your life there will be people pushing you to become what they want you to be and very few will ask you what you want or teach you to listen to God so that He can teach you exactly why He made you to be you. Life without God can be very lonely and empty, and when we are fighting against Him by going our own way and trying to be what the world expects us to be, it can be very disappointing, frustrating, and confusing.
No matter what you do in your life, not everyone will love you or approve of you or agree with you. That’s normal, that’s okay. No one is loved by everyone, except maybe Mister Rogers, I think everyone loved him. But Mister Rogers was a lot like Jesus and he made everyone feel important and loved, just as they are. If you need anything more than belonging to God to make you somebody, then you are in trouble because it will never be enough. And I want you to know that you are enough. You are a wonderful creation of God and I am glad you were born. Maybe everything you do isn’t wonderful but then not everything I do is wonderful either. But what we do can change as we become more and more like Jesus and show His love to the world.
I want to tell you one more thing from Paul, when he was in trouble for not playing by the rules of the world and was choosing to follow Jesus instead, to members of the Church of Corinth who still wanted to be everything the world wanted them to be and so the world was nice to them—“The whole point is that none of you will be arrogant, thinking that anyone is better than anyone else. Who makes you so superior? What do you have that you didn’t get from someone else? If, in fact, you did get it, why do you brag like you earned it? You already have everything! You are acting like kings without us—and I wish you were, so that we could also reign with you! I think God has displayed us, the apostles, in last place, like men condemned to die: We have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to people. We look like fools for Christ, but you look wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are respected, but we are dishonored! Up to now we are hungry and thirsty; we are poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless; we work with our own hands. When we are insulted, we bless; when we are persecuted, we put up with it; when we are lied about, we are kind. We are treated like the scum of the earth, like everyone’s garbage.” (I Cor 4:6-13)
It sure sounds like no one is treating Paul like a big shot!
I love you. I am praying for you. And I want you to spend this week thinking about how much more wonderful you are than the things you surround yourself with.