Galatians 3:1-14 · Galatians 4:1-7 · Galatians 5:4 · Galatians 5:16 — Galatians
Performance Determines Worth
This sermon challenges the lie that personal worth is determined by performance, examining how striving to prove value through achievement—especially spiritually—becomes a curse. True identity rests in Christ's redemptive work and the Spirit's transforming presence, not in measuring up to standards.
Introduction
There is a very common scenario that plays out semester after semester. A student will come to my office or catch me after a class and say something like this, “How can I do better in this class?” Or “I don’t do well on your tests. Is there something you can tell me to help me do better?” I can appreciate the desire to do well in a class. I had the same desire. Perhaps one of the saddest events occurred several years ago. I caught a student cheating on a test. The student wasn’t very good at hiding their attempt. I have a simple rule about cheating on tests. Don’t do it, but if I think you are cheating, even if you are not, the test is over for you and we can discuss it later. So I tell students to not look to the left or to the right but to look up and pray. I figure if they are struggling then only God can give them the answer.
After I caught the student cheating, the student said they had to do well on the test. If they didn’t, it would mean that they were not a good student. I felt compassion for the student and responded with these words of wisdom—“Good. It’s important for you to learn now that your value as a student and as a person isn’t determined by how well you do on a test.” The student’s response was as I would have anticipated. Failure was not an option. Having a 4.0 GPA was in jeopardy and they couldn’t stand the thought of not graduating with anything less than a 4.0. My response seemed less than compassionate. I assured the student that first of all other than going to work on a doctorate, no one would care about their GPA and secondly that this was a great opportunity to learn one of life’s great truths—perfection is a terrible taskmaster and that there is no way to win if you became servant to perfection.
The student did not appreciate my wisdom nor my responses. I really was trying to be helpful. But many times when emotions are high, wisdom has a hard time finding its way into our hearts. Have you ever felt like your view of self was directly tied to how well you did something? Fail a test and you are a failure. Have an auto accident and you are a terrible driver. Lose a job and you are worthless. Dissolve a relationship and you are unlovable. The lie is that your worth is determined by how well you do. How does believing such a lie affect your relationship with God? That’s what we will look at today.
Thinking Differently
Failing is a part of life. A child trying to learn to walk does not succeed the first time. Even once the child succeeds in taking steps, it takes practice to get good at it. Running is another function that doesn’t come easily. Children who start running usually fall down a few times before they learn how to balance. Driving a car doesn’t come without failure initially. Even good drivers have accidents. All of us know what it is like to fail at something before we could get better at it. But getting better doesn’t translate to perfection.
Remember last week the good, better, best categories. Let’s revisit that. When we talk about something being good, we understand that there are different categories of good. While the thing still belongs in the “good” set, what we want is something that is in the “best” subset. For instance, if you are looking for a mechanic, are you willing to take your car to someone who says they know a little something about engines or someone who has some training. Even good mechanics make mistakes. Do you want to entrust your life to a pilot who has little experience? We endorse best.
If you work hard at your job, do you identify yourself in terms of your job? If I were to ask you to use five words to describe yourself, would one of the words be connected to what you do with your life? Would my words be minister, teacher, counselor, elder, husband, father, grandfather? If you are retired would that be one of your words? We think of ourselves based on what we do and when we do, then we want to be as good as possible. This is good. Work matters. Relationships matter. We work hard at our jobs and well we should. But if our identity is found in what we do, then what happens when we stop (retire) or when we fail (lose our job) or we get criticized? Of course we feel the loss, but does it affect what we think about ourselves?
What determines if you are a good friend? Spouse? Parent? Employee? Are not in some way the good determined by our performance? Are we not trying to get to the “best” category all the time? And failure to do so is not acceptable. We must work harder, smarter, more efficiently, longer hours. We must push ourselves and decide what our priorities are and all the while we keep pushing trying to secure better outcomes; trying to be better and when we succeed it isn’t enough. We have to get better. We tell ourselves that we didn’t do our best or if we did do our best it wasn’t good enough. And the weight of all those expectations is debilitating.
What about spiritually? Doesn’t the Bible speak of maturing and growing in our faith? Sure. But here is the challenge—how do we grow in our faith without using that growth to prove who we are? To put it another way, what happens when we fail in our spiritual growth? Do we assume that we are no longer in the “good” category? Do we think that we are spiritual failures? Do we believe that God no longer loves us? And so we push and try harder to get better. Striving for the best. We pray, “Lord, help me to be better today than I was yesterday.” And we mean it. We hate our sin and we hate disappointing Father and we keep trying only to fail or not meet our self-imposed standards and we wonder if God is as disappointed in us as we are in ourselves. And we feel unworthy to eat the Supper and lost.
And we hear these words and think, surely he isn’t suggesting that I quit trying to get better. And my answer is Yes and No.
Yes and No
Look at our text. To live under the law is to try to get better. It is working hard to demonstrate that your value to God is based on how much good you do. And Paul writes that it is a curse. Don’t you feel the curse? In almost every other facet of life, you can’t stop working hard to get better and to prove your value or worth. Job, relationships all require working harder. But it is a curse when done in connection with God. One mistake and you are done. One mistake and you are lost. It’s a curse.
Every Sunday we are reminded that Jesus took our place and every Sunday we hear those words and return to our lives of trying to prove our worth. No wonder this area of life gets confusing. Yes, we need to stop trying so hard to prove our worth through our performance. Our identity with God is not based on how well we do. Jesus took the curse for us so that we might receive the Spirit who is the guarantee that we belong to God. To perform to prove our worth is to fall from grace.
But there is also the ‘no’ part. We keep trying not to prove our worth but because we know who we are and understand our purpose in this world. God says that we belong to him. Our response to that is to allow the Spirit to do his work in our lives. Walking by the Spirit means we put to death—that is, cooperating with the Spirit and actively living a certain way—the acts of the flesh and we allow the Spirit to form a new heart that reflects not performance but confidence in our relationship. This is our response to what God has done, not to prove our worth.
This means we really have to think differently. So let me suggest words that can be used to describe yourself that are not based on your performance and trying to get better—saved, forgiven, free, Spirit led, confident, assured. What words would you use to describe who you are in connection with God? Loving, joyful, at peace, kind, self-controlled. Fruit that the Spirit is forming in you.
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